Impact of Keeping Many Friends Outside Your Relationship

Last Updated on September 26, 2024 by Joshua Isibor

Making and keeping friends is not a big deal until you are in a relationship. You begin to think through various ways to manage the many friends you have gathered outside your relationship. Sometimes, you try shutting them out, only for life to snap you to the reality that the world doesn’t revolve around you and your lover.

There are billions of people on Earth, and thousands circle your life. You get to meet these guys now and then, in lectures, church, and associations. That’s a large variety of people to relate to. Let’s do a little rewind to when you were not in a relationship. It is much easier to manage new friendships in your relationship than dealing with past friendships.

If you are a social person, you are prone to attract a lot of friends, which is very beautiful. Extremely social people find it easy to glue people to themselves even unconsciously, they are naturally friend magnets. Such individuals can make friends in one day, at one single meeting or conference,  In every single location they’ve lived, they have grooves there. Even though you are not social, there is a group of people you tend to walk closely with most of the time; you hang out together and share the same lifestyle and everything. Whether you consider them friends, these people have become co-shareholders in your life.

The situation appears interesting until you enter an intimate relationship or fall in love. Now one person is placed above many. Your partner appears to be much more important than all of them. You are expected to spend more time together, get to know each other, and build intimacy. Still, you don’t want to lose your good friends.

Here, the problem of striking an even balance comes up. This is a highly consequential situation, there could be positives and negatives. The negative part appears more glaring, so let’s first look at the negative consequence or impact.

ALSO, READ about the influence of social media on relationships

Negative impact

1. It will slow the growth of your relationship

Every relationship needs time and space to grow, and solidify. When you enter a relationship, you need time, space, and the right atmosphere to germinate and bear good seeds.

If you pack a lot of sand into a plastic bottle to the brim and try adding stone to the same bottle, that stone can’t enter without you pouring out some sand. That’s how it is in a relationship. If you decide to share this time with others, your partner will need a very high percentage of your time. It will affect your relationship to a very large extent. You will need to spend more time than necessary building intimacy.

2. It can make your partner feel insecure

Naturally, we tend to want to hold onto something or someone we cherish dearly. You want all or most of the person’s attention and be the chief candidate in the person’s life. Therefore, there’s this overwhelming feeling of insecurity once so many other candidates are in the person’s life, almost measuring up to your position. No matter what your partner does, you don’t feel the strength of commitment anymore.

Every one of your partner’s friends or allies begins to appear as a threat or competitor to you. Although insecurity could be an underlying self-esteem problem, some actions can re-fire it. A person with this self-esteem problem should be handled with delicate care in a relationship.

3. Breach of privacy

Having a large number of people around you can choke up your private space if you don’t manage it well. Some friends can be so poky that they want to know everything that is happening in your relationship, offer counsel, and even take supportive actions. Some even go as far as involving themselves directly in your relationship issues.

Most especially, mutual friends can be quite poky and noisy. As nice as this might appear, it can extinguish your relationship’s privacy, and before you can say jack, your relationship is a public affair.

Positive impact

Now that we’ve pointed out the negatives, we can carefully look out for the positives. Yeah, friendship could have some deep positive impacts on your relationship. Some psychologists even advise building friendships to solve some relationship problems. But why would they give such advice?

1. They prevent you from being over-possessive and over-dependent on your partner

people with self-esteem issues or social problems tend to rope themselves around their partner. It can be very choking to be someone’s all in all. you won’t know until someone tries it on you.

The exasperation and tiredness of continually giving maximum attention and support to one person are intense. But often, there seems to be no way out of doubling or tripling your commitment.

This is why making many friends is advised in these cases. In this situation, you will want to consider loosening the rope on your partner’s neck and attaching yourself to a few other people. It will be a very good distraction from focusing your life’s focus, hope, and expectation on one person. Our lives are not just made up of us but the people we allow into them. A few more people will help you become emotionally independent and stable.

2. Keeps you self conscious

Relationships can be overwhelming. You can be so immersed in feelings for one person that you tend to lose consciousness of yourself, your life, and your dreams. This is especially true when there is a strong tangle, and you have blended into one another. It can be quite intense. The presence of friends will help keep you in check and add a little cold to the flames when necessary.

3. Motivates your partner to be committed

Nobody likes competition, but the sense of being a competitor can be very challenging and motivating. This is not the best way to enhance commitment, but it is one sure way. When people feel competitors are likely, it motivates them to double their efforts. I’m not saying making your partner feel jealous will enhance your commitment.

No, that’s a poison and a dangerous spice to add to your relationship. We are saying that your partner can be motivated by the friends around you to be up and doing.

Friendship is one of the most beautiful gifts life can ever give you. Hence, you must accept it carefully with both hands carefully outstretched. However, intimate relationships without someone you love are incredibly powerful and beautiful. Handling both isn’t easy, especially when you have a handful of the former.

You just need to draw the line in your friendships so they don’t encroach on your relationship. This is one big problem many people have in their relationships: They fail to identify where they are to draw the line, and the relationship ends up failing.

Having many friends outside your relationship is not bad unless you fail to manage them. You need to practice the self-management skill of defining the position of every individual in your life with defined boundaries or borders. If you know you can’t manage the system, avoid keeping many friends.

ALSO, READ HOW TO EXPRESS NEEDS IN A RELATIONSHIP

Originally posted 2020-10-15 06:44:16.