Why are you so certain your wife trusts you? It certainly doesn’t sound like she does. Why would she be so concerned about the feelings of random women? She wouldn’t, that’s not a rational explanation for her actions. So, given that she doesn’t trust you, it’s up to you what to do with that information.
Ask yourself some questions: Has she always been like this? Have you given her reasons not to trust you? I personally wouldn’t put up with a significant other limiting the gender of my friends… but then, I’m not you (and I’ve never given an SO reason to distrust me–not that you have, but we just don’t know the full situation so we can’t tell you whether her fear is justified or irrational).
In the end, you will need to decide if it’s worth depriving yourself of female friends in the interests of keeping your wife happy. If it’s worth it, then continue foregoing those friendships. If you ever decide it’s not worth it, then you need to decide how to handle that. Will you lie to her (which is not really a good idea)? Will you go to counseling with her and try to work through her jealousy? Will you end the relationship?
Also, it doesn’t matter how much more beautiful one woman is than the other. Beautiful women are not guaranteed to be free of insecurity. Less attractive, pudgier women are not guaranteed to be undesirable. It all depends on the person, you dig? Look at some of the chicks that famous dudes have cheated on their wives with. Arnold Schwarzenegger cheated with a pretty ugly chick. Bill Clinton cheated with at least one fat chick. One possible explanation is that sometimes people get SO TIRED of the person they’re married to, when they decide to cheat they go for the exact opposite. So if their wife is tall, thin, and attractive, they look for short, unattractive, pudgy chicks. Make sense?
Just some food for thought.
P.S. This:
is a very fucking good point. It also shows that your wife, who likely understands you to be fully heterosexual, is not worried about the feelings of the people who might fall in love with you. She is worried that you will leave her.
You are not the perfect husband, you are the perfect doormat. Putting someone else’s needs and irrational insecurities ahead of your own happiness is not being a good husband, it’s being an unhealthy relationship partner.
Ideally, when you enter into a relationship with someone, you have a strong enough sense of self to automatically resist any attempts to distance you from your normal life activities (like having friends). They then form a relationship with you as you are. If it ends up working out, it’s awesome. Danger comes when the other person finds reasons why you living your life is inconsiderate to them, and you have to warp yourself into whatever person they think will make them feel safe. If they’re emotionally manipulative, as insecure people often are, they’ll play up your feelings of romanticism and guilt by presenting these choices as opportunities to demonstrate your love. Next thing you know, you’re writing to a message board to ask if it’s reasonable for you to be friends with someone.
It’s a horrible way to live. Unfortunately, now that the pattern is set, it will be very hard to change it. And who knows, maybe you don’t want to. But it’s sad, because I suspect both of you would be happier if you weren’t so quick to mold yourself into whatever you think your wife wants and simply stood firm on living your life like a normal, healthy person.
You’ve married an insecure, bipolar woman - this is what your life is. Unless she is willing to work on her issues, she will never want you to be friends with other women.
I also agree with those who have said that you seem to know an awful lot about your work friend. You say you’re not attracted to her now, but she is completely compatible with you, and there will probably come a point when you’re very tired of your wife’s insecurities and issues - how do you think you’re going to feel about your work friend then? I think you’ve practically described the recipe for an emotional affair.
Easy, tell her that even if your john thomas needs a rest, your tongue will still be ready for her.
The above poster will not be liable for any injury following this advice might cause.
I have several opposite sex friends as well. I’ve never had any type of relationship or flirtation with these men. We’re friends.
I do think it’s funny that people assume the OP has a thing for his work friend because he knows so much about her. Just passively listening at work on a slow shift I now know a lot about a few people’s mortgages, wives/husbands, children, sex lives, musical tastes, reading lists, tattoos and piercings, goals, education, stamp collecting and multiple other things. Who knew I had a thing for ALL of them just by knowing this stuff! I’ve gotta start really trying not to listen. I think a few of you are bringing your own hangups into this story.
To be honest it sounds to me like you married the blonde bombshell, and just realized that it’s actually pretty cool to be with a woman you intellectually connect with as well. I am all for opposite sex friendships, but the speed and depth of what you describe would raise my eyebrows as well. It sounds like a crush, and it sounds like it is filling something outside of friendship that you aren’t getting from your wife. Whatever you think you have going on, you are putting yourself very close to a danger zone.
If you’re having to worry about your partner fighting with women simply for a ‘look’, thats a problem.
Its fine to have friends of whatever gender, but I would see if something can be done about the above before trying to do the second. And Id focus more on the general issue of it being OK to have female friends rather than it being so important for this particular friend to be accessible - the more you fight to see her in particular, the more she might have a point with this case, even if she’s wrong in general.
OP, you might not be attracted to this woman at all, and believe me I’m not going to try to insist I know your feelings better than you do (:rolleyes: to the people in this thread who seem to think they do), but one thing strikes me as kind of not okay. You know that your wife would have a problem with your being friends with this woman, and you are keeping your friendship from her. There’s no good way to go down that road.
I agree with giraffe, there a few good points there.
When my SO and I started dating, she had a problem with me having female friends, well a couple specific ones anyway, because they were very pretty and she didn’t know them. I informed her that she had no say in who my friends are, and she would learn to deal with it, or not. There was no compromise in this. We had discussions, we had fights, we had a lot of them about it. She was, and still is, prone to depression and insecurities.
I’d go out, inviting her to come with, but she would rather stay home and cry about it. I know it sounds mean, but I was, am, and will be, unaccepting of her telling me who I can and cannot hang out with.
Years later, she’s mostly over it, but still has her issues about it. If they come up, we talk about them, and I do my thing (drink, play pool, and dance a little).
She’s much much much more likely to have issue with someone who I have a lot in common with, but getting to know them helps to relieve her fears.
I’m going off the assumption that your description is accurate and that you’re not omitting relevant details. If so, your wife’s demands are a serious problem and something you need to deal with, rather than trying to sneak around behind her back. Her demands are unreasonable; you will chafe if you have to continue either living with them or lying to her. Your relationship with your wife will suffer from this no matter how perfectly chaste your friendships are.
During mine and D’s first marriage, and in my “radio days”, I used to host a lot of radio telethons, to the point where folks who met me told me “We just love hearing you, Bill, but it’s like you’re on the air every week asking for money!”
So I met a lot of nice-looking ladies during these “live remotes”, and some of them wanted to take me home. I took them to my home instead and let them meet D and we drank some wine and had some laffs listening to Pryor or Carlin, and that was it.
I won’t say I wasn’t tempted, but infidelity wasn’t the reason me and D divorced so many years ago.
There’s more, but you’ll have to wait till I’m dead to read it all.
You say that your wife is insecure, possessive, and bi polar; and her SO is angry, violent, and an ex felon?
It might be more of a thrill connected with risk taking, for one or both of you, instead of an innocent budding friendship.
I can give you a few pointers in this one from experience. I have always had good female friends despite my reputation on this board as being a misogynist. I am about the opposite in real life.
I would abslutely never allow a spouse to tell me who I can be friends with. That is controlling behavior and out of line. I have had a number of female friends that I went to bars with, commuted with, worked closely with every day, and shared lots of personal things with. That was never an issue until I met one…
We clicked the first moment laid eyes on each other. She was married and I was about to get married. We were obviously both very interested in each other. A few days after we met she got some complimentary company tickets to a Red Sox game and asked me to join her. Of course I went. It was a wet and cold day in April and I we had to make sure we kept each other warm. From that day forward for the next two years, we did exclusive activities together almost very single day usually for hours. People assumed we were having an affair but technically we weren’t because we were smart enough not to make that mistake.
To make a long story short, she eventually had to quit her job because of the assumptions and accusations and she and her husband had to go into marital counseling and then move. All of this from a friendship by the dictionary definition but who are we kidding, I essentially had two wives for two years. There is such a thing as a platonic affair if you are smart and controlled enough to pull it off. You can’t get into legal trouble for it but it can still affect lives outside of the people involved.
You have to be the one to decide what category this relationship fits into without any denial. If it is the former, I don’t see any issue and you should stand up for yourself. If it is the latter, you better tread carefully especially with someone that sees fit to be with ex-felons.
I’m not one of those women who claims to get along better with men than with women, but I have a few guys that I’m friends with just via my profession and grad school (IT/tech/math area).
MHO: If you can’t even see a “couples” friendship with this female coworker then don’t bother. Honestly, leave her out of your marriage issues. She has an SO, we assume she has her own friends already, leave her to spend her free time in situations where she won’t be side-eyed by someone’s wife as a dangerous temptation.
The natural way for this to come up would be that you mentioned from the beginning that there’s a new cool coworker working at the office. They maybe one weekend you have some work friends over and she’s invited with her SO, or a group of work friends go out for drinks and you invite your wife. But it sounds like this is too far beyond that already for this to be a natural friendship. So again, for everyone’s interest just leave it alone.
So you’ve become good friends with this woman at work, but your wife has no clue she exists? Never brought her up in casual conversation while talking about what’s going on at work? I’m not married, but I’ve always known the names or heard stories about my girlfriends’ coworkers when we were going out, and vice versa. It’s just something you talk about when your SO says “How was work?” The fact that you’ve been hiding this woman from your wife suggests to me that the way you feel about her should make your wife jealous.
So far you’ve given us a bit of information about your wife.
The Pros: She’s really hot
The Cons: She’s cripplingly insecure
She’s crazy. Not a little crazy, but REALLY crazy. Like she’ll hit a bitch crazy.
She’s not just normal crazy girl crazy, but actually has a legitimate mental disorder.
Her insecurity and craziness are already starting to wear on you, 3 years into the marriage.
The information you’ve given about the other girl:
Pros: She’s fun to be around
She likes all the same things you like
You have so much in common it’s like she’s the female version of you
Cons: She’s not that attractive
Knowing that looks fade, I know which one of these I’d like to spend the rest of my life with. But maybe your wife has other redeeming qualities that you haven’t mentioned, and is a beautiful soul as well. Regardless, I advise you to be friends with either of these women, but not both. You say you’re not physically attracted to the other woman, but trust me, time and familiarity (and alcohol) can easily change that.
There’s a story about a guy walking home from work. He takes a shortcut down the street where the local Jezebel just happens to live. Sure enough, she’s out on her porch swing.
“Excuse me sir, do you have a light?”
“What strong hands you have. Share a cigarette with me?”
“Care to come inside for a drink?”
He leaves the house a ruined man. Looking for advice, he tells his story to his best friend later that week. “Oh, if only I had kept walking, hadn’t stepped onto her porch, none of this would have happened!”
His friend replies “No, you shouldn’t have even started down that street!”
Being friends with this woman is like turning down the street.
