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

[enipla]

@kushiel

Question from clueless female who usually fits in as ‘one of the guys’:

The OP references a new friend, what happens with an old friend you’ve had forever? I have an old school friend who I knew for years before he got his current girlfriend, but now he’s dropped off the face of the earth. I mean, I’ve known him for years, why would new girlfriend suddenly freak out? If I wanted to date him, I would have when we were both single. If I was one of those girls who like attached men, I would have gone for him when he had his last girlfriend. I am about as threatening to your relationship as a dead goldfish.

This. ^

Don’t know what to tell you, but it’s an interesting point. And luckily, I don’t have that problem.

I’ve know my female friend a lot longer than my Wife. We did loose touch for a while when each of us got married. But I think that’s normal, starting new lives and all.

But now we see each other about every other month (she lives 100 miles away). In fact I just emailed her asking about getting together for beers and music at the end of May.

[Woeg]

My experiences are entirely anectdotal, and may not be the exact case as in the OP, but they seem to mirror what a lot of others have experienced.

My ex-wife was like the OP’s wife: reasonably attractive, massively insecure, prone to major mood swings, and jealous of any female friends or coworkers that I had. She was constantly, consistently jealous of any interactions I had with females - even imaginary ones! That’s right, even if she DREAMED that I was paying attention to some other girl, she’d get pissed off and hold a grudge all week…because “she wouldn’t have dreamed it if it weren’t partially true.”

I also had a childhood friend, one of my oldest, dearest friends, who happens to be a reasonably attractive female. My ex HATED her with a passion - and because of her, I went from monthly conversations with said friend, to maybe once a year. And I could count on that once a year conversation being followed by a rant four times as long as the conversation. She had NO reason to hate her - had this friend and I ever wanted to get together, we had plenty of opportunities to do so before I was married. That just wasn’t the nature of our friendship.

In the end, the marriage fell apart. Lots of reasons behind it…but not the smallest of which was that she was a habitual cheater. That’s right, the insanely jealous, insecure one who constantly accused me of cheating was herself constantly cheating. Part of it was because of the rush of new attention, I’m sure, which pushed her insecurities away. Which would then rush back worse when she realized that if she was cheating, I could be cheating. Madness.

I am now married to a woman who is awesome and secure in the fact that she doesn’t have to worry about other women. I have women friends, and she’s totally cool with that. And the aforementioned childhood friend? She and my wife adore each other (but not as much, I think, as I adore her husband - he’s my bromance, lol).

Thank Og for that!

[Infovore]

@fluiddruid

People are funny that way. I’ve had a close male friend for essentially my entire adult life, and he was single for years during that time. Nothing ever happened to the slightest degree, but one of his girlfriends absolutely insisted that we were having an affair. Never mind we’d lived together as roommates multiple times with zero affection of ANY kind occurring and zero consideration of a relationship ever occurring, the fact that we spent time together without her meant that we were having an affair now.

For reference, I am not at all the kind of girl that other girls are jealous of. I’m bookish and nerdy, I’m overweight, I’m not particularly feminine-dressing. None of that mattered. She literally believed that men and women could never be platonic friends; platonic relationships could only exist within your gender, and the only reason to socialize with the opposite sex was for the purposes of sex or relationships. No amount of discussion would move her; no amount of group social time including her helped. I’d babysit her kid so they could go out on date nights and things, I tried to take interest in her as a person. Nope, still a threat.

In the end she ordered my friend to not spend time with me anymore. Fortunately, he refused, but it was a source of much contention. In the end, to try to save the relationship, he did start to lie (mostly by omission) about seeing me at all, which was very uncomfortable for me. I didn’t really approve of it but he thought he could fix her insecurity issues. In the end he could not.

I’m sure a lot of people do lie to themselves about an infatuation with a friend, but there really, really are platonic relationships out there. Calling it ‘emotional cheating’ and stuff like that is pretty bullshit too. Just because you have a SO doesn’t mean you can’t have friends that you talk with about things that are important to you, so long as it’s not to the exclusion of maintaining your relationship.

I agree with all of this. I have plenty of platonic male friends, so I certainly believe it’s possible to do so. In fact, almost all of my friends are guys, some of them are married, and as far as I know the only wife who ever had a problem with me (and even she didn’t have a huge problem) was the wife of a guy I had absolutely zero romantic feelings for. LIke, if he was the last guy on earth I’d be single. Which amused me. One of my male friends routinely orders me to “get out of his head” because we pretty much think alike on things most of the time. But do I have any romantic interest in him? Not a smidge. He’s happily married, I’m happily married, our spouses like each other…yeah, it’s all good.

The only reason I had warning bells go off about the OP was all the “I’m a perfect husband” and “my wife is gorgeous but insecure,” and “it’s like she’s the female version of me” stuff. In a happy and secure marriage, platonic opposite-sex friends aren’t an issue. In an unhappy or insecure marriage, they can be.

[whc.03grady]

@fjs1fs

I obviously do not know your wife, but this is a bit “scary” to me; if she thinks it’s fine for her to have male friends, but not fine for you to have female friends, that is a big red flag. I’m not saying she is a cheater, but Cheaters tend to project there “way” onto others, and assume that their significant others are also cheating.

This.

The smart money says the OP’s wife is cheating on him, has cheated on him, or is seriously contemplating cheating on him. Or some combination.