Friendships After Marriage

It may seem a bit premature for me to discuss friendships after marriage, given the facts that neither am I getting married in the near future, nor do I have friends who'd mind continuing friendship with me after marriage (either way). Still this would throw some light on an intriguing topic which my kind of people usually hesitate to discuss. Bluntly speaking, this is for some of my Significant Others who are getting married soon or who got married in the recent past.

The title itself is misleading. It should be Friendships After Wedding. Marriage, as people think, is not exactly the ceremony in which two people of the opposite sex (atleast in the contemporary context), agree to be husband and wife. The ceremony is literally called Wedding. The state of remaining husband and wife is literally called Marriage.

Back to square one, you hate it or love it, Marriage is a lifestyle change. You just can't remain yourself once you're married. Your Day-to-day life will change; your attitude towards life will change. Not that I mean your entire perspective of life will change. I mean, you'll get to see an altogether different dimension of life that you can't afford to ignore.

I've seen people (I say: people, not friends; no offences meant though) enjoying life to the same extent how they did before the wedding. But, do they enjoy it in the same way? Don't they miss the stochasticity of the life they experienced while they were single? These are some questions only married people can answer. I'm just being desperate to make my blog interactive and participative. I think I've partly succeeded in this attempt.

How does John Doe feel after his bosom friend (male) got married? Is the married guy as accessible as he was earlier? Every good thing has its own pitfalls. So let's ignore the extent of accessibility. However, is he still as much friends as he was?

What makes things complicated is a platonic relationship. Can the relationship still continue to be as intimate as it was? For the uninitiated, platonic means, free from sensual desire. It also means, a relationship between people of opposite sex.

Guy-to-guy and girl-to-girl friendships might invoke only the surface level temperatures of a marriage. It is usually the platonic relationships that invoke the real red-hotness. It is the one which provokes the possessiveness of the individuals.

Early tremors in friendships-after-wedding can always be mended, provided, the individuals are open-minded and proactive. We are looking for the potential earthquakes and the tsunamis that can wreak havoc in marriages. See, how I've taken the early tremors for granted. In most cases, it is the early tremors that signal the possibilities of an earthquake. Individuals tend to overlook the early signals. We can't do anything about it. Overlooking individuals deserve their fate.

What if there were no early tremors. What if the individuals pretend to be sportive about their spouse's friendships? Are we to really be proactive and go out of the way to do the balancing act? I mean, I'm no Jack Kennedy. I'm normal.

I'm really sorry that I've been looking so far at things from the married's side. How does John Doe actually feel? It is the married person who reaps the benefits of doubt. John Doe, naturally, gives the married person leeway and waits for things to return to normal ways. Still, human tendency to invoke
doubts when things change, brings the most-important-of-all doubt: Will it actually return to normal ways?

It is a happy-go-lucky affair when it comes to rebonding with friends. Friendship after all means, to steal Erich Segal's words, never having to say you're sorry. See, I took friends for granted as well.

I could not do justice to both ways of looking at things. Ironically, I'm the one who should be talking more about being John Doe. Hmm, things would soon change. I swear.

Glossary
stochasticity - the quality of lacking any predictable order or plan

Don't miss the next post narrating a real-life experience by my Guest Author Raja