How to introduce an insecure wife to the idea of female friends

In My Humble Opinion
1

So I am married, happily, will be 4 years here shortly. My wife is beautiful, but she is insecure. She does not like me having female friends. She trusts me completely, but is afraid that they will fall in love with me, and thereby does not trust them at all.

Now at work, I recently became fast friends with a woman. I do not find her attractive, but we have alot in common. Any of the “Favorites” you can have, we have in common, including the most obscure. Even the piercings we have are the same. So basically it was like finding a female copy of myself. She is fun to hang around, but of course, I keep her at a distance, so as to not hurt my wife.

Now on the woman at works side, she is in a committed relationship as well, not married but has been with the guy for several years. When she told him about me, and how much alike we are, he was not pleased.

I am at the point where I really want to tell my wife about this new friend, and any advice on how to tell my wife about a friendship with a female would be much appreciated.

I cannot stress more though, I am not attracted to this woman, on a physical or emotional level. I took the time to introspect and make sure I would not be harming my marriage if I became friends with this woman.
Factors to consider:
My wife is about 5’8", athletic build, blond hair, blue eyed bombshell, 2 years younger than me.
My friend is about 5’2", a little pudgy, brown hair, 3 years older than me.

I don’t know how those figures help, but if they can help with any advice you can give me then it was worth including.

2

Go out as two couples?

3

You are fooling yourself or trying to awfully well. You know too much about this other woman already. That did not happen by accident. You’ve both been checking each other out. Your SO’s are correct to be worried. You don’t need help breaking the news to your wife. You need help to keep her from breaking things over you.

4

That sounds good in theory. But there are 2 reasons I would like to avoid that scenario

  1. My wife is bipolar, and sometimes can be a little off kilter. Like start a fight if a chick looks at me in public off kilter. Even though this woman at work is not nearly as attractive, if she was seen smiling at something I had said it would be on.

  2. The woman’s boyfriend who already does not like me because of the amount in common we have is an ex felon. The felony being beating the shit out of a cop. He just got out of prison.

5

I have to agree with this.

6

People have friends, that’s normal. Denying you that is unfair. It’s like mandating you dye your hair green to make her feel better, or that you sleep upside down because she is insecure.

I would discuss with her that not allowing you normal human interaction is an unreasonable request, and unless you actually work on it her insecurity about you and other women will not magically improve. And please be realistic: she might say she trusts you, but she doesn’t. Why on earth would there be a problem with another woman being quietly in love with you? Or even a woman declaring her undying love to you and you saying “no thanks”? That’s not what she’s worried about, and she should be more honest. She doesn’t trust you and that’s the problem. Relationships are all about trust, but she can’t even muster enough trust for you to have normal friendships. That should be her problem, not yours. You can help her work on it, but you don’t need to accomodate it fully.

I’d ask them both round for dinner at yours. That way, she’s at home (her territory, if you will) and you can all hang out. She can get used to that situation. You can work towards her trusting you in situations where you are friends with other women.

Also, point out that men can fall in love with you too and you can hardly go and live under a rock.

7

Well, thank god the other woman is short and pudgy and not as attractive- because we all know that only tall, blonde, blue-eyed knockouts are worthy of falling in love with. Does your wife not get that?

Seriously, though- your wife has issues. You can either accept them and go along with her unreasonable demands, or don’t. Only you can decide what you will accept- you probably won’t change your wife.

8

Funny story. I am the perfect husband. I am the husband that makes all other wives jealous, the husband that others husbands hate for ruining the curve. I am not being egotistical, I put everything I can into making my wife happy and my marriage great. But, I also enjoy having friends, something I haven’t really done since I have been married. And it just so happens that the one person who I have enough in common with to have an awesome friendship happens to be a woman.

I love my wife. If I thought this woman at work wanted anything to do with me, I would not be posting this online. I would have identified the potential of infidelity, and promptly shut the door.

Any other suggestions?

9

You may be the “perfect husband”, but even the perfect husband gets tired of being thinly accused of being a moment away from having an affair.

Trust me on this.

10

Yes - listen to Alice. Read what she says and take it in.

Your story so far:

Your wife is a knockout (but she is bipolar and emotionally unstable)
You yourself are some kind of a prize because she is afraid of other women throwing themselves at you
You are the ideal husband
You have no friends outside of your marriage

Have I got that right?
Roddy

11

I am driven crazy by the idea that being friends with a woman will “Lead to an affair.”

As I approached being friends with this woman, I did it the way I approach an sort of contact with a woman. I look from the perspective of:
If I was not married, the the woman is not attached, would this lead anywhere?
If yes, then I stay guarded, keep things short and business only
If no, proceed to no be so guarded
I can honestly say that if I was not married, she she was not dating a felon, I would not pursue her, nor have interest in doing so.

12

nevermind.

13

@Rod, sounds about right, I do have a few work friends, but mostly just because we work in close proximity.

14

Is your wife insecure about you having any female friends (outside of the abstract–in other words, have you tried to have other female friends and she had an issue with it?) or is she against this particular friend because you seem to have so much in common and hit it off so well?

You mention the difference in appearance between your wife and your friend, but at least in my experience, unless you (the editorial “you”) are very shallow, appearances become extremely secondary and possibly almost irrelevant once you really get to know somebody. You say you’re not attracted to this woman, but you seem to like her a lot and know a lot about her. By the way you describe it, I would almost call it an emotional affair. Emotional affairs can be insidious–they start out innocent with just talking over coffee at lunchtime or chatting online, but they can sneak up on you and before you know it, you can realize you actually like this woman a whole lot more than you thought you did.

I think there are two issues here: the insecurity of your wife regarding you having any female friends at all (would she object to you having an unattractive friend that you didn’t have “everything” in common with, for example?) and your, from the sound of it, getting way too friendly with this other woman (you say you keep her at a distance, but again, you seem to know an awful lot about her.)

Only you can answer these questions–it varies by individual. I have a lot of male friends (I’m female) and my spouse doesn’t object because he knows they’re just friends. and several of them are gay. But none of them are as close as this woman seems to be with you, and most of them are online so there isn’t that personal interaction component. I think your best bet is to seriously examine your feelings about this woman before you talk to your wife about her. (After rereading one of your later posts, I’d say this is particularly important given her ex-felon SO. :D)

My two cents, YMMV, standard disclaimers apply. :slight_smile:

15

I’d be less concerned about this particular friend and more concerned about you and your wife working through having very different and unreconciled views about being friends with the opposite sex. “Working through” can mean therapy, and you ought to be open to that possibility since it sounds like you’re either going to feel repressed or she’s going to feel hurt, depending on what you opt to do.

Also, does she have any opposite-sex friends? What are your feelings about her doing so, assuming it has come up?

16

These are not the points. The point is that your wife is insecure and doesn’t want you to be friends with this woman. What, you think that you’re going to convince your wife with logic to not think the way she does? Good luck with that.

17

If your wife’s bipolaism (bipolarity?) is the issue, please consider attending meetings of the Depression Bipolar Support Alliance, if a group is active near you. It’s tough having any sort of social life, or even family life, without help.

18

She does have friends of the opposite sex. Friends who have admitted at points in their life to be attracted to my wife. I however, am secure in the fact that my wife would not cheat on me, and am honestly ok with her having said friends.

I know it is a double standard. And I know I cannot use logic to get past her insecurities.

The idea of actually bringing this up to her though, and working through her insecurities is a frightening prospect. I know it needs to be done, so my marriage doesn’t collapse in on itself. Because I will feel repressed. And the alternative is she will feel hurt.

Well damn

Seems like I know what I need to do at this point
Thanks to everyone who gave me advice
~Jerry

19

I’ve had friendships with female coworkers. The first one turned into a relationship (then marriage) that ended a long term relationship I was in at the time. The second time I became “friends” with a woman at work, we started an affair that led to the end the marriage described above. Not proud of those events, now long ago and far away. But, if you would have asked me at the beginning of either friendship, I wold have adamantly told you that it was okay to be friends with a coworker. Of course, I still think it’s okay, but there are risks if you’re not completely honest and completely happy with your marriage. YMMV.

20

I’ll happily add a counterpoint to several of the above posters, I’ve had several female friends, (some coworkers, one the wife of an existing friend) and none of those relationships went beyond friendship.