I should mention that my father and many people of his generation don’t believe in opposite sex friendships. They don’t believe in them like I don’t believe in Bigfoot. The most charitable he’ll be about it, generally, is “Well, you’ll never meet a guy if you’re already out with them.” The least charitable, well, that was a big fight.
featherlou, sorry, but I’m gonna be the one who says “Of course you should be friends with anyone you like.”
If M. Gary Neumann is so socially retarded that he believes no relationship can exist between a man and a woman that isn’t fraught with danger, then perhaps he’s not the best person from whom to accept advice about *any * kind of relationship.
Obviously, you shouldn’t try to maintain a friendship with someone (of either gender) that you’re *actually * hot for. That’s a disaster waiting to happen. But simple posession of a penis isn’t usually sufficient to make a person give me the vapors. I’m pretty sure that most people encounter literally hundreds of people of their preferred gender every single day without any particular longing.
I think some of you have made a better distinction than “never have opposite sex friends” (or same sex friends for the gay among us). I would not have a male friend that my husband didn’t know about and approve of (the “approve of” because he’s not jealous at all, and for him to turn thumbs down on a guy means there is something really wrong with the guy), but I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of having guy friends. I also don’t flirt with anybody, and I do avoid situations where I am alone with a guy for extended periods, and I don’t dance/kiss/hug any guy except my husband. I am firmly in the “never put yourself in that position, and you never have to find out how strong you are” camp.
Not unless they are very unattractive, for whatever reason, and sometimes not even then.
Some other things we’ve thought of;
- the United Statesian divorce rate is around 50% (the divorce rate for Canadians is lower at around 40%); this opposite sex friendship thing might not be working out that great for anybody.
- the question here isn’t about not letting your spouse have opposite sex friends, but choosing not to have them yourself. I would agree with anybody who said that not allowing your spouse to have friends of either sex is a domineering, controlling behaviour.
Distinction that makes very little difference.
I wouldn’t trust anyone who would abandon friends because of a marriage. Doing so myself looks to me like it would be an indication that my marriage vows were not to be trusted – if I can’t be trusted to maintain a friendship, how in the good green earth would it be reasonable to think I was capable of handling a more serious commitment?
This guy’s line you quoted is a cavalier, “Well, if you’re not going to turn those relationships into partnerships like I’m claiming, why don’t you just betray and abandon those people?” Because that’s a shitty way to treat another human being.
I’m female, and my best friend is a guy. We have been friends for almost 20 years now. We have been friends since middle school. He is like a brother to me - in fact, he’s more of a brother to me than my own brother. I would no sooner have sexual attraction for him than I would my biological brother… my boyfriend knows all of this, and therefore he is OK with it.
I also have several other really good guy friends, and my boyfriend is OK with it too, because he knows there is no way I would be/could be attracted to these guys.
On the surface, I am OK with my guy having female friends. However, deep inside the problem I have is that my boyfriend is such a great catch - hot, smart, talented, funny, successful… so how could a single girl not want him? So that is what goes through my head… it would bug me a little because I would think that any girl would be itching to be with him. I trust him… I just don’t trust others. I mean, he’s just so damn cute that any girl would want him. So him being friends with a girl might “encourage” her somewhat, or get her hopes up.
I know that sounds silly, but just being honest 
I’ll add that I agree with not spending a lot of time alone with the opposite-sex friend or flirting with him/her or things like that, no so much because it leads down a slippery slope, but because it looks bad to your spouse. In marriage, I’ve found, it’s not enough not to do your spouse wrong. You also have to avoid even the appearance of doing your spouse wrong.
I mean, come on. I expect a reasonable amount of trust from Mrs. Fresh, and I get it, but if I started spending all my time with a female friend and going to movies with her and having late night conversations with her, then yeah, I’d see where my wife would have a problem with that. I believe that asking her to trust me in those circumstances is a little much, even if nothing’s actually going on.
I don’t like the idea of a mistrusting spouse either. The following up on you. The listening in on your phone conversations. The interrogations when you come home at six instead of five. But that’s how it starts. If you don’t want your spouse to be suspicious, then don’t act suspiciously.
I wonder if I’m terribly wrong in this:
When I was married there where tons of times when up at work or even up at the bar a young lady would make a flirtatious remark or advance towards me. I never acted on any of them (or was even tempted to) but man, it sure would inflate my ego and make me feel good about myself.
I think it would be great if other guys were out there making her feel good about herself, in the same way that has happened to me.
Let’s face it folks. Humans are sexual creatures and I think it important for us to feel desirable and wanted.
If I may be cliche’: It’s called marriage NOT death!
I’ve been going though this EXACT thing lately. But it’s not as cut’n’dried’black’n’white as the author makes it out to be. Looking at all the angles:
- I’m not threatend by my wife’s male friends that aren’t threatening.
- I’m on medication for Generalized Anxiety Disorder. For 20 minutes at a time, I’m not thinking logically
- I worry that, based on the crap in our lives, that a fling with some other guy will look like a better thing than hanging out with me and the kids. (see #2 above)
- See #2 above. It makes me a VERY unconfident person, even though there’s nothing in our relationship we can’t work through, and I have been and should be 100% confident in the relationship. I’ve gotta get my mojo back.
Personally, I’ll avoid 'em, it’s got a lot to do with the scarring of an all male high-school during my social reflex build years.
I see the opinions here are almost 100% against what the author is saying, but as I mentioned in an earlier post, North Americans aren’t doing very well in the long-term happy marriage category. Among our Doper group, there are thousands of divorced people, and thousands of those marriages ended because of infidelity. At the risk of going Dr. Phil on you, you all believe you can safely have opposite sex friendships, but how’s that working for you?
Those of you saying that you wouldn’t end a long friendship because of your marriage - to me, that sounds like you have it backwards. I don’t have ANY relationship that is more important to me than my husband. If I had to end a long-term friendship to keep my husband and my happy marriage, I’d do it in a heartbeat. My husband IS my long-term opposite sex friendship.
I’m starting to think I have a different idea of marriage than a whole lot of people.
Pix plz.
I think it depends on the friends, obviously.
I have more women friends than men friends. When I’m in a commited relationship, I don’t cut myself off from the bulk of my social group – that would be ridiculous.
What matters is how those individual relationships are defined. Most of the friendships I have with women have just about exactly as much sexual tension in them as those I have with my male friends, and the odds of anything happening in that department are equally miniscule. Total non-issue, and I’m keeping those friends no matter what. No reason for anyone to feel threatened by that.
The relationship I have with my best female friend is a little trickier. When I met her, she was the GF of an acquaintance, and over the years we became very close friends. Later, when we were both single, we tried it on for a bit, but weren’t a good fit sexually or romantically, and so we quickly went back to the friend zone.
Anyone I’m with has to understand that this woman is very important to me and that I’ll always be her loyal friend. I try to make it as clear as possible that there’s absolutely no more reason to be jealous than if I was hanging out with my sister (even if there’s a sexual history there,) because it’s very firmly established as a friendship thing, and if anything the sex just confirmed that.
I have a (very) few friends who are occasional sexual partners. These are the ones whose numbers get lost if anything serious is going on. But the others? Safe as milk.
Same the other way around. I’m not going to waste my time fretting over my GF’s relationships with guys she’s known platonically for years, or work friends, or whatever. No way would I be cool with her having coffee dates with a buddy she’s intermittently having sex with, though.
As for new friends, it’s cool so long as the relationship is clearly delineated. Zero tolerance for “innocent” flirting, that shit needs to be shut down immediately.
I’m kind of with featherlou, to a certain extent. I wouldn’t say that opposite sex friendships are impossible, or that you should avoid them entirely, but they do present challenges and risks that aren’t there with same sex friendships.
For example, what happens if the OTHER person decides they don’t want to just be friends? You have an uncomfortable situation to deal with. In my experience, there are a lot of ‘friends’ relationships where one side has a slightly different opinion on that. Often it’s repressed, and sometimes both sides know it exists but the ‘friendship’ is maintained because one doesn’t want to let go of the person they love, and the other doesn’t want to lose a friend.
Second, problems may not occur while the marriage is ticking along happily - the problems occur when the marriage is in trouble. If you’re mad at your spouse and have been fighting a lot, suddenly good ole’ John/Jane who has always been there for you starts to look a wee bit more attractive… Even if you don’t act on it, if you suddenly start comparing your spouse to your opposite-sex friend and find the comparison lacking, it will hurt your relationship. Your spouse and you have to go through a lot of difficult things together, and struggle through difficult issues together in ways that you don’t have to do with your friends. This can result in a buildup of emotional baggage with your spouse that doesn’t exist with your opposite-sex friend.
Then there are all the jealousy/boundary issues that you have to deal with when you have opposite sex friends. We all claim that we’re mature and don’t have those kinds of problems, but they exist nonetheless. If my male buddy from work asks me out for beers after work, no problem. But if Lisa down the hall asks me out for beers after work, I’d expect my wife might feel uncomfortable about it. And rightly so. Even if she trusts me, she doesn’t know what ‘Lisa’ is up to. And if I find Lisa really fun and decide I like hanging out with her and start regularly having a beer after work with her, I expect my wife might have a real problem with that - one she wouldn’t have if it were Bob the co-worker.
I think you guys took the article in question to mean, “Dump those 30 year friendships with opposite sex people”, and I think that’s an extreme interpretation. I think it’s more about, "don’t forge new relationships with the opposite sex. Don’t go out of your way to put yourself in situations that could cause rifts in your relationship. "
Also note that the author is talking about “emotional” infidelity. What he means is that you may find your opposite-sex friend funnier, smarter, more interested in your issues, or just plain easier to talk to than your spouse. So even though the relationship stays on a purely platonic ‘friends’ level, if you start finding that you enjoy the company of your friend more than the company of your spouse, or find yourself comparing your friend to your spouse in ways that are unflattering to the spouse, it will hurt your relationship. This doesn’t happen when the friend is of the same sex, because the comparison is totally different. And again, this usually starts happening when the relationship is in trouble, not when everything’s fine.
I think you can spend too much time or have to intimate of a relationship with someone and damage your primary relationship. That person does not have to be of the gender you prefer to have sex with.
I have few true friends, and the ones I have are not chosen for their genitals. mr.stretch is, quite simply, my best friend. I spend most of my non-employment time with him. If I started spending most of my time with anyone else, that would be a problem…wouldn’t matter if it was Jack or Jill.
I think that if you are in a commited relationship, there should be no jealousy or fear about friends of either gender. I mean to me, it doesn’t matter who my boyfriend hangs out with, as long as he comes home to me. One of my best friends from college is a guy. He and I have lived together on and off, including when I started dating my boyfriend. This was never an issue. I’m going down to Florida in a few weeks to see him and my boyfriend doesn’t care. I don’t understand this not spending time alone with a member of the opposite gender because you might get tempted. That would make me take a serious look at my relationship, not my friendships.
And the people that I know that are in unhealthy relationships or divorced, many of this was caused by one person not letting the other have friendships or maintain them.
No, as far as I can tell, your idea of marriage is more or less the same as everyone else’s, if a bit more controlling. It’s your definition of friendship that’s radically different from mine.
I think my main area of difference between you and Sam Stone is how I view friendships in general. More specifically, how I view women in general.
I’ve read a lot of books which say that when it gets right down to it, any friendship with the opposite sex by definition involves some amount of sexual tension, even if it’s very small. I simply don’t think that’s true. It’s not like if Mrs. Fresh and I go through a rough spot, I’m going to be lusting after my women friends just because they happen to have breasts. I don’t look at all women sexually, and moreover, I wouldn’t form a close friendship with any woman I did look at sexually. I’ll agree that’s asking for trouble. As far as emotions go, well, I don’t think I’m any more at risk for getting emotionally dependent on a woman friend than I am on a guy friend.
That’s a fair question. I’d break off the friendship. I wouldn’t want to be friends with a woman who tries to manipulate me into bed (which, I’ll admit, I find difficult to imagine in the first place) any more than I’d want to be friends with a guy who tries to manipulate me into giving me his PIN number so that he could get busy wrecking my life. The issue here wouldn’t be getting rid of a manipulative woman friend. It would be getting rid of a manipulative woman friend.
On preview, I’m noticing the word “I” popping up quite a bit. Which I guess helps make the argument that it all depends on the individual.
This is basically my perspective.
My partnerships aren’t about other people. Neither avoiding or spending time with other people makes a difference to those partnerships. Choosing not to maintain and support the partnership makes a difference – but it doesn’t matter at all to me if that’s ‘because’ of a friend of the same sex, a friend of a different sex, spending too much time at the office, an obsessive kite-flying hobby, World of Warcraft, or a PhD thesis.
Well, since I’m lesbian, we have to reword this a little bit, but I have many same-sex and other-sex friends, some old and some newer, some of whom I hug and might kiss in a non-sexual way. Same for my partner, who’s bi, so presumably everyone is a threat. My partner and I entered into a monogamous relationship 9 years ago and neither of us has been unfaithful, or even tempted. Both of us are from families with non-divorced parents and no cheating. If one of us started spending a lot of time with another person, I imagine we’d talk about this and get some clarity about what we wanted to do.
As I said in another thread, I’ve never been in a relationship that was agreed to be monogamous that wasn’t, and I’ll add that I’ve never ended a relationship, or had one ended with me, because one party wanted to be with a different person. That’s over the course of 32 years of dating.
So it’s working just fine.
Prove that having opposite sex friends is what leads to divorce. Post hoc, and all that.