a) of the opposite sex (or to be LGBT neutral, the friend is of the sex that you are customarily attracted to)
b) not someone you know from work (so you are not making this friend by default, there’s some active attempt to make a friend)
c) a “non-marital” friend, i.e. the friend did not meet you for the first time with your spouse, the friendship-building time was not a 3-person affair, and this friend may or may not hang out with the couple at all (a poll option)
What is the accepted view on the propriety of such relationships? One part of me says “that’s fine - I trust my spouse and I know that when I make these friends myself, I am not intending for it to be anything other than friendship” - the other part of me says “while that’s all fine and good, it’s still not something that is done” out of some probably old-fashioned leave-it-to-beaver notions of spousedom.
If they’re going to sleep together in our bed, I want them to change the sheets when they’re done. And I would not want them to run off to Venezuela together for 6 months and leave me here alone, at least not without discussing it with me first.
Aside from that, my partners should do the things that make them happy, and it would never occur to me to impose any restrictions on their friendships.
Oh, and just to be clear: I’d appreciate it if only those in spousal relationships (or spouse-like relationships) respond. To those in long-term dating situations, there’s a different dynamic at play that makes your opinion somewhat unimportant to me.
I can’t even imagining telling my husband who he can be friends with.
Over our lifetimes, most of my friends have been male, and most of his friends have been female. I would not expect that dynamic to change, just because he liked it & put a ring on it.
I also don’t see how “work friends” is so extremely different, as to be its own category, from “hobby friends” or even “struck up a convo on the bus” friends.
I distinguish between work friends and “personal life” friends because you almost default into work friends - there’s less of an active “picking” of friends at work as opposed to if you’re on personal time.
I guess the thrust of this is I’m trying to gauge whether the non friendmaking spouse has any grounds to quibble over a new opposite-sex friend based on some perceived (or perhaps even actual & subconscious) sexual dynamic.
for example, when you’re at cuckoo-clock making class at the Y, why are you making a friend with the woman, instead of the guy (for a guy friendmaking spouse). It may in fact be the case that the female is more friendly, more compatible on a friend level, just a plain better person, etc. but i’m wondering if marriage places some overriding “presumption of wanting to cheat” (or something to that effect) on friend-making with opposite-sexed people and that’s why it’s generally either frowned-upon socially, or just not a wise thing to do lest you piss off your spouse.
Well, different strokes for different folks but I find that a disgusting presumption, and no way to live. I think if you are constantly assuming your spouse desires to cheat every time they’re near a warm body who isn’t you, based solely on the gender of their associates (and not on past or present inappropriate behavior) there is a problem in your marriage. YMMV.
See, I think I agree with this on an individual basis kind of thing, but imagine if a man was actively seeking out only female friends, or vice versa? Every new friend that he makes is a female, etc. I’m pretty confident that some unease about this situation still exists in the macro sense, even if we all swear that if this happened to us, we wouldn’t have a problem with it.
(for the record, I am not actually consternated by my spouse’s friend selection, I’m just trying to gauge popular opinion because as the above example should demonstrate, something doesn’t sit right with my conception of the social mores on this)
When you get married it does not confer ownership. You do not own someones life. It is about insecurities. If your relationship is good, it won’t be threatened by a coworker. It can not be. But if you are jealous and want to keep tabs on your spouses every movement ,you are asking and causing trouble where there may be none.
I’m female and chose the first choice. I don’t waste time obsessing about how my SO could betray me. Luckily I don’t have any desire to have straight male friends (I haven’t had one since 2nd grade), because my boyfriend doesn’t share my reasonable views on this…
I’m not married, so it’s academic, but I can’t imagine myself ever limiting who my imaginary spouse could be friends with. My dad’s best work friend for years was a woman. Our families did occasionally socialize, and we went to her wedding, but it wasn’t like we were all close family friends - she was friends with my dad.
My wife practically doesn’t like my having friends outside of work, period, let alone female friends. She’s not really all that keen on my having female friends in the workplace, either. I’m not above admitting that it has at times caused unnecessary tension.
The funny thing is, she only really doesn’t like it when we’re in Mexico.
I honestly wouldn’t care. Now if I am doing laundry and a woman’s name and number show up in his pocket and he says she is his new friend he met riding the bus I might have issues with it but that would be because of the appearance that he was hiding something and not who he was friends with outside of our relationship. If I come home from work today and he says he befriended the woman who lives upstairs from us I wouldn’t think twice about it and would probably ask if she wants to come to dinner with us some night.
That would be so out of character for him that it would indicate a bigger problem. I’ve never known him to know or meet anyone without gushing to them about how they have to meet his wife or gushing to me about how he can’t wait for so-and-so to meet me, so him hiding a friendship would be an issue because it is so abnormal. If it was normal for him to want to keep his friends and his family life separate it wouldn’t bother me, though that would make him a very different person than he is and I probably wouldn’t have married him if he were a very different person.
Like pbbth said, it’s all about the context. Just yesterday, I was folding laundry and he called up to me “Hey lindsaybluth, I just talked to Suzy (an old, brief ladyfriend) because she’s on the board of this organization. Looks like they’ll be contributing to our newsletter now.”
Did he have to tell me, since he doesn’t keep me abreast of everything he does for his nonprofit? No, but it sure kept the lines of communication open and I immediately forgot about it (until pbbth’s example of the person upstairs jogged my memory).
Also, I very much so see this as an age thing. My 60 something dad has on more than one occasion raised an eyebrow about me telling a story about a guy friend that I socialize with sans SO.
Good gods, I couldn’t imagine making every female non-work friend into a friend of mine as well. Couples spend enough time hanging around the same people over and over. Go get some fresh air.
Female who opted for the second choice in the poll… But to the truthful, I can’t even really imagine my hubby making a female friend outside of work. We both work in the legal community in a semi-rural county. So 99% of our social interaction outside of work tends to be with work folk. The legal community is incestuous like that. But he certainly has old girl friends from high school and college that he keeps in touch with, who I am not friends with, nor have any inclination to be.
Now let’s say for example, he met a nice lady at the new XYZ hobby class, and he began investing time in that friendship in a way that specifically did not include me… yeah, I guess that would weird me out. I don’t think I would think he was cheating or anything. But the relationship would pique my interest for sure.
