Healthy Couple Friendships make Marriages Exciting

Couples who make friends with other couples are more likely to have an exciting marriage. This may surprise some who think finding a great pal in your life partner is there is the only factor responsible for a happy married life. According to a study, when couples agree on how they should spend their time alone and with others, their relationship or marriage is more likely to be happy.

This research was conducted by co-authrors Geoffrey Greif, DSW, MSW, professor at the University of Maryland School of Social Work, and Kathleen Holtz Deal, PhD, MSW, associate professor at the Maryland School. They have based their conclusions after taking interviews of 123 couples when they were together, 122 people when they were alone, and 58 divorcees. They were asked questions about their relationship.

Different motivations were found behind couples’ friendships with other couples. Some people prefer to share emotions while others look at it in terms of fun and recreation. The ways the friendships get started also vary, with the majority growing out of a typical friendship between two people that widens to encompass all four.

In a particular case, the friendship of a couple with 5 other couples lasted for 30 years. They shared their vacations, social events, and just a lot of time with each other. This has made the couple comfortable in discussing anything with the group. Bad times and good times are shared while they meet each other at a church. The couples express that their couple friends have turned out to be a huge influence in their lives.

The experiences of some couples who made friends with other couples are:

• They feel very comfortable about their friendship.
• It made them understand how friendships begin and how it can be maintained.
• Partners were attracted more to each other if they are present in the company of others.
• It improved the couples’ understanding of men and women.
• It helped partners to know the right ways of interacting with each other to bridge the gap of differences.

The variations in the way the friendships start vary. In the majority of the cases, the general trend was that partners grow weary of each other’s typical friendship and gradually widened to include four. It was clear from the findings of the research that long-term friendships that couples make with other couples helps to strengthen their own relationship in many ways.

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