The pink-tinted world after marriage comes with a drawback of shrinking friends circle as the couple end up socialising mostly with common friends — for better or worse

When the “other” becomes “the world personified” and your life shrinks into the four walls of your home, you realise you are taken in by the vows of the holy institution. "I am a good friend to my husband. I have tried to make my marriage vows mean what they say. I show up. I listen. I try to laugh," quotes Anna Quindlen in - A Short Guide to a Happy Life.

And though the vows don't exactly spell it out, amongst the many adjustments that marraige calls for is that of a restricted personal social life, a shrinking social circle once ‘we’ gains dominance over ‘I’.

Tejshree Shridhar who got married eight months back, says, “The structure of my socialising has changed a great deal after I tied the knot. Before I got married, I could call up and hang out with friends or even show up at their houses anytime I felt like. We could just sit and shoot the breeze aimlessly doing nothing. After marriage, everything became task oriented. I started finding excuses not to hang out without purpose. Time became more important than ever.”

Not only women, but also men face and undergo the same situation. Anurag Mehndiratta is married to Neha Mehndiratta for three years. He says, “We had a love marriage and my social life shrunk considerably the moment we started dating, I didn’t mind it in the beginning as the initial years of courtship were fun filled, there were so many things we wanted to do together. We could not get enough of each other and not-socializing with friends did not seem to affect our happiness.”

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