I got married at 27, a fairly young age in my group of friends.
When I returned from my honeymoon, I suddenly felt like a pariah. You can’t deny it – people treat you differently once you’re married.
Invitations to girls-night-outs slowed to a trickle. When you strike up a conversation with a man (even in a 100% platonic manner), people give you strange looks. Dinners with single friends became less and less common as dinners with other couples seemed to become more typical and expected.
Do I no longer like to have fun? Am I a different person from the one pre-marriage?
Now that I am pregnant, the loneliness has grown even more severe.
The majority of my friends are still single, let alone expecting a child. They treat me like a fragile egg or avoid me altogether. Happy hours and thirsty Thursdays have been replaced with my sitting at home, going through pictures on Facebook of my friends having fun without me.
Of course I know that I cannot drink. But who says I can’t join them with a virgin cocktail? An invitation would at least be appreciated.
I am not stupid. I know that this pregnancy is a life-changing event. I know that I cannot do many of the things I once took for granted.
I know that my life will never be the same again.
But is it too much to ask to be included again? To not be treated like a leper?
Did anyone else feel left out after getting engaged or married? How about after finding out you’re pregnant? How did you deal with it?
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Aw girl I’m so sorry to read this. I think it depends on your friends. I’ve been married for 9 months now and still enjoy girls-nights-outs and striking up convos with handsome men is still a fun pastime. Hey, it’s just a conversation. It’s nice to meet new people.
I have heard of it getting lonely when you get pregnant though, and all my friends have said that the key is to seek out other pregnant girls. Yes it would be nice to share it with your besties but as a bestie on the empty-uterus side, I can honestly say that although we love you and support you and are (usually) willing to listen to you, no, we don’t “get” it. The plus side of meeting other expectant mothers is that the bonding is super fast (or so I hear).
Anyway, we still love you. You’re still “Jenny” – belly or no belly. 🙂
People are wierd.
I also heard that people in couples tend not to invite single people to their parties, so they won’t feel alone, but it makes them feel even more elone. That’s just stupid and rude.
My situation, however, is pretty much the opposite. I’m in IT, just married at 23. Friends are not married, but it’s wayyy easier to see them when we travel home together with my husband. I was pretty much left aside when I was living with my parents, a bit far from the city center, and BF would have to drive me at night and therefore could not drink.
I think the best thing to do is to try inviting them yourself. Good luck with that! 😉
Oh honey, I know exactly what you are going through! I was 20 when I was pregnant! Then, I was a 21 year old single mom. Lonely, lonely, lonely. However, things get better. Other friends got married/got knocked up and suddenly, I was the expert! I learned a lot about myself (and found out that I’m sort of a loner anyway!) It still hurts that your friends seem to have forgotten you exist!
Jenny,
This happened to me after I got married, but it also happened to my husband as well. He’s not as affected by it as I am (“people just grow older and apart,” he says), but it upsets me to see his friends don’t call him anymore. I’m not sure why – I encourage him to go out, they just don’t invite him. I don’t know if it’s their issue or what, but it’s certainly not mine.
As for me, I have a small handful of regular pals (4 or so) that I can hang with on a regular basis. Everyone else I’ve outgrown or they just stopped calling. I agree with your friend Kasia – seek out other pregnant girls that you can make a connection with.
Aww Jenny I’m sorry you feel lonely! I can relate — I got married over 2 years ago at 22 (I think I was the youngest Bee then!), so we were definitely early birds there! I don’t think I ever had a set “group” of girlfriends — I just have close friends from different walks of life, but most aren’t mutual friends. I still keep in touch and consider them close to me, but I am blessed that I share with them the type of friendships that are pretty low maintenance. I honestly am used not much regular contact from them, and the rare (usually one-on-one) hangout when our schedules allow. I think it was really just time that helped me accept this as a good and even a positive thing.
The pregnancy has added a extra “layer” of difference between our peers and us that I’ve felt more keenly since we made it public at 14 weeks. What has helped me most is 1) talking to other pregnant gals or young mothers and 2) for both J and I, we find ourselves hanging out with “older” people in the same stage of life more than our same-age peers, many whom are single career people.
Bottom line is, I feel your pain — feel free to chat w/ or email me anytime! I’m not that much farther along pregnancy-wise than you are, and through reading your blog, I feel like we have a lot in common — so we can commiserate and celebrate together. 🙂
I’ll comment from the “other” side, the side of the friend of the girl getting married, and I can tell you Jenny, it’s difficult. Suddenly you feel everything is different, it starts from the moment of the engagement, your friend starts talking about nothing but the wedding stuff, researching wedding dresses, wedding sites, wedding everything. And you? you don’t understand anything about it.
Then the stress of it, and then the talk about the honeymoon… it takes a little time for everything to get into place again, for your friends to adapt, but it happens. The problem is… that you went all the way to fast. Now your pregnant and it’s something that your friends will have to adapt to too. Give them time, invite then to your place to play some board games, show them that you are still the same girl.
Good Luck!
Totally feel you on this one! Though I am not pregnant, when we began talking about getting married, my oldest and best friend of 20 some odd years was actually mean enough to announce that she couldn’t be friends with me anymore if I was “going to go off and be one of those boring married people”. It stung like hell, but I realized at the end of the day that someone who couldn’t be happy and supportive for me wasn’t really a friend after all.
But to give your friends the benefit of the doubt, maybe, as none of them have been pregnant before, they are not being intentionally mean but are just not sure of your pregnant lady limitations. In this case, I say you initiate something with them and see how it goes. 🙂
In any case big hugs to you and congratulations again on Tater Tot!
I find that behaviour strange, because I’ve never treated my married friends differently. To me, they’re the same as before. Just married.
Same with pregnant friends — I don’t have any in the city now with me, but I’d invite them out anyway… 😐
This post really struck a chord with me. One of my best friends has slowly started to ditch me more and more for her single friends, event though I’m totally capable of going out. Being married does not mean you’re dead! And now that we’re talking about children, it’s getting worse. Want to hang out with me? 🙂
I can relate to this post. I’m 23 weeks pregnant and before I was always out socialising with friends but now its like I don’t even exist. I have actively tried to arrange meet ups etc but they are always cancelled at the last minute only to be replaced with drunken singles nights. I recently suspended my studies at uni due to pregnancy insomnia and I literally spend all my time alone at home online it makes me miserable and resent my wonderful partner if he even goes for a beer once a week. It feels like a betrayal from my friends as I know I would always make the time for them if the situation was flipped. I live in a city away from my family so sometimes I feel totally alone.