Here are some of my recommendations:
1.) Resist the urge to immediately go all in on a new relationship. Not to say that you can’t certainly be excited about the new guy or girl, but make sure that your new potential mate will be around longer than 6 weeks, before you immediately start blowing off your friends.
2.) Include your friends in your plans. This is important, because your friends will recognize and appreciate the fact that you still want to hang out with them, although there’s a new Sheriff in town. It will also allow you to have a different set of eyes on your new catch that could possibly help to validate or negate that the guy is truly the person for you. Let your friends check out his friends that will either build confidence in your relationship knowing that his boys are solid or show warning signs that they’re bad news. Friends are a reflection of the person you’re dating.
3.) Check in often with your friends. Whether it’s a phone call or a text, checking in will truly let them know that you haven’t forgotten about them and make them feel special. Make sure that the conversation is not all about you and your new relationship. But the focus should be on what’s happening in your friend’s life.
The Newly Engaged/Newly Wed Relationship
The resistance not to change is probably at its highest when someone first gets engaged or married. I personally think that this resistance to change falls more into a guy’s wheelhouse, because as the saying goes, “Boys just want to be boys”. The problem here is that men just want to continue to do the things that they’ve done prior to getting engaged and married. Social activities such as playing golf with the fellas, watching the game and drinking beers with the fellas, going clubbing until 3 am in the morning with the fellas, working out with the fellas, playing basketball with the fellas, and/or just chilling on the couch all day with the fellas. Do you see the pattern here? All or most of their activities include the fellas, probably to the dismay of their significant other. On the flipside, the expectations of the fiancée or wife could be to spend more time with her and less time with the fellas. Skipping out on watching college football all day on a Saturday, at least one weekend could be all she wants. This is a tough one, because both sides have legitimate beef. Someone once gave me some great pre-marital advice, which was it’s important that both people continue to do social things that they did before they were married, even after they’re married. This includes hanging out with your boys or your girls, watching the game, getting manicures and pedicures, or even taking long bike rides.