How do married people treat singles?

  • Thread starter Thread starter LotusCarsLtd
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
L

LotusCarsLtd

Guest
I, and other singles here, have all experienced situations where our married friends either ignore us or treat us with contempt for being single (probably subconsciously, but sometimes consciously). Not all of them do this, of course, but some of them do.

I’m really curious why this happens and wanted to ask married couples the following questions:
  1. Have you ever noticed this trend yourself, or unfortunately done it to single friends of yours by mistake?
  2. If you were single but now engaged or married, did you notice a change in how people treated you once your status changed?
 
My best friend is a single person.
We get together every second week even though she now lives across the city.
I catch two buses to get to her place. She works mostly from home.
She sometimes comes here for coffee or lunch, and if my husband happens to be here, they’ll have a pleasant chat.
A person is a person, a friend is a friend, married or not.
 
LotusCarsLtd said:
I, and other singles here, have all experienced situations where our married friends either ignore us or treat us with contempt for being single (probably subconsciously, but sometimes consciously). Not all of them do this, of course, but some of them do.

I’m really curious why this happens and wanted to ask married couples the following questions:
  1. Have you ever noticed this trend yourself, or unfortunately done it to single friends of yours by mistake?
  2. If you were single but now engaged or married, did you notice a change in how people treated you once your status changed?
Click to expand...
No I have to say I haven’t noticed this at all!
 
Lotus,

I have been married for 12 years and most of my frends are not married. I have more fun with them actually because they like to do things and have less commitments so they are more apt to golf, fish, boat etc… I have never found myself treating a married couple differently than an unmarried man or woman. It may be the temperment of you married friends, but I cant speak to that.
 
I’m closing in on my fifth anniversary. Most of the people I hang out with are single. I see them no differently from the married people with whom I occasionally spend time.
 
I’m single and no, contempt is definitely not a word I would use to describe how married people treat me.

Most people in general seem to respect that I haven’t found the right person yet.
 
My close friends are all married or in relationships but they don’t treat me badly. I have never had them ignore me or treat me with contempt for being single.
 
I think I know what the OP is getting at. I notice at my parish young people are more included in activities or ministries after marriage. Personally, I noticed I was treated with more respect after marriage. Yet, the single members of the parish are not treated poorly or anything. My best friend is single, and our relationship has not changed since I married.
 
It may perhaps be that some single people do feel quite sensitive about being alone, in relation to couples.
It is possible that some may see exclusion where there is none.
However there is also possibility that it is a justifiable perception where a man or woman might feel insecure in their marriage and fear singles as a possible distraction for their spouse.
 
I prayed sooooooo hard to find someone to share my life with; hoping they would have a large family; hoping for love; hoping for a vocation. God gave it to me in marriage & now I can say, “OMG, I had NO idea what I was asking for!!!”. Marriage is full of Blessing, but little on the romantic fantasy I had.

So my first year I had to bend to my husbands family. They are high maintainance. So, I’ve ignored friends (single & married) to bend to my husbands family. Then we had one baby; so I abandoned more friends to attend to baby & family. Then we had another baby, and WOW … Wow the time is like, the days are long and the years are short. I feel like I’m zooming through life and will never have another adult conversation again.

I know I will have adult conversations again, and appologise to my single friends … But wonder why they don’t stoop to my Sesame Street & poopy diapers more instead of expect me to meet them where they are more.
 
LotusCarsLtd said:
  1. Have you ever noticed this trend yourself, or unfortunately done it to single friends of yours by mistake?
Click to expand...
My wife and I have never done it, but we’ve seen others immediately start treating their “poor, unfortunate” single friends differently as soon as they were married. Whereas before they couldn’t care less about who or whether they were dating, they either started playing matchmaker or would continuously bring up the fact that the singles needed to work on not being single.

Although we didn’t engage in any of that, we did notice that we started seeing a lot less of our single friends after we got married simply because our interests and priorities changed. Most of them still had part time jobs while my wife and I were working full time or more. We also had a son to take care of, school activities, homework, teachers conferences, etc. so staying out all night and sleeping until noon were no longer realistic or even desirable options.
  1. If you were single but now engaged or married, did you notice a change in how people treated you once your status changed?
Click to expand...
We had quite a few friends who treated us differently. One friend adopted the notion that being married somehow meant we had a lot of money so she was always eager for us to take her (and sometimes her boyfriend) out and pick up the entire tab. A good number of them developed some intense animosity toward us because we wouldn’t drink as much or as often, and we were always leaving parties early or not showing up because we couldn’t or wouldn’t bring our son. Were weren’t being snobs as they claimed, just responsible parents.

One friend who really took issue with it was upset because I used to go bar-hopping with him on a regular basis. He’d go out spending boat loads of cash trying to pick up women, and he liked having me along for moral support and to laugh at his jokes so he’d seem wittier than he actually was. As a married man I preferred staying home where I didn’t have to drive and could buy a case of beer for $8-9 as opposed to having to drive and spending that much on a single mixed drink. He didn’t say anything for over a year and instead held it in and brooded over the fact that I was keeping him from hitting the bars and dropping entire paychecks to strike out with girls who never would have dated him even when he was their age. It all finally came to the surface one night and he started shouting at me in my front yard at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. We didn’t talk for quite a while after that.
 
Some married people definitely started to treat me differently after I got married. I was very annoyed at that since I was the same person after all and I didn’t think that my worth increased because of my husband. My friends probably didn’t mean it like that but it is how I felt, like to them I was finally all grown up and they approved of it. I was 32 when I got married. I think that sometimes married people snub singles in a ‘what would you know about this’ way, even when they don’t say that explicitly. I’ve noticed that some single friends refrain from giving me their opinion when I talk about some issue with the kids. Maybe they feel their opinion is not welcome because they don’t have children. Because I got a lot of nagging about getting married and settling down I never give people a hard time about being single, not having children, whatever.
 
I imagine this question can be flipped. How do singles treat married people. I had a few single friends that just couldn’t cope with my responsiblities as a married mother.

And constantly made negative, mean spirited remarks.
 
Trishie said:
It may perhaps be that some single people do feel quite sensitive about being alone, in relation to couples.
It is possible that some may see exclusion where there is none.
However there is also possibility that it is a justifiable perception where a man or woman might feel insecure in their marriage and fear singles as a possible distraction for their spouse.
Click to expand...
I agree with this.

I have had a couple of single friends who withdrew from social groups when people started getting married because they were depressed being around happy couples. They only wanted to spend time with me and other friends when our partners weren’t there. I understand and respect their choices, but unfortunately it can become quite limiting. And I have seen single people become resentful because of this natural limitation.

But I can’t say I ever experienced different treatment from others as a single and then as a married man.
 
LotusCarsLtd said:
I, and other singles here, have all experienced situations where our married friends either ignore us or treat us with contempt for being single (probably subconsciously, but sometimes consciously). Not all of them do this, of course, but some of them do.
Click to expand...
Contempt,no.

Treated differently? Probably.

What is happening here is that people are at different stages of their life. When single, friends take priority. When married, the spouse takes priority. That likely means the single person seeing much less of their married friends. Once children come along, the single person may rarely see their married friend because the married friend has to devote all their time to their family.

What also happens in many cases is that families with children end up hanging around with other families with children.

It’s not you or your friends; it’s just what happens when family is placed first.
 
I would have to say I noticed this to a very limited extent while single. I think it was mostly just them wanting to get together with other married couples because they felt that single people were still scouting for a significant other and didn’t want to be around single people while they were cruising for guys or gals.

I do have to say, though, I don’t care if you are single, dating, engaged, or married, if you are a cool person I will be your friend. My hubby and I have plenty of single friends. We just have to remember not to be mushy or anything and not to make them feel like a third wheel. I do find, though, sometimes single people don’t always get that I have to consult my husband on many things they just do without thinking about. I am obligated to him first.
 
TrixieMcGee said:
I do have to say, though, I don’t care if you are single, dating, engaged, or married, if you are a cool person I will be your friend. My hubby and I have plenty of single friends. We just have to remember not to be mushy or anything and not to make them feel like a third wheel. I do find, though, sometimes single people don’t always get that I have to consult my husband on many things they just do without thinking about. I am obligated to him first.
Click to expand...
Very well-said!!! I am single and have a good mix of single friends and married friends and I think I do things pretty equally with just the girls (the married ones) and things with them and their husbands. It kind of depends on the situation.

I’ve lost some friends (mostly when I was younger) when they got married. In those instances it was mostly the friends that just didn’t want to do ANYTHING without their husbands. That’s great, but I don’t want to ALWAYS be the third wheel. It seemed like they couldn’t/wouldn’t do any activity with just the girls. Those are the relationships (and there were very few) that just naturally fell by the wayside.

With me (I’m single, BTW) it helps to have the mixture. I have the single girlfriends that I can call last minute for dinner who don’t have to worry about finding babysitters, maneurvering schedules with their husbands, et cetera; and I have the married girlfriends who call me last minute and say, “We’re fixing dinner. Get over here.”
 
Generally, from my experience, when a friend gets married, they don’t have time to be friends with me anymore. I’ve only remained friends with one person after they got married and that lasted until they moved across the country 🙂
 
I haven’t experienced any contempt from my friends who are married. 🙂
 
i think it goes both ways, i have been married for a year, we have been trying to work a little harder before we have kids and save some money for future. which kinda restricts us from doing certain things we used to do in the past. like going out as much and also checking with the partner. while single friends dont have quite as many commitments and it changes a little bit with lifestyle. but in reality a true friend is a friend with the same importance but priorities changes i guess
😦
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top