Friendship can play an integral part in the attainment of happiness. And this kind of support has also been shown to have positive effects on physical and mental health. Some friends support you through difficult times during transitions in life while others are there for the simple fact that they are enjoyable. Some friends may even resemble a life partner who has grown with you since childhood.
However, we have all been victims and perpetrators of the disappearing act when a new love appears in our life. You are suddenly swept away and all you can think about is spending time with your new love on cloud nine. Before you know it, it's been weeks since you've spoken to your best friend or had contact with the outside world. You suddenly realize you have missed calls and concerned texts from friends wondering where the heck you have been. You feel you should call your friends back but you will be facing the jury of peers who will convict you for breaking the first law of friendship which states that friends should always come before someone you are dating.
We have all been through this at one point of our lives or had a friend who broke this law. So how do balance our friendships with the magnetic pull towards our new love? Balance is key. When we move to extreme ends of the spectrum, dysfunction occurs.
Set time aside for your friends so you are not slowly isolating yourself and dependent solely on the support of your new love. Asking one person to fulfill all of your support needs could lead to increased pressure in your new relationship to fill the role of a lover and friend. With people working an average of 60 hours a week, these roles may be too challenging to undertake. Being both a lover and friend can equate to essentially two full-time jobs and often leads to support exhaustion. Relationship satisfaction often decreases and couples may experience a high level of demand from one partner while the other withdraws.
Friendships can also be a source of conflict in relationships when your partner seem to be spending an incessant amount of time with their friends and you feel like you are dating their circle of friends more than your partner. Your partner starts to take on all the annoying qualities of their friends and a subtle resentment for their friendship brews. How much influence do friends have and how do you mediate the fine line of friendships and love? It is difficult to navigate this line when your partner's friends may not appear to have a positive impact on your partner. The phrase "you are the company you keep" may have some truth. Those who you feel closely attached to may actually influence your perceptions and expectations about relationships and what constitutes a successful relationship. Researches on attachment have shown that attachment styles (secure, avoidant, dismissive, preoccupied) influence how you orient to others within a relationship and are strongly determined by the influence of close figures. In fact, marital status and relationship quality are correlated to the level of relationship satisfaction experienced by other close people in your life.
As a child, we learn what love look likes from people we are close with (often our parents) and enact what we were shown to others. For example, if our parents show love through hugs and kisses, we are likely to carry this forth when showing others in our lives that we love them. However, as we mature into adulthood, an increased need for independence moves us towards forming close ties with peers. That's why we need to understand the kind of attachment needs our partner's friends fulfill such as comfort, safety or acceptance. We adopt strategies and perspectives from those close to us and it is sometimes helpful to look at the source of where the information is coming from when we elicit advice from our friends. Our friends influence our lives, perceptions and behavior. We need to help our friends understand the relationships present in our lives in hopes that they are not lead astray by inaccurate information while attempting to support us.
The pursuit of happiness may not always lead us down a straight path. However, those who have chosen to walk the path with us are reflections of love whether it is embodied in friendship or a relationship.
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Amy Yew is a researcher and therapist. Tell us what you think and submit any questions you have to [email protected]. You can also tweet your thoughts on Twitter @AmyYew.
