A recent survey of married women appears to reinforce the importance of female friendships, as it found that most married women actually enjoy spending time with their friends more so than spending time of their husbands.
More than 50 percent of married women surveyed replied that they preferred hanging out with their girlfriends compared to their spouses in a survey of 1,517 British women by Champneys Health Spa — with many women citing a need for truly two-way conversation as one of the chief reasons. Some 57 percent of respondents cited the ability to “talk about everything” with their friends as an important factor in why they enjoyed spending time with their friends more, with 44 percent adding that they could tell things to their friends that they couldn’t to their husband. Forty-five percent of women surveyed also said that the girlfriends were better listeners. Other commonly listed reasons included being able to more “truly be myself” and receiving “better advice” from girlfriends.
While the spa-going nature of the respondents may possibly have skewed the data, it was also interesting to note that 30 percent of women also said they enjoyed boozy lunches with their friends — with 60 percent saying they enjoyed such moments more when there no men present at all. A husband, and even a soulmate, it appears, doesn’t preclude the need for good friends who know how to have a good time — and how to listen.
