Relationships

6 Reasons You Should Reconsider Talking To Your Friends About Your Relationship Problems

by Anjali Sareen Nowakowski

You're in an overall great relationship. You love your partner, and the two of you get along really well... until you hit a snag. Now, you've gotten into a huge fight, and you're not sure what to do. Here's the big question: Do you talk to your friends about your relationship? You may be surprised to find that the answer is no. Talking to your friends about your relationship is actually not the best idea sometimes.

My husband and I are big believers in keeping our marriage sacred. That doesn't mean we're religious or subscribe to a particular religious school of thought for our marriage. It just means we believe our marriage should be something that's set apart from all of the other things in our life. It means we like to keep our marriage safe and protected.

Because of that, my husband and I decided very early on we weren't going to talk to our friends or family about our relationship, especially any disagreements. Luckily, my husband and I have one of those sickening relationships where we don't argue about anything, but even if we did, we'd be keeping it to ourselves.

Traditional logic dictates that talking to your friends will help you reduce stress and help you get a third-party eye on your relationship. But traditional logic is BS sometimes, because it can bad for everyone when you only talk to your friends about your relationship problems. Here are six reasons why.

1. Your Friends Only See Your Side

The first, and most obvious reason why you reconsider talking to your friends about your relationship is because they are only going to hear your side. They are going to hear about how your partner is being totally unreasonable and mean, and they likely aren't going to hear about how you both might've contributed to the disagreement you had.

By only hearing your side, not only will your friends not be able to see the full picture, but they'll also probably wonder why you are with someone so crappy at all. And you'll know the truth — that your partner isn't crappy — you were just having a bad day and venting.

2. Your Friends May Give You Terrible Advice

If your friends only hear one side of the issue, they'll probably give advice based on that one side of the issue, which is totally understandable. And if they do, that advice will probably be a little flawed, based on the fact that they don't know the whole story.

They also may give self-serving advice, sometimes without even realizing it. For example, if they're jealous that you are in a successful relationship, they may subconsciously try to sabotage it. On the lighter, more probable end, though, they could also give advice that would be geared toward seeing you more, especially if you've been MIA for a little while.

3. Your Friends May Not Want To Be In The Middle

The simplest reason to think twice about talking to your friends about your relationship is, well, because, they may not want to hear it. If things are going badly, but your friends know and love your partner, they may not want to say anything harmful and be put in the middle.

No matter what the situation, though, constantly talking to your friends about your relationship problems can put them in an awkward spot that they may be really irritated to be in. Try not to put them in that spot.

4. Your Friends Could Develop A Really Negative View Of Your Partner

Let's be honest: Even though some of us share the good things in our relationships, most of us only talk to our friends about our relationships when things are going wrong. And if your friends hear about things going wrong again and again, they'll start to develop a negative view of your partner. And that will really suck.

No matter how great your partner is, as long as you keep talking to your friends about the problems in your relationship, your friends will keep seeing your partner in a negative light. And then, when you want your friends and your partner to get along, you'll wonder why they actually hate each other. Don't create this drama. Instead, just keep your friends out of your relationship issues.

5. It Could Keep You From Talking To Your Partner About Issues That Come Up

When you talk to your friends about a problem you are having, they might help you solve it. If they do, you might feel good about your relationship and not feel the need to talk about the problem anymore. What's the problem with this problem? Well, that you never talked to your partner about it.

All great relationships are built on communication and by talking to your friends instead of your partner, you take that communication away. Even if something has been resolved, you should still be talking to your partner about it, so they can be clued in about what's going on in the relationship.

6. It Might Weaken Your Relationship

The most important reason not to run to your friends about your issues in your relationship is because doing so can weaken it.

This goes back to my desire to keep my marriage sacred. My husband and I didn't want to let other people in to see the vulnerabilities of our relationship because other people aren't us. They don't know how much we love each other, they don't know the intricacies of our emotions, and they don't know how much we value our marriage.

In the same way, opening up your relationship to other people's thoughts and judgments has the ability to weaken it. It adds cracks in your relationships that don't need to be there. So go out of your way to keep your relationship sacred, and take care of your issues with your partner — not with the rest of the world.

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