My husband has had some of the same friends since he was in Kindergarten. He’s made other friends over the years, but a handful of them have remained consistent. I like to consider them my friends too, and really we’re all family. Over the years, some people he’s met growing up have come and gone, and some have been not the best influences. Early on when we were dating, he was hanging around 2 guys in particular who weren’t up to much good, and they were negative influences. He’s since distanced himself from those 2.
Now, there’s a new bunch of guys he’s been hanging around who are also not the best influences. Some a year or 2 older, some a year or 2 younger. Maybe I have a bias towards his long time friends, but I just don’t get a good vibe from these guys. They’re not in school, they don’t have jobs, they’re not in committed relationships. They just hang out and make music all day.
One of the guys in particular, I think, is really not a good person to hang out with. It’s clear he has a problem with drinking, and even my husband has brought this to my attention and confronted him about it. However, they’ve been hanging out a lot, and it seems like he may be influencing him in a negative way. My husband isn’t really speaking to me, he’s ignoring calls from my brother (who my husband originally was working on music with), and he’s just been acting ridiculously strange.
I don’t want to say anything because I know he’ll see it as nagging, but I think these “friends” are bad news. I don’t know if they’ve been in his ear about being married or what, but it bothers me that he spends so much time with them, one of the biggest recurring arguments of ours (him spending time with them vs. me).
Have you ever experienced your spouse hanging out with the wrong crowd? How did it affect your marriage? How did you handle it?
Yeah. He doesn’t hang out with the real bad ones anymore, but he’s still in that sort of area, you know – not too far removed. And generally, I’m not super impressed by the calibre of his friends – they’re nice enough but they’re kind of slackers and I think drag him down – I think you also need friends who inspire you to balance it out, which he doesn’t have. I think he likes feeling superior, to be honest – he says it’s about loyalty, but in reality most of his friendships past school have been quite transient – his friend groups have changed a few times in the past few years. His latest friends he’s been hanging out with he wants to intvite to our wedding if we have space, but I just don’t think they’ll be in our lives a couple of years from now.
When I read it, my first thought was: if you don’t like them, tell him about that and explain why. But on the other hand… as you said, it would look like nagging especially when you didn’t like his previous friends. I read your blog regularly and I understand you have “not-so-good” time now so you don’t want to put too much pressure on him. But have you thought about meeting new people/old-friends together who are, you know… more “inspiring”? Without instructing them after all and all these discussion about how it was valuable time? I think that sometimes our problem (I’m talking about girls;) is that we want/have to/must discuss everything. But sometimes it’s not needed. Our men are smart and they’ll know that without us talking all the time. If he spends so much time with them, have you thought about doing something fun and interesting together? Something that he’ll find more cool than hanging out with them? When I had this problem in my relationship, my boyfriend after few months admitted he was just “running away” from our problems, me talking all the time about them and trying to discuss everything. I wish you
all the best and I hope he’ll find this good way soon
I’m blessed to be able to say that my hubby is a great judge of character, and he has some awesome friends that I have grown to love as well. I can say that if I did have a problem with the people that he hangs with I’d definitely bring it up. Nagging or not, if my husband is being negatively influenced and it’s directly affecting our household and relationship, we would definitely have a few conversations about it. I would say, just approach him knowing in your mind that you can’t force him into or out of anything. He has to make the decision to surround himself with greatness. His association is something that he has to want to change.
But yeah, let your voice be heard… lol. Don’t be afraid to tell him what you need/want/think just because it may come off as naggy. Just do it in a way that reminds him that he is still free to make his own decisions.