Married Women Use Their Single Friends As Emotional Dumpsters

A thankless job

A phenomenon I’ve noticed is the emotional abuse of single women at the hands of their married friends.

Follow my argument.

Well, we can even apply this to partnered friends in general but for the sake of the conversation let’s stick to married women for now.

Your married friend calls you in confidence with her life and marital woes, and like the friend you are — you maintain your presence and provide your feedback (as best as you know how). She does not listen to you, of course, and continues on the path she already decided (which negates the purpose of the phone call).

Hours of phone time wasted. Multiple occasions of needing to take an Advil to soothe the headache her emotional dumping has induced. Several paragraphs of relationship trauma dumping your eyes have read. Thousands of miles in gas and air travel mileage dedicated to journeying for home visits to make sure she was safe and supported.

Then — she goes quiet. A simply loud indicator that all is well in her marital home and you are not needed anymore.

You are good enough to be used for labor in a crisis and in your married friend’s hard moments, but when things are going well you are not good enough to be remembered.

The selective amnesia is astounding.

Funny enough — your married friend does not exercise her same abuses on her fellow married friends.

Hmm. Interesting.

One would think the married women in the group would be her first source of support — but no, you are.

And that is because women respect other women who are romantically partnered to men. They are seen as being “seriously occupied”. Consequently, their time cannot be wasted because it is valuable and precious. They have relationships duties.

Meanwhile. The single friends are seen as available and legitimate candidates for emotional dumping because they don’t have anything serious (i.e. “a man”) to be dedicating their time to. They are treated like emotionally errand boys for their married female friends.

On one hand married women, without fail, let their single friends know that they are at a different life stage and one day the single friend “will get it”.

Okay — so the single ladies can’t relate. Got it.

Then on the other hand that same married friend will run to that same single friend for emotional support.

Wait. I thought the single friend “can’t relate”? So, why that the friend you are running to for support then?

There is a disconnect, and that is because these types of relationships are emotionally abusive and draining. It is parasitic.

Women act very strange when they become romantically partnered and their platonic relationships suffer because of it. Funny enough — you don’t see men have this same distorted reality. A man is not going to give up his social circle, or navigate life with a “married vs non-married” hierarchy. This is why you hear women complain about their husbands “going out with the boys” — because the men do indeed still hang out with their boys irrespective of their relationship status. Their world does not drop because a woman has entered it. You can complain all you want — but men will still make time for a life outside of their partner and maintain respect for their friends, irrespective of the marital status. Can’t say the same for women though.

Women are not good candidates for friendship because they fail to de-center men. So, when we see a woman say that she “has no (female) friends” — it may not be because she’s a hater or the problematic one. Perhaps she’s seen enough problems with women and how fickle the relationships are once a man pops in the picture and she has decided it’s no longer worth pursuing. It’s an energy conservation tactic.

So what can be done?

Boundary wise — I recommend observing patterns and noticing how your body is responding to certain people’s cries for help. If there is the continuous cat and mouse game whereby on a bad day they need you and on a good day they don’t — dump them. If you express your concern and it isn’t taken up seriously then the friendship is automatically terminated. People have bad moments, but it’s another thing to have a bad habit.

I’m not saying all female friendships are doomed. I’m just saying most women love romantic relationships more than themselves, so there is a limitation in how good a friend they can be to you.

Xoxo,

Victoria Achieng’