Are you more in love with toxic friends than your husband? TRACEY COX reveals how juries of judgmental pals are ruining marriages – and how to stop yours meddling

Let’s be honest here; For many women, their emotional proximity with friends can be deeper than they share with their partners.

For this reason, your girlfriends are those who hear every complaint about your relationship, see the text ‘O’ and decide whether it is ‘good enough’.

This is a strengthening dynamic; You have a collective review system to protect you! However, the fact that your friends have too much say over your love life can sabotage your relationships.

Thanks to group chats and social media, we now carry out our relationships like reality shows; A jury of girlfriends is also waiting to contribute.

We send the screenshots of the texts for the analysis. Send voice notes for dissection. ‘Am I giving excessive reaction?’ you ask. And the group decides.

It makes you feel supportive. However, this also means that your relationship is emotionally yours, but also that your friends guide.

We make a decision from the outside, and when we trust our friends to interpret every movement of our partner, we lose our connection with our own natural instincts.

‘My friends left him before me’

Farah, 33, says his friends have destroyed a promising relationship before he starts.

I met Dan on vacation. He was magnificent, funny and gentle. However, when I sent the photos to my friends, they said that he looked ‘very stylish’ and gave ‘player energy’.

‘They examined everything: how quickly they texted, which emojis used, they poured into their social media and found that they came out with a model years ago. The decision was ‘player’.

‘I questioned everything and maybe decided that he wasn’t ready for something serious.’

Although the instinctive instinct wanted to see where this would reach, he ended it. ‘A year later, I saw that he was engaged to someone else and then married.

“Leave it!” The friend who leads his operation! Night war, ‘Oh, maybe sincere’ he said. I was angry. I would let them discourage me from something that could be great. ‘

Farah’s story is common. In the 2023 Relalate questionnaire, one of the four women admitted that even if they were not sure that their friends were right, they ended a relationship because their friends did not approve.

Why do we value the views of our friends?

There is a reason why we trust our friends so much.

Female friendship is incredibly sincere and emotionally rewarding; It is often more than romanticism.

Thanks to Tracey, group chats and social media, we are now carrying out our relationships like reality shows; A jury of girlfriends is waiting to join, dedi he said. Stock Image

If we cannot trust our love relationships, it makes sense to give priority to friendships that will continue. After all, if we do not follow the advice of our friend, we will face the risk of offending it, and where will we be when another relationship fails?

Thus, we share our secrets, fears and all interesting details. It is a safe and confirming feeling that our relatives approve every movement of his movement; However, there is nothing other than that.

Friends are good intentions, but their advice is never neutral. They bring their own baggage, prejudices and predictions.

The deceived friend can see red flags where there are no red flags. Your single friend is interested in keeping you unconsciously or consciously as a wing friend.

Some can clearly see their friends, take their personal background into account, and arrange them before removing any crumb of wisdom. But if you feel insecure, you will tend to submit to them instead of trusting your own decisions.

‘I was almost leaving my husband because my friend constantly showing his flaws’

42 -year -old Katrina told me that her best friend would almost ruin her marriage. ‘I would tell him we were arguing, and he would say,’ You deserve better ‘. You surpassed it ‘. It was good intentions but eliminated how I saw

husband. I started to examine the flaws by comparing him with my ex -girlfriend (my friend admired) and looking for evidence that he was right. ‘

In the end, Katrina realized that she focused on proving that her friend was right or unfair rather than solving the problems in her marriage.

‘When I stopped sharing every fight and giggling with him, things healed dramatically. Instead of ‘my husband is not worthy of me’, I changed my thought to ‘my husband is a good man and I am lucky to have him’.

‘This allowed me to treat him differently and to see his positive aspects, not his flaws. We are in good condition right now. ‘

Even supportive friends can have a destructive effect when they are given too much power.

How can I prevent friends from mixing?

At the end of my 40s, I went through a period where I was single and was not very successful with men. I started to doubt my own decisions – then I noticed that the problem was that I could trust the decisions of others.

I had a bad habit of introducing men to my friends too early. If the third appointment went well, the next appointment would be with a laser -oriented friend, according to him, the task of deciding whether the man was worth chasing.

If the decision was no, there was no other date. At first ‘wow! I ran away from a bullet there! ‘ But more and more ‘Will anyone be good enough?’ The question began to emerge.

I put myself a new rule: don’t introduce anyone to my friends until I make my own decision. Give it three months.

I met my current husband shortly later, and when he was full for three months, he was introduced in a completely different way.

‘What do you think about him?’ It wasn’t. It was someone I really liked and I thought I could have a future together ‘.

Surprise, surprise. They thought it was perfect and so. Therefore, the number one rule …

Decide what you think before you get the ideas of others.

Three months almost right time: a good time to have a good idea about someone.

Choose only one or two friends to share. Who is your most calm, most insightful friend? Is it who manages his own life well and made balanced decisions?

Carefully choose your confidants: your best friend can be too protective to provide objective insights.

Keep some things special. All speeches, moments and emotions do not need to be shared and divided into pieces.

Excessive sharing destroys the feeling of ‘you and me against the world’, the spell of falling in love with someone.

To create a deep proximity, you only need secrets that you and your partner shared.

Set the limits. If a friend constantly criticizes or undermines your relationship, tell him that it is useless. A good friend will respect it; The controller will sulk.

Sold yourself with happy couples. Research proves that couples socializing with other happy couples tend to have more permanent and satisfactory relationships.

You learn from successful behaviors and imitate them. In the unhappy matches, hang out with your friends and learn to look at your partner critically.

Trust your intestines. Good advice allows you to act. Bad advice changes your decision with theirs.

Details, products, recommendations and book information of Tracey’s Podcast can be found at traceyCox.com.