Over the years, I've had relationships with people my friends loved and people my friends loathed, and trust me when I say it's much better when the people you care about get along. That's because despite everyone having the best intentions (you hope, anyway), when your friends don’t support your relationship or even like your partner at all, it puts you in a seriously award position: right in the middle.
Apart from being an uncomfortable situation, your friends' concerns or outright dislike of your partner can also be a sign that there might actually be something less than great happening in your relationship that you might be too close to see, but that your friends can. This is why Connell Barrett, Dating Transformation founder and executive dating coach, tells Elite Daily you shouldn't dismiss their reservations without hearing them out. "It’s not a red flag if they don’t support your relationship, but it may be a yellow flag," he warns, adding that it doesn't automatically spell doom for your relationship either. "You'd like your friends to support your relationship. In a perfect world, your BFFs would totally support your love life. But the world is not perfect, and you can’t determine your happiness based on what others think of you — including your friends."
How seriously you should take their advice is also dependent on how close you are with the critical friends, Diana Dorell, intuitive dating coach and author of The Dating Mirror: Trust Again, Love Again, tells Elite Daily. “If it’s someone who always has your back and best interests in mind, then it is worth looking at how your relationship affects them as they may see things you can’t see. If they aren’t a close friend then it may not be a big factor and you can be selective as to when you hang out with them,” she explains.
If you find yourself in this complicated situation, here's how the experts say to handle it.