Can This Friendship Be Saved?

Can your friendship withstand the test of marriage -- your own or your best pal's? That may depend on how much empathy you can muster for the other person's position, says Jan Yager, sociologist and author of "Friendshifts: The Power of Friendship and How It Shapes Our Lives." Here are some tips from Yager and other experts that may improve the odds:

· Be generous. It helps if the single friend understands the pressures a newly paired friend is under: These might argue for get-togethers only twice a month, say, instead once a week as before, says Helen Friedman, an associate clinical professor at the St. Louis University School of Medicine and a clinical psychologist specializing in dating and relationships. It also helps if the married friend stays connected by e-mail or phone if she no longer has time to get together.

· Focus on similarities. It's up to the married friend -- the one who's made the major life change -- to emphasize the bonds that remain, says Beverly Fehr, a professor at the University of Winnipeg and the author of "Friendship Processes" (Sage Publications, 1995). "If they used to like to go shopping together, those are things the newly married friend should make sure they still do," Fehr said.

· Reduce expectations. Single folks need to bear in mind that the first year of marriage is often tumultuous; newlyweds are striving to find a healthy balance in their home and professional lives, and trying to work friends and family in, too. "That time is so unique that you can't really characterize a couple by it," says Robert Milardo, professor of human development and family relationship at the University of Maine.

· Seek out new activities. Friends might consider taking a class together or delving into a new sport -- something that then becomes "their" activity, said Chevy Chase psychiatrist Carol Kleinman. The married friend should not, however, try to draw the friend into the activities she and her new husband are discovering together, unless the single friend expresses an interest.

· Forget perfect-world fantasies. That dream you're harboring that your new husband (or wife) and your longtime friend are going to become the best of buds -- sorry. Chances are they aren't, say relationship experts. "The healthiest arrangement is when couples keep separate friendships as well as forming new joint friendships," said Milardo. "Separate friendships allow them to process things in their life they may not want to process with their spouse."

Then again, mutual friendships can be valuable pressure-relievers for marrieds. Explained Milardo, "Seeing your spouse be funny and charming with friends reminds us that that person is not just the guy who forgot to take out the garbage last night."

-- Suz Redfearn