The Cut recently published an article called “My Husband Has No Friends” and it reminded me of a newsletter I wrote a few years ago on the link between friendships and better sex.
So for our second Quickie, Birna and I broke it down.
The numbers are bleak:
15% of American men now say they have zero close friends, up from 3% in 1990.
64% of married men name their wife as their best friend. Fewer than half of wives say the same about them.
We lose half of our close friends every seven years, and many of us aren’t forming new ones nearly as quickly as we transition through our 30s and beyond.
While most adults were satisfied with the amount of friends they had, 40% of them wish they felt closer to their friends.
The Harvard Study of Adult Development—the longest study on human happiness—found that the number one predictor of wellbeing is the strength of our relationships.
Think about the last time you spent an afternoon catching up with a close friend. You probably walked away thinking, “Why don’t we do this more often?” Good friends feed the soul. They tether us to meaning.
As my friend Cat Meyer wrote in her substack:
“When we have strong friendships, we release the unrealistic expectation that one person should be our everything. Our therapist, lover, best friend, cheerleader, co-parent, spiritual companion, and roommate. That’s too much weight for any one relationship to hold.
Friendship gives us a web of care. It allows us to spread out our needs…This doesn’t diminish the importance of a romantic relationship, it strengthens it. It allows that partnership to be what it is, rather than forcing it to be what it’s not.”
So as we discussed this article, we thought of the impact this has on desire. Turns out, a big one.
Here are the main takeaways:
He had friends when you met him
Almost every woman in the article tells the same story. When she started dating her husband, he had people. He was fun. Then came the routine of married life, the kids, and he let it all go.
Birna’s read is that men never learned friendship requires maintenance. Women are socialized to tend to their friendships; men are socialized to assume theirs will survive neglect.
Three years later, reaching out feels so awkward that most of them don’t.
For a lot of men, marriage is the first truly intimate relationship they’ve ever had. They finally feel seen, and they conclude that one person is enough.
Men don’t know they’re lonely
Julie Menanno, who wrote Secure Love, makes the case that men are so disconnected from their emotional needs that loneliness doesn’t register as loneliness. It shows up as irritation. Aggression. Working harder. Pulling away from the wife who is, by then, his only friend.
If you’re reading this and thinking of a man who has gotten shorter with you over the years, this is worth questioning before you assume the problem is you.
Asking why something happened is not gossip
When a friend opens up, men have a hard time with the follow-up questions. Like, well, why did they divorce?
Men can treat it as prying. But whether your friend was cheated on, or drained a joint account, or simply drifted changes how you show up for him.
Curiosity is how you earn the right to be close to someone. Calling it gossip is how men keep each other at arm’s length while complaining they’re lonely.
As Birna said, everybody wants the village. No one wants to be the villager.
The three types of wives
In this scenario, there’s the wing wife, who talks him up at parties because he won’t engage.
The take-flight wife, who physically steers him toward other men.
And the “not now” wife, ten-plus years in, who has given up on his social life altogether and built one of her own.
What I question about the “not now” wife is if she does everything alone, what is holding the marriage together besides tolerance?
A partner with no friends is hard to desire
Fire needs air, as Esther Perel has been saying it for twenty years. Desire requires a little distance, a little mystery, a self that exists outside the relationship.
A man whose entire world is you is not mysterious. He’s dependent. And the moment you start managing him, you are mothering him, and there is nothing less sexy than that.
Joy is an aphrodisiac
Hanging out with friends reminds you of who you are, and like I mentioned earlier, it feeds the soul. I personally come back home more excited, fulfilled and inspired.
These small pleasures are not separate from our sexual selves—they replenish them.
Are you experiencing this in your relationship? How does it feel? If you’re a man with no friends, what would it take for you to put yourself out there again? Let us know in the comments!