My wife and I have been married for about 3 years and a disturbing trend began after a few months of marriage. She always seemed to be great around my friends and enjoyed their company, etc. but after we got married she has slowly, a little bit at a time, tried to detach us from those people who were my friends. We spend a lot if time with her family, much less with mine, and whenever it comes time to see those people who were my closest friends before we married, she seems to find some excuse. First it was an unrelated excuse "I'm tired..., I don't feel well..., I have too much work to do.." but then she dropped even that pretense and just stated that she doesn't really feel like seeing them. It seems as though she pretended to like them and as soon as I made the committment, the real wife came out. I saw an episode of Ally McBeal once where a psychiatrist was being interviewed about marriage, and she said was that when a woman marries a man, what she really wants to do is "re-dress him, re-make him, and cut him off from all of his friends.." What's going on here? I've been kidnapped.

I can think of a couple of possibilities, but of course only your wife can say for sure. Have you tried asking her?<P>1. She never really liked these friends, but wanted to spend time with YOU. Spending time with them was the price of admission, so to speak. (Dr. H discusses this in HNHN, I think, in the chapter on Recreational Companionship.)<P>2. These friends were more appropriate to an unmarried couple than a married couple. You (both) go through a lot of changes when you get married. You have more responsibilities, different goals. Sometimes your friends don't keep up, and you find yourself looking for more compatible companions.<P>Talk it over. Does she never want to see these people again, or is once in a while ok? Can you agree to get together with these friends for YOU, and then do something SHE really likes another time? <P>