5 Really Good Things That Can Be Bad for Your Marriage

3. Friendships

I love hanging out with my girlfriends, and I have the privilege of doing so on a weekly basis. However, I know there must be balance there as well.

All too often, Dave and I have counseled couples who have allowed time with friends to usurp time spent with their spouses, or they let their friends govern their marriage. Unfortunately, some of those marriages ended in divorce. We are greatly influenced by our friends, so we must choose them wisely. We must also realize that we cannot put any friendship ahead of our friendship with our spouse. Our spouse should be our best friend. We can certainly have close friendships, but we shouldn’t spend more time with our friends than we do with our spouse and family.

If we find that we can be more honest and open with our friends than our spouses, then we need to lean away from spending so much time with that friend and lean into spending more time with our partner. We are keeping ourselves from having the intimate marriage that God wants for us when we spend more time with our friends and allow them to know our deepest thoughts and feelings instead of our spouse. So, yes, let’s spend time with our friends–but not let that time exceed the time we spend with our spouse.