I’m picturing this scenario with my husband and his very old and very good friend in MD. We were both invited but only he could go? Then he would go. I didn’t read through the thread to see if there were clarifications about if there was a previous romantic relationship or not, but I’m assuming not. I can’t think of any guy friends where this could possibly happen with me, but if I had an old, dear male friend that needed me for some reason, I’d go. Look, IMHO, you’re either worried that your spouse is going to cheat on you or you’re not. Honestly, if he goes there and they decide that destiny has called and they should be together, then better to know that now and everyone move on.
This changes the entire tone of the story. It is still moderately weird, but I can now understand why someone would be comfortable with it.
No, definitely nothing romantic in our relationship at any time.
Sorry that wasn’t clearer in the beginning.
Well, I say the same exact thing about my husband’s penis, but don’t expect everyone else to. (Um…about their spouses’ genitals, that is.) Everyone has a different line. Most of us would be okay “letting” our spouse help a friend move, or fix a computer problem, or bake a casserole for a new baby’s parents. After that, things move into YMMV territory. I don’t think anyone is right or wrong, as long as their spouse is in agreement with where all the lines are.
What about a less extreme example? Male friend of Ms. X wants to go out to dinner. Both Mr. and Ms. X are invited, though Mr. X is not friends with him. Mr. X can’t make the dinner. Should Ms. X not go? Or is it OK for her to go out to dinner with her guy friend without her husband if her husband was invited but can’t go? I’m just wondering where the line is for other people.
This doesn’t sound like a big deal to me. We are friends with a couple who have a baby, and the husband is the stay-at-home parent. When I was on maternity leave, he & I had a weekly lunch with the kids, just to get out of the house. My husband would have liked to come, but only because it sounded fun, not because he cared that I was going out with this other guy. The guy’s wife and my husband work at the same company, so if they both happen to be at the corporate office at the same time (they are consultants, so they work all over), they get together for lunch, too. If she was depressed about something, and wanted to go to lunch with my husband to talk, that wouldn’t bother me at all.
I don’t have too many guy friends that I can think of who I be interested in hanging out without my husband…one guy I’ve been friends with since high school I would, and my husband wouldn’t care because he’s friends with him, now, as well. But again, if there were plans to go out, my husband would probably rather we scheduled it on a night he was available, because he would be sorry that he was missing out on it, but not out of jealousy.
The thing I think is weird about this situation is the idea of flying somewhere for several days without ones’ spouse, especially if the circumstance is to console someone who is emotionally upset. That seems weird/too intimate for my taste.
Hey, tell your wife that she’s smarter than you. 
It’s not dishonest, but I imagine that I’m not the only person reading the OP and wondering which one was you. Quickly decided not the spouse, and you don’t seem to have been that distraught in other posts, but I don’t cyber stalk you, so we couldn’t rule that out. . . .
I wouldn’t have a problem with my wife doing that, if she were asked, because I don’t think she would do anything, and she’s not particularly susceptible to emotional BS from guys – not that I would ever try.
My wife got burned really badly in her previous relationship where she was cheated on for months by her live-in boyfriend. She lost self-confidence and worries about other women hitting on me, so I’m sure that she would have a serious problem if the situation were reversed. But that’s cool, because if that’s the only emotional baggage she brings to the marriage, then she’s a hell of a lot better than me.
What’s funny is I read your OP and thought, “Well, there’s no way this is him since I remember him from other threads and his wife would have been okay with it.”
Sneaky. 
Your message has been delivered, although I have occasion to remind her of that very fact fairly often. Also, I’m a little disappointed that after all these years online, I’ve still failed to wrangle a decent cyber stalker for myself.
Heh…well I imagined some people already knew how I felt based on my participation in these types of threads, so I didn’t want people going, “Well, I know YOU’RE alright with it…” or even worse, “Don’t do it, Asi!” Which is probably not giving nearly enough credit to my fellow Dopers, but I just figured that it would be easier to have people focus on random individuals instead. It seems to have gone alright. 
My SO and I have a number of friends of both genders, both together and seperately. They are the family we have build (as opposed to the ones we are born into). For them, anything.
If one of them needed a shoulder to cry on, I’d be helping my SO pack, plan the schedule and probably send along a “pick-me-up” present for the friend.
I don’t even think about the fact that my SO could be cheating on me. He’s had jobs with lots of travel time. We’ve both worked long, slightly irregular hours. I guess I’m basically an optimist.
Why thank you! ::insert smiley face here that actually looks embarrassed as opposed to the one we currently have::
Help! I’m being stalked by proxy!
The thing that I think is a little unusual in our relationship is that each of us tends to make closer ties with friends of the opposite sex. So while Asi does have some male friends, he primarily is close with females. If I was uncomfortable with this, I would have never dated him because this is not really a malleable point of his personality. (Perhaps that’s an interesting question for another thread: if someone is primarily friends with their preferred gender, does it change how you view that person?) Asi also keeps in contact with lots of folks online as opposed to in person, so the fact that he hasn’t seen this friend in 3 years doesn’t really mean anything about their friendship to my mind. And as for this being a “Hail Mary booty call” (totally awesome phrase!), there just isn’t really evidence for that. She invited both of us. She didn’t know that my weekends would be too busy to go. She specifically said that if Asi couldn’t go, she’d love for just me to come visit.
So anyhow, interesting discussion.
This is my take, too.
And for what it’s worth, it does matter to me who pays. Traveling is incredibly expensive, especially airfare and hotel. Having someone other than my husband (or my company) pay for my travel expenses would just feel…weird. Kind of like getting a ridiculously expensive gift from someone you barely know for no reason. You feel like you need to reciprocate somehow. And that’s where I would have issue with the payment.
See, I almost said your name and then I thought “Crap, why do I remember this stuff? Will it seem weird that I remember this?” and didn’t.
I think for me and my fiance, it would depend a lot on the particular friend in question.
Both of us have friends of the opposite sex who are above reproach, and we both agree on it; if my fiance wanted to do this for her friend Joe, then I doubt I’d have a problem with it- Joe’s just not the kind of person who would do something like that.
Same goes for my friend Britt; while quite attractive, there’s no chance in the world that she’d ever do anything that might put me & my relationship on the spot, and I don’t think my fiance would have much of a problem with it; she’d probably want to come help if she could.
We both have other friends however, who we probably wouldn’t have such absolute trust in, and we probably wouldn’t entertain the idea of the OP’s scenario if they were involved. Not because we don’t trust each other or because either of us would cheat, but because it would have the high possibility of really screwing up our relationships with them if they did something squirrely.
Great post, great points.
If I didn’t have utter faith in my friend’s respect for our marriage, the conversation would never have even gotten to the point of me asking my wife about it. I don’t tend to get close to people that I think would ever try to come between my wife and me, no matter what the circumstances may be. I’d like to think I’ve been a pretty good judge of character thus far.
Being one of the people who said that, I guess I should 'splain. No, I don’t think he can have only one real meaningful deep human connection, but…the type of guy I’m attracted to generally does, I guess. I like guys who are very serious and introspective, and who generally are reserved and protective of their emotions. I like to be the one that they share those emotions with, I guess. I don’t have any other deep emotional connections at the same level as my relationship is, and I would like him not to as well.
I guess maybe that’s a bit selfish or needy? Perhaps it is, but if so, then so be it - we all have our flaws. This is my personal thing, and if he’s OK with it and I am, then it’s OK.
Redundant at this point, but my wife and my position is sort of a combo of WhyNot and storyteller’s positions on the matter.