I love you, but I hate your friends

(LifeWire) -- Novel nicknames are one thing, but Michelle Dudley deeply resents the one her husband's buddies have given her: "Jason's Whatever."

The moniker neatly sums up the way Dudley says she is dismissed by her husband's friends, who have treated the Belleville, Illinois, woman as practically a nonentity since meeting her three years ago.

For her part, the stay-at-home mom remains stoic -- and avoids the large group of guys that Jason, 27, has known "since he was about 6 years old."

"I've never done anything to them," says Dudley, 31, who believes her tattoos and teenage motherhood branded her as lower-class in their eyes. "They think I'm weird, so I just choose not to go anywhere they're around."

This very common conflict generally plays out when your partner can't stand your friends or vice versa, New York City psychotherapist and couples counselor Debra Burrell says. And couples' reactions can range from eye-rolling resignation to flat-out ultimatums.

"I think it probably happens at some point to 100 percent of couples," says Burrell. "Everyone has some variation of this theme, more likely in the early part of their relationship when people are still testing out what they can do."

You're just not that into them

While hard to know how widespread such conflicts are, it seems to be the case for Sara Hollis, 34, and her husband, Trey, 27, who are raising Sara's two young daughters from a previous marriage and expecting their first child together -- all before their second wedding anniversary. Trey's unmarried buddies cause Sara no end of consternation.

"His guy friends will come over for football games and ... talk about their [dating] hookups in graphic detail," says Sara, a kindergarten teacher in Jacksonville, Florida. "I ask them, 'What makes you think I want to hear this?' But they're at a different place in their lives."

Sometimes a spouse's friends are B-listed not because of anything they've done, but because the chemistry just isn't there. Why can't Bob Taylor of Lafayette, New Jersey, bring himself to like his wife's best friend?

"I sensed pretty early on that we had nothing in common," says Taylor, 55, whose wife, Charlene Foltzer, eagerly introduced her chum to him when they started dating about 14 years ago. "You know when you go on a blind date and you can tell in the first 10 minutes whether it will work out? It was like that."

Foltzer, 49, says her hopes are dashed anew each time her husband and her best friend see each other and don't mesh. "The funny thing is, I still get disappointed when I see it happen again," says Foltzer, an engineer. "I think, 'Couldn't he try harder? Can't he try again?'"

"It doesn't stop being a pain and it causes fights," she adds, noting that Bob tends to behave passive-aggressively by running late for social engagements with her friend and is "exhausted and cranky before we even get there."

Setting up ground rules

What about the person caught between the indifferent or warring parties?

"It puts a huge amount of pressure on the person in the middle," says dating coach Lisa Daily, 40, a relationships correspondent for "Daytime," a syndicated NBC-affiliated program in Tampa, Florida, and author of "Stop Getting Dumped!"

"Not only do they want those two people to get along," Daily adds, "but they feel an obligation to keep those two people apart. Anything that adds stressors onto a relationship can damage it."

Trey Frey and her husband Matt have worked out ground rules for Matt's friendship with a tent-living hippie type Trey calls "a little odd." After Matt's pal, a fellow musician, stayed with the couple for six weeks over the holidays last winter, the Freys agreed that he would no longer be invited to spend the night.

"It was unnerving," says Trey Frey, 31, a stay-at-home mom in Park City, Utah, whose parents also live with them. "[Matt's friend] would get up early and always kind of lurked around. Maybe he was trying to keep to himself, but to me it seemed like lurking."

For many couples, the solution is to allow space in their togetherness -- as in keeping parts of their social lives separate -- a tactic Burrell says is "good enough."

"I don't think that's a cure from a couples therapy point of view," she adds, "but that's OK."

Resolving conflicts

Since most people aren't about to dump their spouses or friends -- at least, not without cause -- Daily offers these tips for negotiating the friend/partner divide:

• Pay attention. If your friends and family have always been supportive in the past but dislike your new significant other, they may be on to something. Sit down with them and ask why they feel so strongly.

• Don't use your friend as a dumping ground. Conflicts between friends and partners sometimes occur after you and your significant other have quarreled. Remember, your best friend doesn't love your partner like you do (and vice versa). If you and partner have a fight, don't unload on your friend by subjecting them to a rant about all your lover's faults.

• Call a truce. If the conflict is a low-level irritation (she's too loud; he doesn't like to hang out with crowds) but isn't on the level of a betrayal or dramatic event, tell your friends and partner that while you love and respect them, both relationships are important to you and they'll have to learn to get along.

LifeWire provides original and syndicated lifestyle content to Web publishers. Maureen Salamon is a New Jersey-based freelance writer.

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