Latest / Friendship IRL: Real Talk About Friendship, Community, and What It Actually Takes / The Dynamics of Couple Friendships

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The Dynamics of Couple Friendships · Friendship IRL: Real Talk About Friendship, Community, and What It Actually Takes

• 0:02
  Podcast Intro/Outro: All right, gang. Here's to nights that turn into mornings and friends that turn into family. Cheers. Hello, hello, and welcome to the Friendship IRL podcast. I'm your host, Alex Alexander. Each week we talk about what is working(and what is not) in our friendships, community and connections. Have you ever wished you could sit down and have a conversation about what is really going on in your friendships? Well, you found your people. Join us as we dive into real life stories and explore new ways to approach these connections. Together, we're reimagining the rules of friendship
• 0:58
  Alex Alexander: I'm not going to say that everyone wants couple friends, but if you are in a partnership, if you are newly dating together for decades, a lot of people come to me and tell me that they want to know how to make couple friends. You know what?
• 1:18
  Alex Alexander: I'm talking about, those picture perfect foursomes that you see in movies where everyone gets along effortlessly. But here's what, nobody tells you, you're not making friends one couple to another couple. You're actually building four separate friendships at the same time.
• 1:35
  Alex Alexander: And when you think about it that way, that changes everything.
• 1:39
  Alex Alexander: Today I want to talk about couple friends, the reality of those dynamics, my experiences, some very practical things. What happens when it feels hard or awkward? Things come up. We're going to cover it all in today's episode, and I don't want to say it's going to make you shy away from couple friends, but I do hope it makes you think of them differently, and I think that's a good thing. So let's start off with like, the math of couple friends here, because the reality is, you are managing a variety of dynamics. Okay? It is what most people think is like, great, me and my partner, my husband, my boyfriend, my girlfriend, my whatever, and this other couple. That's the dynamic, like, we need to befriend them. No, that is not what is actually happening here.
• 2:35
  Alex Alexander: What is actually happening is, if we use myself as an example, my husband, Michael and I have a friendship, relationship, connection, dynamic with partner. One in the other couple, I also have a dynamic with partner two. Michael has a dynamic with partner one, and Michael has a dynamic with partner two. So so far, we are at four different relationship dynamics, okay, but there's more, because there's also the dynamic when you are all together, the four of you, and then we have the dynamic that is me and Michael and whatever baggage we bring, and then the other couple and their dynamic.
• 3:17
  Alex Alexander: So that means that we are actually managing seven dynamics all at once. It is not us and them, it is seven combinations simultaneously. If you're like Alex, I don't know that's being a little dramatic. Then I want to tell you this example. Okay, let's say that I am sitting in the backyard of my house with partner one, we are chatting it up. We're talking about fashion.
• 3:43
  Alex Alexander: We're talking about what we're shopping for. We're talking about, do we want to go shopping together? What are we buying?
• 3:52
  Alex Alexander: You know, what are the shoes of fall? Whatever it is. Okay.
• 3:56
  Alex Alexander: Partner two, from their relationship, comes out to the backyard, joins into the conversation, asks what we're talking about. We're talking about fashion, and maybe that person's not very into fashion.
• 4:08
  Alex Alexander: So they lean over to their spouse, and they bring up the dog, their dog, their dog got into something this morning.
• 4:16
  Alex Alexander: They still think they can smell it in the garage, in the dining room, maybe they hid something behind, right? They're having a whole conversation that, sure I can listen in on, but I wasn't a part of it, and I can ask about it, and now we're all talking about their dog, right? So partner one has somebody calling her from inside the house, like, hey, come in here. So she goes inside, and now it's just me and partner two, and we've all been in the situation where that's kind of awkward, because you don't actually have a relationship with this person, but let's say I do have a relationship. We figured out some common interests, some common things we like to talk about. We're not going to talk about fashion, and I could keep talking about their dog, sure, but I know that we both have an interest in the publishing industry, right? I'm over here working on my book, and so maybe I bring that up, you know, like, Hey, I saw this thing this morning. Remember how we were talking last time about the rights of content? I read this article, and now we are deep in a conversation about the publishing industry. So what I'm hoping is that that example is just a very simplified example of the fact that there are multiple dynamics. What you talk about with one person, even though they're a couple, may not be what you talk about with the other person in that couple, and the things that they talk about together may not actually involve you. Do you see what I'm saying now? Let's say that Michael, my husband, and both partners, end up coming outside, and then we might launch in to an entirely different topic.
• 6:11
  Alex Alexander: Maybe we start talking about making plans for some holiday adventures we're going to do together. We're going to go to that parade, and we're gonna do this, and we're gonna do that, and maybe we wanted to wait to talk about that until we were all together, because it involves all of us making plans and looking at our calendars, right? And sure, we maybe could have done it with one person inside, but then we probably would have had to rehash that conversation, versus if Michael and my friend's partner come outside, my friend and I, the one we were talking about fashion, we don't need to recap that conversation. That is not necessary, that is not a part of the group dynamic. And in fact, if we start talking about it again, the other two people might drift off into another conversation. So the whole point of pointing this out to you is that I think, when we think of it this way, the fact that we are managing all these different dynamics and connections and combinations, it one, I hope, makes you realize that it's important to invest in the individual connections, and you don't need to be their best friend. You don't but I think it's worthwhile to understand and explore what you might talk about if you're the only two people left in the room, so that you're not standing there awkwardly. It's also important to highlight this variety of dynamics, because so many people, when they come to me and say, like, I just want to make a couple friends, or my partner doesn't want couple friends, I've heard that one quite a bit.
• 7:57
  Alex Alexander: Or I've tried and I failed. It's not as simple as just you and them, and so I think you need to give yourself some credit if you're managing all these dynamics, like, it's a little bit more like, advanced friend making, I guess I think anybody can do it. I'm not saying you need to, like, wait until you've reached some advanced level. I'm just saying we're managing a lot at one time. And so if it feels hard, there's a reason for that.
• 8:28
  Alex Alexander: It's not just you, it's not in your head, it really is, because you might as well think of another set of couple friends as, honestly, a friend group.
• 8:41
  Alex Alexander: It's the same way I talk about a friend group, right? We are balancing all these individual dynamics, and at the end of the day, if you want those movie you know, really close show up at each other's house. Have it be seamless and easy? That is not just because, Oh, we found really great couple friends.
• 9:02
  Alex Alexander: It's because, when you peel back the layers and you get underneath there, there are really strong individual connections between each combination of people. And again, one more time, I'm going to say that I don't think that that means that everybody is the same level of closeness. You could be present friends like I could be present friends with one person in that other partnership. And then Michael and I are very much present friends, because we are living life together, and I might just be kind of like a defined familiar friend with that other partner. That's okay, as long as we are both aware of that number one and respectful of the fact that we're not going to have like the same level of vulnerability that I have with their. House. But two, we have worked hard enough to figure out, like, what are the comfortable conversations? We are well aware that not everything is going to feel comfortable and easy to talk about, because we're not that close, but we kind of have this acceptance level of what is easy and comfortable to talk about, I think that's really where the magic happens. So let's talk a little bit about, I'm calling this like my couple friends.
• 11:32
  Alex Alexander: Reality check here. Why can I tell you about couple friends?
• 11:36
  Alex Alexander: Well, when I was creating the outline for this episode, I was like, how many sets of couple friends do Michael and I have? I started counting, and my initial gut reaction was like, I don't know, maybe 10, right? Well, I passed 10 pretty quickly. I got to 15. I was like, okay, 15 ish sets of couple friends. That's fine. And then I kept working on the outline of this episode, and couples that we are friends with kept popping into my mind. And I honestly think that we have probably somewhere between 20 to 25 sets of couple friends. That is not a joke, that is dead serious. If you scroll through my text messages, there are all sorts of we tend to make, like group texts with various, well with, actually, pretty much every set of couple friends and often it's like Alexander's plus their last name, or their last name plus Alexander's, and there are dozens of those in my text message thread. Now, not every set of those couple friends are our closest, deepest people, right? This ranges from friends who are more of dinner party friends, you know, people where we still kind of pick up our house for them to come over here, this just happened this past weekend, to friends where, at one point or another, we've, like, lived together for a couple weeks, we have traveled together for extended periods of time. You know, in the middle we have friends, where we go and do various activities together.
• 13:13
  Alex Alexander: We're all very comfortable. It's very casual. I don't need to pick up my house for them, but it would be a little bit of a jump or a stretch for us, maybe to go on a longer trip together.
• 13:26
  Alex Alexander: It would really be a push if they moved in with us. For some reason I don't know if something happened to their house, right?
• 13:35
  Alex Alexander: I would be like your house flooded, like, Come move in.
• 13:42
  Alex Alexander: I have done that for many people. So there's kind of this spectrum of closeness. You know, we have friends that we like I've mentioned traveling, but we have couple friends that we spend holidays together with, and we have multiple of those, probably at least, gosh, I don't know, five plus sets, if I really had to sit down and think about it, we have friends that we have been couple friends with them for a decade plus at this point, remember, Michael and I are coming up on 16 years together, so that's why that's possible. But we also have friends that are very close, couple friends of ours, who, you know, we were like college friends with one person in that couple, and then they met a significant other, and we had to, like, fold that significant other in. But we also have like, brand new couple friends, couple friends we've made in the last year or two people that were just, like, some random friendship. And we decided, like, Hey, Alex is really good friends with this other person.
• 14:50
  Alex Alexander: Let's get the four of us together and see how that goes.
• 14:54
  Alex Alexander: There is no pattern exactly, I guess, to that 25 sets of couple friends. It's not like we've been friends with all of them for a decade, plus. Some are very new. Some are very old.
• 15:07
  Alex Alexander: Some we've known for a really long time, but we're not, as I don't want to say close, but like vulnerable with and you'll understand a little bit more what I mean further into this episode, when I talk about that, some are just people we kind of casually have over for dinner.
• 15:28
  Alex Alexander: Now, one thing to note is not all, but the vast majority of our couple friends are other Cis heterosexual couples, right? So husband and wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, Michael and I, not all, but a good number. And I think that's important to point out, because my experience is when we have couple friends that do not fit that dynamic, it's honestly easier, I think, because a lot of the gender norms and like expectations are already put into question, so it's feels maybe more completely normal to be. Close friends with both people, because there's not any societal pushback. Of Me, a married woman, being friends with a married man and being like, oh, but can you be friends? Isn't that weird? Don't your spouses get upset about that? No no, because they're just like a brother. I I don't understand this. Guys. I never will. I just, I'm not even going to entertain it, to be quite frank with you. So that's me.
• 16:32
  Alex Alexander: Please do not get upset if you're trying to make your first set of couple friends. And I just told you that I have 25 plus sets of couple friends.
• 16:40
  Alex Alexander: Okay, you need to remember if you're listening to this episode and you just got upset because you feel like this is so hard.
• 16:49
  Alex Alexander: And I said that that community connection has been probably the central value and priority in my life for many decades now, and therefore I have developed this very deep community around me.
• 17:02
  Alex Alexander: There is nothing to say that if you prioritize this, this couldn't be you in 10 years.
• 17:11
  Alex Alexander: There's nothing special about me other than the fact then this has been probably my biggest priority in my life the whole time. Okay, so I don't want you to get discouraged if that's you. Now, in going through this episode, I tried to think of a bunch of stories of different dynamics we've had with these people. So some reality checks here that I want to give you.
• 17:36
  Alex Alexander: There are definitely couple friends we have where in the beginning we didn't all click, okay, like I can think in particular a set of friends we've had for probably a decade plus at this point, but the first four to five years, I did not click with one of the other people. I just didn't they weren't a set of people we like, prioritized spending a lot of time with, but when we did, I made it work. Okay? It took us probably four to five years to figure out the ways in which we connect, also her and I probably changed as people a decent amount, and we were kind of thrown together enough that we started to figure out now, these are people. This is another couple that like, we spend holidays with them. We have seen them like once a week for the past month, but it took time we didn't like click as a foursome.
• 18:31
  Alex Alexander: From the beginning, it was a very, very, very slow burn, and for a long time it was just like we only ever did things when it was the four of us. But now there have been many a time where it's like me and the other wife in this situation, we will go do things by ourselves sometimes, but that took a long time. I mean, that probably took like nine years, and now I genuinely enjoy our time together. We're not the closest to friends. It's not like the first person I text all the time, but there are a lot of parts of our friendship that have gotten deeper over time.
• 19:13
  Alex Alexander: Another thing I want to point out is there are definitely dynamics we have where people, you know, go into it with this assumption that if it's two heterosexual couples, if it's two husband wives, like the wives are going to be friends and the husbands are going to be friends. And there are definitely dynamics we have where, honestly, I have more in common with the husband, and Michael has more in common with the wife. And although we might end up like we spend a lot of time talking in that kind of four dynamic, and when it splits off into duos, I tend to find not always, but I tend to find that like me and the husband end up talking, and every dynamic is different. It's not always that way. Always that way. We also have dynamics where, let's say we have been friends with one person for a really, really, really long time, like they were a college roommate, and then that person was single when Michael and I were together, because we met junior year of college. So I have this, like, very long standing relationship with, let's say, one of Michael's college roommates, and there were six of them so and sometimes I just want to spend time with that person, because I've known them a really long time. An example of that is we have some very close friends, like friends who are like family, and they live far away.
• 20:46
  Alex Alexander: Now we go and visit them quite often. And honestly, funny enough, I'm telling you the story. I'm thinking of one friend, but if they listen to this, they'd be like, Is this me or this other roommate? Because this happens with a number of them. Like, I've known these guys. Both for 16 years now, they're like brothers to me, and I adore their wives. We can spend time together just the two of us, super easy. But there are times where it's like, I kind of want to hang out with my brother almost, and so we will go do something me and the husband from this other couple. And an example of this is we were staying with our friends, and my friend's husband and I, like, love a sonic cold plunge situation. And there is, like, a local business that has a sonic cold plunge, and you can go with other people, so him and I went to go Sonic, cold plunge, catch up, have a Hangout. It's like me and my brother and we were laughing the whole time because we were like, man, people must have so many questions. And he goes there with his wife all the time. So then they're like, you know, are they going to have questions like, Where's his wife when he came with me, and it's just two of us in our bathing suits in the sauna cold plunge room, hanging out, chatting in the sauna, laughing about how we're shivering in the cold plunge that is a real thing that happened, like, six months ago, and that's totally normal. There are also dynamics where, like, Michael has been friends with someone for a really long time.
• 22:30
  Alex Alexander: It's like his sister, and it would be totally normal for Michael to want to get to hang out one on one with her, without me, even though she might be a really good friend of mine. And I guess that's just another example about what I was saying earlier that I think that the strongest couple friends are made up of those individual dynamics and the ability to be connected to each person individually. Now you don't need to go off sauna, cold plunging.
• 22:59
  Alex Alexander: You don't need to be like Michael, taking one of his oldest female friends, who basically is like a sister and them going out to dinner together on their own. You don't need to be to that level at all.
• 23:14
  Alex Alexander: But I'm just giving you examples in my life of, I guess, like the extremes of couple friendships that we have. Another dynamic I want to mention is the reality check of the fact that when you hang out as two couples, something that is happening in your romantic partnership might bleed into that couple hangout.
• 23:37
  Alex Alexander: This is a very old example, but when Michael and I were much younger, sometimes our money dynamic would show up in our friendship hangouts with other couples. Comments would be made, things would be said. You know, we're not opening up all of our finances for our friends, but they probably not. Probably they absolutely got a sense of that there was, like, some tension there, and I'm imagining a lot of people have been in this situation back in the day, you know, friends would make jokes like, Oh, Mom and Dad are fighting again. Mind you, we were one of very few couples a long time ago, but that kind of stuff can bleed in, and that is another thing to be mindful of, like a reality check, is that, don't get me wrong, I love all my couple friends, but for everybody out there who is dying to have those, I guess what I'm trying to say is there is a lot of complexity. There a lot of things to navigate, and sometimes they're not even really, they don't even have anything to do with you, like me and Michael making money comments really doesn't have anything to do with our friends.
• 24:48
  Alex Alexander: But now we have, like, pulled them into our awkwardness. So what is my point here? It's not just you and them. It is a very complex web of individual relationships, and some of them take time. Some of them change over time. Some of them are incredibly close, and others are looser. And if that's still something you want, then let's talk about where to find couple friends, because I am still very open to even having more couple friends to my life, which probably sounds absolutely absurd to some of you, where I would start the first thing I would start with is audit your existing friendships? Do you have a one on one friendship with someone where maybe it would be interesting to bring their significant other and your significant other into it? It is worth trying. It may not work, and if it doesn't work, that's not a failure on your individual friendship. Now I would also say, don't just try it once, try it a few times, and try different activities. I think there can often be this jump to like, let's get dinner together.
• 26:03
  Alex Alexander: But if you think about it, dinner is just you sitting there. It's a lot of pressure.
• 26:05
  Alex Alexander: Pressure to make conversation, to figure it out. If you pick an activity, it takes that pressure away, because you are doing something, and when you're doing something, everybody is participating in something, they can talk about, like if you're hiking, you can all talk about the sounds you are experiencing, the choices you're making, about which trail to take, the snacks you brought. Right there are very tangible things to focus on. So try different activities.
• 26:31
  Alex Alexander: You know, if you want to have people over, maybe have a game night where people can talk about the game, and it gives them some focus. Go to an escape room. Go hiking, go try a new sport. Go play pickleball, like try to do something now, if you do Lean into an existing friendship, we did this recently. We had a couple over, but I'm really close with her.
• 26:59
  Alex Alexander: We're just friends. Michael's met her a few times, and neither of us knew her new boyfriend, and we had them over, and I find that it's really helpful to acknowledge the existing dynamics. So when we were sitting down for dinner, there was kind of an inside joke that her and I had, and that was a great in for me to be like, well, we got to remember, like, the two of us are really close, but to our new boyfriend over here, you're playing from Ground Zero, like you don't know anyone, and acknowledging that, like there are different levels of closeness here. It's not even playing ground for everybody, and just, I think, being a little kinder to that new person, you know, explaining inside jokes, going back and telling back stories when you just make an assumption that, like everybody knows that this is your favorite board game to play, saying that out loud to the new person, trying to, like, catch them up on things like that, I find is really helpful.
• 28:08
  Alex Alexander: Now, if you're looking at your existing friends and you're thinking to yourself, I don't really have any where I would want to try out having couple friends with them, then my suggestion to you would be to go out into the world. That's my suggestion. Go try some new activities. You and your partner. Go meet your neighbors.
• 28:33
  Alex Alexander: Go join a community organization. You got to get out there if you want to make some couple friends, you know, try inviting some other parents from your kids school over, invite other classmates over, whatever stage of life you're in, but when you do that, acknowledge that you are trying to build all those dynamics simultaneously.
• 29:01
  Alex Alexander: So another route, if you want to find couple friends, would actually be that if you just really hit it off with somebody else in your mountaineering group. Get together with that person individually, even if you both go to the mountaineering group with your spouses, go do something one on one, and start to like, kind of like, kick start that connection. And then you're not forced to try and make multiple new dynamics happen at one time. You're just focused on one relationship. And then after a few Hangouts, then maybe try to bring the other people in. It's also a great way, you know, if you are, let's say part of that mountaineering group focus on doing things in more of a group setting, signing up for a bunch of the same classes, where you are four people out of a group of 16. And I find that that also can be helpful sometimes, especially in the very, very beginning phases, because if you get caught in those awkward situations where you don't know what to talk about, you aren't left staring at each other because you're the only options you have other people around that kind of like, keep the connection momentum going. Now, as somebody who has experienced so many couple friendships, there are definitely complications, and I would be remiss if I didn't bring those up in today's episode. So I'm going to talk about some uncomfortable truths.
• 30:15
  Alex Alexander: Okay, the first one is that there are going to be different communication styles and boundaries between couples. So I talked about how you know, my friend and I went Sonic, cold, plunging in other friendships like that may not be acceptable.
• 30:33
  Alex Alexander: Now I get to decide if that's not acceptable, if I want to be couple friends with those people, but this is all just to say, like, don't go in assuming that the ways you act with one set of couple friends are the same as other sets of couples, they are all going to be very, very different. Another example of that would be like money.
• 31:00
  Alex Alexander: Okay, when, let's say we go out to dinner with certain friends, we have a. A baseline standard, I suppose, with pretty much anyone that we just take the bill, we put it into an app called plates, and we split it out, item by item, everybody pays for exactly what they got.
• 31:19
  Alex Alexander: That's kind of our norm. Now, some friends, we have been friends with them for long enough, or we have kind of shifted how we do that, and it's like one couple pays and then the other couple pays. We don't do that with every set of couple friends. It is very dependent on who those friends are and how that feels. And if anybody has any like anxiety about that, if we went into every couple friendship, just assuming we would go back and forth, I think we would have a lot less friends, to be quite honest with you. Maybe the takeaway there is like, pick the like, least vulnerable like, don't assume anything. Go in, trying to be as conscientious of how other people might feel, and then peel it back in places where it feels okay. Another example of that that just popped into my head is, you know, certain friends, couple friends, like, it's totally fine if I were to, like, go into their bedroom and sit on their bed while I'm chatting with maybe my my friend, who's getting dressed and getting ready to go out. If I went and sat on their bed, no big deal. There are other friends where I know that would make them kind of uncomfortable, like their bedroom is their space. They don't want anybody else in there. And if I did go in, I'm definitely not sitting on the bed. I'm like, standing there and leaning against the wall. My default would be standing there and leaning against the wall for everybody, until I feel like everybody is fine, both other people in that couple are fine that I am invading their personal space, which kind of leads me into my next point, which is that in couple friendships, it's really interesting, because you kind of get to witness their marriage culture. You get little insights into, maybe how they fight, how they handle money, their goals, their priorities, how they parent, what they ignore in their life, whatever it is, and that can be an interesting thing, because it doesn't really impact You for the most part.
• 33:27
  Alex Alexander: Now, there are situations in couple friends where, again, it doesn't impact you, but maybe you don't think that it's safe for one partner. I've experienced that too. That's another interesting thing about couple friendships, where, when you get kind of let in, you might realize like, oh, I don't think that this is a positive partnership for both people, and I think that is a reason that a good number of people kind of like, back away from couple friends, like, if you notice that, you might just like, oh, I don't really want to be a part of that dynamic. And that's a choice, and everybody can do that. I'm a little different in the situations where I found myself, where I feel like it's unsafe for somebody, I I actually will push myself to continue hanging out, because I really do want those friends to feel like I'm available if they want to call me and if they want to make a big life choice like leaving their partner or taking a break or doing whatever they're going to do. But that is definitely an example of when couple friendships get complicated. My biggest takeaway is like the complications of couple friendships honestly mirror being in community, right, different communication styles and boundaries, different cultures, like different windows into the ways people live that we may or may not agree with.
• 34:51
  Alex Alexander: There's also the chance when you make couple friends where you know you really click with one person, but you don't mesh with the other person. And I've definitely I mentioned one of those in the beginning. You know where it changed over time.
• 35:06
  Alex Alexander: There are others that it just is that way. For as long as I've been a part of that couple friendship dynamic, and in my mind, this is a great training ground for existing in community, like in the world we don't always love or mesh with every single person in our neighborhood, in our PTA group, in our workplace, and I'm not saying you let that person harm you, but sometimes you do have to like co exist and figure out ways to push back and voice your own boundaries and things like that without just leaving another place where a couple friends can get complicated is when life changes happen. It could be anything. It could be somebody getting divorced, somebody having kids, people.
• 36:05
  Alex Alexander: Moving people, switching career industries. I like it depends on how you are connected to your couple friends. What is going to really feel like? It rocks the boat, and I have had many a set of friends where some big life change has happened, right? A big one is so many of our friends have had kids, and we currently don't have any kids, so we are, like the child free friends with the parent friends.
• 36:38
  Alex Alexander: And that definitely has shifted dynamics. In some ways. It has created more distance with certain friends and other friends. It actually has honestly brought us closer. That is like an entirely other episode that I would need to do.
• 36:52
  Alex Alexander: But there's a whole range there of things. I just want to acknowledge that that is a life change that can definitely rock the boat, like make you feel like your dynamics have shifted, people who have moved so our friendships were really centered on activities that we did together in person, the four of us, and then they have moved away, and it's kind of like, oh, okay, well, we spent a lot of time doing this activity together. I'm just gonna pick an activity, golf. We golf together all the time, and now that we can't golf together, what is holding us together? We've had people who kind of enter into different life stages. We've had people where political beliefs have diverged and navigating that. But I think one of the biggest changes is if a couple separates or gets divorced, what do you do in that situation? My takeaway from experiencing this a few times now is, honestly, it highlights what is already there. What do I mean by that, if one of the dynamics and the other couple was mainly just you were like familiar to find friends with them, you weren't that close with them that is going to shine through, versus, if one person is like more of a present friend, you're way more ingrained.
• 38:15
  Alex Alexander: It's hard, because I feel like it comes out from outsiders.
• 38:19
  Alex Alexander: It's like, oh, you picked so and so over so and so. My takeaway is, like that dynamic was probably already there, because if your closest friend in that couple, maybe even was the one that was like the reason that ended the relationship, they gambled away all their money, or they cheated, or they did whatever, somebody might stick by that person's side just because they are closer friends with that person. So again, my takeaway is that when couples get divorced, it really highlights what's already there.
• 38:52
  Alex Alexander: And an example I have of this is we actually had friends a long, long time ago that we were incredibly close couple friends with. And I would say that her and I were very present very, very close friends, and him and Michael were really good friends, like really good friends, and it actually kind of ended up being that we just focused on our individual friendships for the most part, with those people, because we were both so close With each individual person that there really wasn't picking sides. It was like maintaining again, what was already there. The other thing I would note here, my key point of this whole you know, when like people separate, is that these challenges of couple friends, they aren't unique to couple friendships, right? I think a couple friendship is really similar to any friend group. And we all know that there are friend groups where a rupture happens, a fight happens, something goes down.
• 40:00
  Alex Alexander: And oftentimes, when people think of it as like picking sides, it's not really picking sides. It was that there were already dynamics that were there, and people are just continuing those dynamics. And this is happening in couple friendships in group, friends in work, friendships in families that you're friends with in your own family. What am I talking about like? This is not just unique to couple friends, and I do think that being able to navigate when there are ruptures of people around you is a skill that will serve you right. What is so different between navigating to friends that get divorced and navigating parents like if your own parents get divorced, it's not easy. It's tricky. They maybe don't want to be in the same room together, or they're fine with it.
• 40:59
  Alex Alexander: Everybody's different. It's the same exact thing if you're navigating couple friendships after a separation. Now another challenge. With couple friends is that sometimes I hear from people that one partner, like, maybe your spouse does not want couple friends. What do I do if my spouse doesn't want couple friends? And now that you've listened to this episode, maybe you're like, Oh, I get why they don't want couple friends. Like, that's a lot of dynamics, and they don't want that stress in their life. I think it's a positive stress. I've already told you I have a number I'm not saying don't do it. I could get why somebody's just like, I don't want to navigate this. If you really want that, then what I would suggest to you is to get curious about why they don't want it. Is it because they just believe that having couple friends? Is that idea of like going out to dinner together and sitting there and having that kind of forced, uncomfortable conversation? Is it because they think that having couple friends is the neighbors coming over to your house all the time and they don't want people at their house? Is it because a certain aspect feels overwhelming, like, what if those couples split? I don't want to have to navigate that. Maybe if you suggested hiking friends that are couples, they would be more interested in that than those dinner friendships. Maybe the couple friends you want to have are work friends, and they just feel like work is already tense enough without having to manage a dynamic outside of work, like, why is it? Dig a little deeper, because you might find that there are many, many, many ways to have couple friendships, if that is something you want, and maybe they just haven't considered that. And if you could suggest some dynamics and some ways that you exist with these other couple friends and spend time together outside of the norm of just sitting there at dinner, they would be interested. There's other very practical things to navigate.
• 43:06
  Alex Alexander: Scheduling now we have four people that we're scheduling with, versus two money, which I already mentioned before, how we use an app called plates, but there are some friends who take turns. I think it's all different. You know what? If you go and stay at each other's houses, we do this with our friends all the time, and we kind of have this blanket understanding with most friends now that, like, if they come and stay at our house, we're gonna buy the groceries. I don't need you to pay for it, and if we come stay at your house, it's the same. But that may not be what you and your friends do.
• 43:42
  Alex Alexander: You might split the grocery cart for the week, and I think that it is worthwhile to have sometimes, like very, very practical conversations with your other couple friends the same way you would with your normal friends. You know, if you were taking a long trip together, you might discuss how you're gonna split shared activities like that is totally normal. I also think it's normal to, like, have a slow burn. And by that, I mean if you have newer couple friends in your life, and let's say they suggest some long trip together, like, oh, you know, I've always wanted to go to that same country that you just mentioned, 16 hours away on a flight, we should all do that. And you might just think to yourself, like, wow, we have not been friends long enough for that. I think that is totally normal. Just like an individual friendship, there might be a very slow build in the vulnerability that you have with your couple friends. There is no right or wrong way to do it. Two examples I have of this.
• 44:51
  Alex Alexander: If you go back and you listen to episode, I think it's 2828 or 29 it is with Erica, and Erica talks about how her and an old acquaintance from college just kind of like dive in together to the deep end, and they kind of hit it off her and her spouse, the other couple and their families, their kids, and they live far apart, and so they end up doing these monthly sleepover swaps, where they pack up their kids, pack up their pets, and they come and stay At the other friend's house one weekend a month. That is diving in the deep end. And maybe that feels right for you. Maybe it just clicks now on the other end of the spectrum, like we have friends. Gosh, we have been friends with these people for seven, eight years now. And I wouldn't say I wouldn't say, I would say, like, the first four to five years, we kind of saw each other around, you know, big group parties, things like that.
• 45:52
  Alex Alexander: Then we started hanging out solo with this other couple. And we've brought up traveling a few times. We've never really done it, but we kind of went and did our first two couple. A trip this summer, and we just did one night a couple hours from where we live, and we had all these activities planned, like, we weren't really hanging out at our hotel very much, and it was a pretty expensive weekend to be in the city, and so I took a risk, and I was like, do we want to just split a room with two queens? Like, we're basically going to go in there, we're going to sleep for like, six hours, and we're going to wake up. And it was funny, because it's been such a slow build of vulnerability in this friendship over many, many, many years that we were all joking about it that night, like in the hotel room.
• 46:41
  Alex Alexander: How funny it was to be very adult friends, you know, like late 30s, 40s, and sharing a hotel room for the first time ever. And this kind of feels like a thing you do when you're 20, and now we're all watching each other, like, do our bedtime routines, and there's no right or wrong way to do it. It can be a slow build like that. There are other friends we have where they come over and it's like, I kind of pick up my house and make it look nice and buy fresh flowers.
• 47:15
  Alex Alexander: There are other couple friends we have where I can text them with, like, 20 minutes notice and be like, What are you guys doing for dinner? We have friends that we do holidays with you know, another example of maybe a higher like vulnerability, and it has not always been this way, is we just did this last weekend. We had some friends. We spent Halloween with them and their kiddos. This is not the first time we've done this. We spent other holidays with them, other just like game nights, hangout nights, but I went upstairs, helped with bath time. Michael and our other friends stayed downstairs, hanging out, and then all four of us ended up in our friend's bed with their two kids doing story time, where each of the adults had to read a story for the kiddos, and we're like hugging them good night before, giving them, you know, a hug, and their parents kind of go do the final bedtime routine, and we're downstairs waiting for them before we play game night like that is a very vulnerable couple friend hangout situation.
• 48:24
  Alex Alexander: In my mind, at least when I sit there with my friends and their kids in their bedroom on their bed, all reading stories while the girls are like crawling around on top of us, I am struck by the fact that this is a very unique situation, and we didn't just jump there. That was many, many years for us, but you may jump there. You may be like Erica in Episode 28 where it just kind of like happens, there's no right or wrong way to do it. Which brings me to the fact that if you've learned anything in this episode, what I hope you see is that couple friends, I think, often gets this idea of like you either have these dinner party friends or you have these super integrated life friends. But there is a valuable middle ground for couple friends. You could be have hiking friends, concert friends, travel friends, like whatever you want. Probably won't happen overnight. It will start with a few hangouts where you are all trying to establish your different dynamics, and over time, you will figure out the ways you like to spend time together. And it might just be being hiking Friends forever, and that's okay. It doesn't need to be the super integrated life friends. So if you are out here wanting to make it work, you have listened to me talk about all the nuances and complications and unique scenarios, and how every single set a couple friends I have is different in the ways that we interact, the boundaries we have, the things that we do together. If you're like I want this, then here are my final parting tips for you. Number one, start thinking of all your couple friendships as a set of individual friendships. Pay attention to the places where you really have no relationship at all with one person in that couple. And I'm not saying you need to become the closest person with them, but really put in an effort to try and get curious and learn a little bit more about them. Find some common things you can talk about if you're the only two people left in the room. Take it upon yourself, right? It is an individual responsibility to nurture your connections with the different people. Try and find a mix of couple activities and individual hangouts with each person. Now that could be like an actual full Hangout, where you go do like an activity with each person. It also could just be, when you are hanging out the four of you try and carve out a couple minutes. Is to ask the person and the other couple that you are less close with a couple of questions about them. How has their week been?
• 51:16
  Alex Alexander: Are they excited about the new job that they're looking at? Are they excited about the trip that they're going on? You heard that they picked up a new hobby. How is that going make an effort every single time you're in that dynamic to at least ask them a couple questions, it will make a really big impact in your couple friendships. And honestly, if you don't do that and you're struggling to make couple friends, that might be part of the reason that your couple friendships keep failing, because if somebody comes home from that couple friendship, you hung out two couples and you're like, well, that person ignored me all night. Would you want to keep hanging out with them? Take this all as a reframe that you don't necessarily even need to think of these people as couple friends. They're just another friend group dynamic with individual friendships in it, and put your energy into that and finding some balance and intention there, and see how that changes your couple friends. Now, my final final reminders for you, couple friends aren't required. You do not need these if you are in a relationship. You really don't, but if you want them, then go after them. And I do think they can be rewarding, like sometimes it's fun to have that dynamic, right? There are things like me sitting there reading my friend's kids bedtime stories that feel very rewarding to me, but that may not be rewarding to you, and that's fine. Remember that they take time and intention, just like any other friendship. Don't expect perfect like movie, storybook dynamics.
• 52:49
  Alex Alexander: And finally, because I have not said this enough times, that's sarcasm, by the way, the most important thing I can have you take away from this whole episode is that it is so important to focus on the individual connections within a foursome that is what is going to make or break your relationship with your other couple friends with that I'll see you next week.
• 53:18
  Alex Alexander: Thank you for listening to this episode of Friendship IRL. I am so honored to have these conversations with you. But don't let the chat die here.
• 53:25
  Alex Alexander: Send me a voice message. I created a special website just to chat with you. You can find it at alexalex.chat. You can also find me on Instagram. My handle, @itsalexalexander. Or go ahead and leave a review wherever you prefer to listen to podcasts. Now if you want to take this conversation a step further, send this episode to a friend. Tell them you found it interesting. And use what we just talked about as a conversation starter the next time you and your friend hang out. No need for a teary goodbye. I'll be back with a new episode next week.