Marriage and Friendship: Why Your Spouse Can't Be Your Only Friend

Why is it important to have friends outside of marriage?

Lennon and Christal Noland discuss the vital role of friendships outside of marriage on the Home and Marriage Podcast. They explore personal anecdotes and popular book and TV friendships, emphasizing the need for these relationships in enhancing marital and personal well-being. The Nolands highlight challenges and stages of friendships during different life phases, and offer practical advice on maintaining and prioritizing friendships. They also address the importance of supporting your spouse's friendships and how to actively seek new connections. Listeners are encouraged to take risks, put friendships on their calendars, and pray for meaningful relationships.

00:00 Welcome to the Home and Marriage Podcast
00:48 Our Budget Home Coffee Shop Era
01:13 The Importance of Friendship in Marriage
01:31 Favorite Book and TV Friendships
02:43 Childhood Best Friends
04:15 Friendship Challenges in Adulthood and Marriage
09:08 Friendship Dynamics in Parenthood
19:08 Making Room for Friendships
21:06 Encouraging Spousal Friendships
23:23 The Power of Scheduling Friendships
24:22 Praying for Friendships
25:43 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Transcript

Lennon: 0:03

This is the Home and Marriage Podcast with Lennon and Christal Noland, where we help couples become better at home and stronger together. We're husband and wife, parents and ministers, and we want God's best for our home and for yours. Well friends, welcome to the show today. Glad that you're with us again. Uh, I'm sitting here. The coffee is brewed. I'm finishing off a cup of of pike in my favorite blue Scots tots mug, which I love so much. Uh, hu What are you drinking over there?

Christal: 0:33

Well, today I poured a cup of coffee and I put some pumpkin cold foam straight out of the can. Nice on top my coffee today to get a little bit of that pumpkin spice latte feel.

Lennon: 0:45

Does it, is it working?

Christal: 0:47

It's good. It's good?

Lennon: 0:48

Yeah. You know, we're obviously in our budget coffee shop era. I said, uh, our budget home coffee shop era. Yeah. So I said I'm finishing off a cup of pie here doing a pumpkin spice latte. But both of these kind of courtesy of Kroger.

Christal: 1:01

Yes. I mean, yeah, it's not the same as maybe our favorite coffee shop, but it scratches the itch.

Lennon: 1:08

It does. And for$6 less a cup.

Christal: 1:10

Yeah.

Lennon: 1:11

And so you can't complain.

Christal: 1:12

Can't complain.

Lennon: 1:13

Well, today we're gonna talk about, the importance of friendship, which might be a bit of a surprising, uh, conversation to have on a home and marriage show. We typically talk about those relationships within the home, but friendships outside of the marriage relationship are actually really important. They really are important. And I think for fun, what if we talked about our favorite, book or TV friendships? Do you have like a favorite that you, you're like, oh, this friendship was so awesome or so cool. I don't know what men think about friendships like that. We definitely think of them differently, uh, a little bit, but I think that my favorite, I would go book and TV because it's the same one.

Christal: 1:53

Okay.

Lennon: 1:53

There's, there's never been a better bromance than Sam and fro.

Christal: 1:57

Oh, that's a good one.

Lennon: 1:58

That's, it's a great example of, of friendship.

Christal: 2:01

Oh yeah.

Lennon: 2:01

Enduring, going through difficulties being there for your broy. I love those guys. Your broy.

Christal: 2:07

Uh, well, so for me, I would say my favorite, this would be a book, but it was adapted into TV and stuff would be Anne of Green Gables. Mm-hmm. I am rereading that book right now and. I love the friendship with Anne and her friend Diane. Before she even meets Diane, she's like thinking this could be my, what she calls bosom friend. And so I think that's just another term for like a really close friendship. Yeah. Someone that knows you in and out, someone that you can tell anything to. And I love their friendships, so that's one of my favorite. Friendships

Lennon: 2:43

that's good. So whenever most people think of like their best friends, we usually end up looking back on childhood. Do you have good memories of a childhood best friend?

Christal: 2:52

Yeah. I feel like too, when you're a kid, it's so much easier making friends, right? You just ask somebody, Hey, you wanna be my friend? And they're like, yeah, I'll be your best friend. Done. And your best friends. And so one of my, best friends, even today, she's one of my close friends, Leeana. We met when we were in like fourth grade and we were both in homeroom together and I remember really wanting to be Leon's friend and we, the teacher even gave us an assignment once to write a paper about who you would wanna like be in their shoes for the day. And for me it was Leona. Yeah. And so I even remember showing Leona that, but pretty shortly after we became best friends and you know, we would ride bikes together. We would hang out all the time at each other's house. And so yeah, that was. That was a really fun friendship too, growing up. Yeah.

Lennon: 3:40

I think my version of that is, um, my friend Landon, of course, still friends today, but we met whenever we were like 11 years old. Yeah. He, he moved in next door, had a cousin over throwing his football in the yard. So me and another kid that lived across the street started throwing a football in his yard. Nobody wanting to be so uncool as to ask the others, do y'all wanna play football? But we ended up playing football together. Ended up becoming great friends. Same things growing up in the nineties, riding bikes, going to the store to get a soft drink. Yeah, all those good memories.

Christal: 4:12

Those was good days right there. I love the nineties.

Lennon: 4:15

So adulthood can bring its friendship challenges, but then as you begin a married life together, friendships can move even further out from the center of our world. And so like what do you think some of the, what are some of those really common challenges to friendship that show up whenever you get married?

Christal: 4:33

I think the first common challenge would be when you're first married, you're in that newlywed stage. It's very normal to just wanna be together in your own little cocoon and, you know, just mm-hmm. Learning about each other and all that. And, and your spouse, like, I know you, you're, you are my best friend. I, I do think sometimes people get stuck in that stage and they forget about their other friendships they had before marriage.

Lennon: 4:57

Because whenever you're at work, you can't wait to get home. And, and I, I remember this for a fact. Yeah. As clear as yesterday. At work, but couldn't wait to get home to you. At the end of the day, we are gonna watch lost. We are going to eat dinner, we are gonna go on a date. We are gonna do something, but it, it's, it was very much me and you and there was really no one else I cared to be involved with more than you during that time.

Christal: 5:21

Aw, you're so sweet.

Lennon: 5:23

Or today,

Christal: 5:26

but you know, honestly, it can't be the only relationship you need. I think that's the key word, is the only friendship you need,

Lennon: 5:33

right? It's the priority relationship. It's most important. It's the rudder of your life. If things aren't good between the two of you. Things aren't good, period. But there's no one relationship, even marriage that is meant to fulfill every single need Yeah. That we have in the relational areas of life. It's just not realistic.

Christal: 5:52

I mean, I'm not going to get my need fulfilled of a shopping friend with you. Unfortunately,

Lennon: 5:58

you will not.

Christal: 5:58

You are not a shopper and so and so That's okay. I've accepted that right after almost 20 years together, but. I might wanna go shopping with some friends or go to a girly type place to eat. And I can't, we don't do that together. I don't force that on you because we have plenty of things. We have fun together. We do together. That's our fun. Right.

Lennon: 6:20

One of the things we've gotten a kick out of is, you know, over the years you've done different women's retreats and gone to different conferences and things like that, and the way that you describe. How women connect with each other when they have time just to sit around and be friends is so foreign to, to guys in what we would do.

Christal: 6:40

Uh, the, The things that mark those retreats are a few there. Here's a few things. One would be we always cry. At those retreats. Now, not every woman loves to cry all the time. So I'm not saying every woman just cried, but for some reason those retreats were a weekend where we would end up crying about whatever, right? That we could do that with our girlfriends. And then another thing that tended to happen is all of our pregnancy birthing stories. I dunno why, but we talk about pregnancy or birthing or you know, like the stuff that you would just talk about with women that you connect with them on and you don't. Get too worried about just talking a lot. Like we can talk,'cause you know, women have a lot more words than men,

Lennon: 7:19

many more words.

Christal: 7:20

So we would just enjoy talking all weekend and we wouldn't get tired. And what about for guys, I mean, what are the common things that guys tend to do when they're together? Like what, what do you see with guys

Lennon: 7:32

Well, I went out of town last week actually just to hang out with a couple of couple of friends just for the day. It was a work day. We are all bosses and so we just met in a neutral spot. Uh, me and a friend from West Texas, from Austin, we get together and so inevitably what we end up doing is we talk a whole lot of. We talk shop. And so we're all working the same field, which is, which is ministry. And so for us, we talk church dynamics the whole time. And this is always funny because I can come back from something like that.

Christal: 8:07

Yeah.

Lennon: 8:08

And you might ask me and. Um, what's going on in Michael's life? How are his girls? Something like that. Gimme

Christal: 8:14

the details I wanna hear all about. It

Lennon: 8:16

never occurs to me to even ask such a question.

Christal: 8:19

Yeah. And that's so funny. We're so different with that. But, but you need your time with guy friends and like if me and you just talk shop all the time, I would feel, oh, I feel drained. I think, and it wouldn't just be fun for me. I know we have times we do. Talk about work, but at some point I'm just done with that. But you, it's amazing. I have seen you with your friends and you guys can talk forever about work. It's so funny. Yeah.

Lennon: 8:44

And so, that's okay. And we need those, we need those specific categories of relationships in our life because it also, we'll talk about this later, but we come back refreshed from that.

Christal: 8:54

That's right.

Lennon: 8:55

That there are even friendship things that I get from you that I don't get from my guy friends.

Christal: 9:00

Yeah.

Lennon: 9:01

And there are friendship things that I get from my guy friends that I don't get from you. That's quite okay.

Christal: 9:06

Yeah, it really is. Well, we also face some challenges during different stages of parenthood. So when you first became a parent and you had that newborn, I remember, You're recovering and you're just getting used to this new baby in your house, so you really are in a different stage and to fit in friendships, like it just takes a little adjustment right to, that's an adjustment period. But kids in different stages. We have to make different, accommodations for that. And sometimes our friendships can really be neglected during those stages.

Lennon: 9:41

Yeah. Because when they're babies, you're all in on helping each other survive. And then they get a little older and you're all in on getting them to their activities and then they become teenagers. You're all in on shuffling them all over the place. And so in each of those spots, you really can have all of your free time. You have work and then you have family. And so we really can end up going in so many different directions that, again, coffee with a friend, nice notion, but win.

Christal: 10:10

We really just think that I don't know how that's gonna work in my life right now. And then I feel like we wake up one day and we realize I don't really have very many friends when that happens. Do you know what I mean? Right.

Lennon: 10:22

Well, it's because we. We give all of our time to things that really demand our attention. There's so many obligations and a good friend, um, even though we need to learn how to make them priority, but they're probably not demanding our attention. They may not be saying, Hey, I feel neglected. And yet when we do neglect that part of our life, something is really missing. I mean, haven't you had some seasons within motherhood, within marriage? The different career moves we've made where you've really felt a void of friendship in your life.

Christal: 10:56

I really did. During the season where we moved from Texas to North Carolina, that was a new state, new people there. We didn't know really anybody there hardly when we got there. So I had,. Two kids when we arrived, and with a few months we had three kids. And so, it got really, uh, lonely. I will just say, and I think a lot of moms feel this way because you are spending your days taking care of your little ones. And you just don't put the priority on a, on friendships in that season sometimes. But for me, I realized being in our house with our kids was like, I gotta get out of the house and I need to be around adults and I need to talk to people. And, so I found, I searched it online. The a local MOPS group, which is Mothers of Preschoolers. Mm-hmm. And there was one at a church nearby. I didn't know anyone at that church at all, but I was so desperate for friendships and other moms that I could connect with and just. You know, just talk about our days, right? And what's happening. And so I went to that MOPS group, and I'll tell you, by the time we ended up moving from North Carolina about three and a half years later, but those were the women that were my friends in that stage of our life. Besides our friend, Stacy and Tracy. Those were the moms that I made friends with and it was really beautiful and we, we took our kids out to the park, we would meet up, but that, that really gave me an opportunity to make friends.

Lennon: 12:30

Yeah, because we really do, there's something about having friendships that are in a similar stage. If you are a dad and you're just trying to figure it out, it, it's nice to talk to another guy who's like, oh gosh, I know. It's like whenever they're so little, they don't even need you. And they have all of all of your wife's attention, and that can be really challenging. You know, those sorts of things are important to hash out with people in a similar age and stage, and that can only happen if we find a way to make it happen.

Christal: 13:00

That's true.

Lennon: 13:01

Which is what you did with the MOPS group.

Christal: 13:03

Yeah, I mean it was a little scary to do that, but I did need to do that. And we'll talk a little bit more about how to do those things if, if you're in that stage.

Lennon: 13:13

So before we do that, if we can just cut away for a second. We had an amazing time yesterday speaking to a group of youth pastors here in North Texas about marriage and family. And we just wanna make a mention here that if you go to home and marriage.com. You'll see the different things we give our time to, but one of them is conferences, seminars, and retreats for local churches. And so if you would like to have us come in to, uh, your church, you can begin that conversation by going to. Home and marriage.com. There's a tab up top that says Contact, and if you click on that button, it'll take you to a form and we can discuss a date. What type of ministry or conference you would like to have, whether it's our six habits of Happy Couples material. Our restoring hope for hurting marriages material, but there are a number of things we can do to, uh, help you have a win for the families and friends at your church. So just go to home and marriage.com, click on contact and begin the conversation. so why don't we hit on a few of the good things that Friendship brings into our lives? Just some of the benefits. I mean, for those of us who are Christians, we've probably heard the scripture as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. So it's very much the case that,, friends, we make each other like better. We just have a good effect on each other.

Christal: 14:36

Yeah. Good friendships Can make us better at marriage and parenthood, right? We need the kind of friends who are gonna speak into our lives and encourage our marriage instead of saying, oh, well you just need to divorce him. You know, we don't need those kind of friends.

Lennon: 14:49

Right.

Christal: 14:50

Or that would just would make it, I guess, encouraging to complain about our spouse all the time. Mm-hmm. Um, also a friend that could. Encourages as moms and dads like, you know what, I've been there. I remember that stage when my kid would not take a nap, and this is what we did. And So Those kind of friends really do help us become better spouses and better parents.

Lennon: 15:13

Which this is a great place to slip into because we know that the type of friends that we have, like we know for our kids, that's important. Yeah. Like I want my kids to hang out with the right kind of people, not just anybody. It's pretty true for adults too, like you're talking about the right type of influence. We need to make time for friends, but not every relationship should be a close and influential relationship.

Christal: 15:37

It's really true. I think that verse in proverbs is just what we need to know to remember when we do choose our friends, it's someone who's gonna sharpen us. Maybe someone who might see a certain situation in a light that we didn't see. I, I even remember a specific example for me. I was taking some things a little personal whenever I was, doing worship at our church and one of my best friends, Peggy, I remember even saying to her, Hey, do you think people are responding this way? And she was like, no, I don't think that's it at all. I don't think you need to take that personal. I really think that's just their personality. And it helped me see things and not take things offensively. She called me out, and it really helped me see it in a better way.

Lennon: 16:21

Well, one of the things we can do is we can be so inside of our own head about anything and everything. We, we can really be trapped inside and not talking to anybody about it. Especially if say, uh, you're in a rough moment with your spouse, well, who else are you going to talk to?

Christal: 16:38

Yeah. And

Lennon: 16:39

so good friends really come in like in the clutch in times like that.

Christal: 16:43

Yeah. Yeah. That is right. And we also need friends that we can tell them anything. Mm-hmm. And I mean, somebody, we can say, listen, I'm really dealing with this. And we're not hiding whatever it is anymore that maybe we're going through. I mean, what if we're dealing with maybe a sin issue and we don't know who to tell. We need to have that friend that we can go to and say, Hey, I'm dealing with this. Mm-hmm. And just getting it out there into the light out of darkness. The power, I guess it holds over us, will will fall away. Right. So it's really important that we have that person that we can say and be real with. I'm dealing with this. Can you pray for me?

Lennon: 17:28

Yeah. Because if you could deal with it yourself, you probably would have. Yeah. And there's so much power that sin loses in our lives whenever we confess it with somebody. It's another proverb in chapter 27 where it says the sweetness of a friend is better than self counsel. Like again, that being trapped on the inside, turning something over in your mind again and again and again. Yeah. We just need to get it out to somebody sometimes. You know, one of my favorite sayings, Hmm. Have you ever, I don't remember where we heard this, but do you have people you reach out to after a diagnosis or before your doctor's appointment?

Christal: 18:04

Oh, yeah. That's a great way to, to think about it.

Lennon: 18:08

Because after a bad diagnosis or tragedy hits, sometimes we find ourselves looking for friends and not knowing how to connect. You know, if you have a friendship, if you're saying, Hey, I have a doctor's appointment coming up that I'm a little worried about.

Christal: 18:21

Yeah. Like you

Lennon: 18:22

need people you can reach out to, like you're saying. While issues are small. Yeah. Or before they become big.

Christal: 18:28

I love that we have those friends in our lives. We even have a married couple friends, Sarah and Landon. And I know for me with Sarah, I really feel like I can tell her anything. And she's not gonna be judgmental or harsh. She's gonna listen and she's gonna encourage me in it. I love that about, about our friendship.

Lennon: 18:46

Yeah. And so if somebody's listening and they're thinking, well, I do want those kind of friends, I don't have those kind of friends, I have no one to, to talk to. Or I, I shoot a message to a friend on social media every once in a while. Um, like, how do you make room for friendship if it's currently something that's. That's lacking in your life?

Christal: 19:08

Well, like they say, people are like onions, right? They have layers. I feel like with friendships, when you're building a new friendship, you take a risk, you maybe you invite someone out to coffee, you kind of share a little bit about. About your life or about who you are. See how they do with that if they seem interested and want to go further in conversation or further in trust, that trust is built. There's just those layers of friendship that will build, but you have to first be willing to take a risk and invite someone into your life.

Lennon: 19:41

And to go back to the MOPS illustration earlier, the MOPS group, like what did that feel like for you? I mean, I imagine you looked it up online. You filled out a contact form and you drove up to a church building you had never seen before.

Christal: 19:55

Yeah, I, I remember driving into the parking lot and my heart was beaten fast because here I am with all three of my kids getting out of the car. I don't know anybody. I don't know, are these people like good people? What kind of people are they? You know, it was definitely. A scary risk, like I said before, but it was such a good decision. I'm glad I risked it. I'm glad I went. I'm glad I didn't just isolate myself and get more sad about not having friends or not knowing people. I was really thankful that I took that step as hard as it can be.

Lennon: 20:28

Yeah, and for guys, it's gonna look a little different here's what CS Lewis says. He says, women connect best face-to-face. Men often connect best shoulder to shoulder, that sometimes it's in the context of doing something else. It may be a colleague at work. It may be joining a city softball team, something like that. But even as men, put yourself in position to be shoulder to shoulder with other men and just see who you connect with. So being willing to take risk is, is a really big one. If you want friends, you must make yourself friendly, and to do that can feel risky. What else?

Christal: 21:06

I feel like as a spouse we can really help our husband or wife with their friendships because we're willing to take one for the team. We're willing to carry the weight of watching the kids for that night so our husband could go out with his guy friends and just have a good time I know for us, we've been very vocal with one another and encouraging each other to have friendships. And so there's been times that you've told me, Hey, why don't you just go out, go call Peggy and y'all go to Target, go do something. And so I think that's a big part of, having friends is just. Encouraging your spouse to have friendships.

Lennon: 21:45

And so in taking one for the team like that doesn't just mean, I guess I'll stay with the kids, or I guess I'll do this. if you are going to go out and hang out with Peggy, I, I can say, Hey, I'm gonna take care of the kids, go have a great time. Or I can say, what am I supposed to feed these heathens? And if I do something like that, I'm gonna make sure, like, you may be leaving the house, but you're not gonna enjoy it. Mm. Because I'm deflating you on your way out the door. So part of helping your spouse enjoy friendships. Whenever you take one for the team, do it enthusiastically. Like, I got this. I'm not a babysitter, I'm a dad. Mm-hmm. I'll keep them alive for a few hours and I'll see you later. Yeah. Like that part's important, right?

Christal: 22:28

Yeah. Do you remember those times where, um, I would be on a women's retreat. Do you remember what those weekends were like? It's a two night retreat, and you were with the kids when they were little. Do you remember those weekends and what did you think about that?

Lennon: 22:44

Well, I knew the UI was going to get back when it was over was gonna be better than the U that left.

Christal: 22:49

Oh yeah.

Lennon: 22:50

Because you were going to be refreshed and have had a good time. And so that didn't mean it wasn't hard. You know, but here's what I honestly told myself in that particular phase, like that's what you did all the time. I had'em by myself for a weekend. But you had'em by yourself every day when I was at work. Mm-hmm. Like this is part of loving one another and helping each other out. Okay, so landing the plane, we're talking about making room for friendship, that we're gonna, we've gotta take risks sometimes. Sometimes we have to take one for the team so our spouse can hang out. And then something else that we do, and we have to get through this quickly because you've done this today, you have a coffee. At two o'clock is to put something on the calendar, put friendship on the calendar.

Christal: 23:36

Yeah. Me and my friend Peggy have kind of a regular coffee time. We do it about every other week. We will get together for coffee and chatting and I love it because it's something I can look forward to. And so I do, I put it on our calendar so you can see it and it makes space just for, for those friendships.

Lennon: 23:55

The busier our lives get, the less we can just assume that some things are gonna happen. And that's the case with romance. And it's also the case with friendships. So put it on the calendar. If you've been talking about a guy's trip to hit a couple of golf courses for three years. Talk with your wife and your friends and put it on the calendar. It will not just happen whether it's a a weekly hangout or a yearly getaway, it won't just happen. Put it on the calendar.

Christal: 24:22

Yeah, and I would say just one more thing for those that maybe you are in a time in your life or just a, a, a phase where you don't find yourself having those friendships you need and having a friend that really you can bear your soul to or that you know, could pray for you and encourage you. I would say pray for those friendships. Because for me, that has been the case at times when we first started pastoring a church, I remember feeling like I needed a good friend, someone that I could trust and talk to, and, that was nearby, you know, so I prayed. That the Lord would provide me a friend. Remember I felt, I think you prayed for me as well during that time.

Lennon: 25:08

I did.

Christal: 25:08

And so the Lord really answered that with my friend Peggy, who I've talked about already a couple times. But he answered that, and I know she has told me before that she was praying for the same thing and that God really answered that prayer for her. And I love how God could bring people into your life that you need in those seasons. And so if you're in that situation, I would encourage you to pray and believe that God will send you friends and, and you do have to make the effort and the time to invite and risk, like we said earlier, risk things.

Lennon: 25:42

That's right. Well, friends, we're gonna call it an episode. That is the lesson of the day, your marriage, it's important, it's priority, and it's not the only relationship that you need. So to connect further with us, don't forget to follow or subscribe, so you never miss an episode. New ones come out every Tuesday, and if today's conversation encouraged you, would you take a moment and leave a review. It'll help others find the show and join our community. You can visit home and marriage.com for more resources, like our Six Habits of Happy Couples Course, and if you'd like us to come speak at your church event, you can schedule us through the website. You can also follow along on Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok. All those links are available in the show notes.

Christal: 26:27

Friends, thank you for joining us on the Home and Marriage Podcast. We really do believe that home can be your favorite place. We'll be back again next week with more encouragement and wisdom to help you become better at home and stronger together.