ZedDash

Perhaps try finding someone else to confide in, until you feel safer with your friend’s partner

I’ve got to that age when my best friends have become wives, fiancees and serious girlfriends, and suddenly my secrets are not so safe. My innermost thoughts and feelings are being shared with their partners, and it leaves me feeling vulnerable. I’ve been told that as someone who has never been in a serious relationship, it’s something I can’t understand. And something I can’t change. So do I just start keeping things to myself?
It can be challenging to adjust to having your one-on-one friendship shift to being part of a triangle. There is loss in this for you, to be sure.

I can, however, relate to your friends making this choice. In my life, my husband is primary, and our marriage has benefited from this prioritisation. I appreciate that, if there is an important piece of information I am processing about a friend, I can bring it to my husband to get his perspective. Similarly, there came a turning point where I knew I was no longer sharing what was going on with me with just my girlfriends; they would be bringing this information home to their spouses – which makes sense, if they also consider their partners their primary relationship.

The key to this working is that you don’t feel judged. Ideally, it is less that they are gossiping about you, and more that they care enough about you to want to discuss your wellbeing with each other. I have spent a lot of time with my friends’ partners, and I feel safe sharing vulnerabilities with my friends – because I know I am cared for and supported by both parties. Of course, if you feel judged by your friend’s partner, it may not continue to feel as safe to open up with your friend, and this could negatively affect your friendship. Perhaps try finding someone else to confide in, until you feel safer with your friend’s partner, if that is possible.

There may well be a day soon when your friends will understand that you discuss what they have shared with your partner, knowing (hopefully) that your partner loves them as much as you do. And that instead of getting the insight, empathy and support from only one of you, they get it double-barrel, from both of you. This is what it is to be friends with couples: ultimately, you get double the love.

Alanis Morissette’s podcast is available at iTunes and at alanis.com. Send your dilemmas about love, family or life in general to Alanis Morissette at askalanis@theguardian.com

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