I’d be perfectly fine with him making friends with women. It would be strange and might make me uncomfortable if he were deliberately seeking ONLY women to befriend, especially if he went out of his way to hide any of them from me, but it’d also be incredibly out of character for him. If he were making friends and some of them just happened to be women, I wouldn’t care, and I’d be okay if they didn’t become my friend too. He has a number of female friends I’ve never met or only met once in passing. None of them are from work.
In fact, he’s going out tonight with a girl he’s friends with. I’ve met her a couple of times, we get along fine, but she’s really his friend.
I am F and voted the second choice, but it depends a lot on the people involved, I suspect. I have one good male non-work friend I made since getting married (actually I have a bunch of male friends, but mostly through work and both of us are friends with them); he calls sometimes and we talk loudly and in great detail about books. Then I get off the phone and tell my husband everything we talked about, because I’m very interested to get my husband’s view on it. If he ever visited I would take it for granted that we would go out as a threesome (probably a foursome, since he’s in a committed relationship).
Now, I’d be a little freaked out if my husband got to be good friends with a woman outside of work… mostly because he doesn’t tend to invest the energy to make friends in general. Not to say he doesn’t have friends, but they’re mostly people from work or that he sees on a regular basis so that he doesn’t have to put extra energy into it (he sees them every day anyway). Come to think of it, I’d be just about as surprised if he got to be really good buddies with a guy he met off the street. It’s mostly that I would find it a little contrary to his character to be investing that kind of time in a friend relationship. In any case I think it would be okay if he and this hypothetical woman went out alone, but I’d expect to be asked if I wanted to come along/have it be always okay for me to invite myself along.
The other thing is that I have found it is much more comfortable to be friends with people of the opposite sex who are in a committed relationship. I do have good single male friends, and my husband (rightly) trusts me with them, but I know one or two of them have massive crushes on me, even though they’d never admit it because I’m married, and it’s a little awkward.
If it’s just this one friend that you see this with, then yes, you have a right to air it as an issue. If, otoh, you perceive a sexual dynamic with every preferred-sex friend your partner has, then you either need a new partner or a new head space, because either your partner is unable to have truly platonic friendships with the preferred sex, or you’re unreasonably jealous. Either way, it’s a problem.
It’s not marriage that places such a presumption, but either your own attitude or your partner’s history. Some people are unable to conceive of being platonic friends with someone of the preferred sex, and the presumption that such a friendship is rooted in a desire for a sexual relationship follows naturally from such a mindset. Likewise, some people seem to be unable to have such platonic relationships; if I were with a guy who had had two female friends in his whole life and wound up fucking both of them, you bet your bippy I’d be watching him like a hawk if he turned up with a new female friend. But someone who has a history of having female friends he doesn’t screw? Big whoop.
In my own personal relationship, he comes home with new female friends from various activities all the time. And there’s certainly no question of him not wanting to share them with me; if anything, he tends to dance them about in front of me like a spoonful of pureed turnips in front of a disinterested baby, trying to entice me into being their friend, too.
I picked the first choice, because my husband has always made friends with women more easily than with men; I don’t see that changing because we’re married. I’m not worried about him cheating; he just likes women.
As for the quoted passage, it depends on what you mean by “sharing.” If he just doesn’t want me to hang out with him and his new friend for some reason (he doesn’t think I’d like her, they tend to talk about things that interest me), that’s fine. However, if he’s weird about it and avoids even mentioning her, I might get suspicious, only because it would be out of character for him to not want to tell me about his friends.
I just mean doesn’t want to share in the sense that many people think that not having any life/friends outside of your marriage isn’t healthy in the long run, so he wouldn’t want to share just to maintain that separation.
In general it is not smart to spend time alone with someone of the opposite sex with whom you share a mutual attraction, unless you want it to go somewhere.
It is up to the person making the friend to be honest with himself or herself. Only they know whether it is really ok or not.
I also chose the second option, largely because it would be incredibly out of character for DH to not want to share a friend. It doesn’t mean that I’d be required to be with them every time they hung out, but being on neutral-to-friendly terms is a necessity.
That actually goes for any friend, regardless of sex. We just don’t have friends that the other dislikes, our personalities don’t lean that way. I know not everyone has our particular weirdness.
And just because I don’t feel like making three contentless posts in one thread I guess I’ll give an answer (though I won’t answer in the poll because the OP only wants married peeps to respond to it):
I’m an incredibly jealous, paranoid and untrusting cynic so I get really uncomfortable when my SOs spend time with other guys. But I sort of realize that my feelings on the matter aren’t reasonable so I just bottle it up and try not to mention it at all.
Depends on what you mean by “friend.” Will there be benefits?
I meet people of both sexes all the time through hobbies, school, other friends, my kid’s parents. So does my wife. If one of us starts spending a lot of unexplained time with a member of the opposite sex it might be time to start asking questions. Otherwise, we are people who interact with other people. Sex isn’t normally a topic.
I get the feeling that this thread is more accurately referring to non-physical intimacy usually reserved for an SO. I wouldn’t be crazy happy about my wife spending a lot of quality time with another man, but I also wouldn’t attempt to dissuade her. I trust her. If that stops we may as well begin making new life plans anyway.
More than “hey, I’ll see you at next week’s crochet club get together. Yeah, text me and I’ll bring you that extra ball of yarn I have”
Less than “OMG, bff. let’s get dressed up in our snuggies and watch a movie on the couch together because I just had a bad day at work”
Probably around “hey, I want to go check out this event, (and spouse doesn’t want to go) come with” or “hey, it’s friday night, I’m bored (spouse doesn’t want to go out), meet you at the bar for a few drinks” something like that.
Heh. I would welcome that. I take care of most of the keeping up with people and socializing with family, so I worry occasionally that he could end up pretty isolated if anything happens to me. I’d be excited for him to have a friend of his own, male or female- bonus points if it’s someone he can talk to about beer and computers.
You’re also the epitome of every self-absorbed 20 year old I know, except you’re not even in college. And I say that as a 23 year old.
Over the weekend on a long drive, I called up one of my old friends. He and I shoot the shit about our lives and the sport we did and are still involved in to an extent (him by refereeing, me by coaching). His spouse and my SO didn’t do and have no interest in the sport, so we call each other maybe every few weeks to catch up on it. I went to his wedding, he went to my graduation party, yadda yadda yadda. We’ve seen each other through some funny but low points; once in college he stayed at my apartment for a few days and one of the nights he walked around in his boxers after he drank a case of Corona. Once I dated a crazy kid, he told me not to, and then he witnessed the kid profess his love for me in public. Ick.
But we catch up and life is just fine. At the end of the conversation I tell him to tell his wife hi, since he just walked in the house. He yells at her “lindsaybluth says hi!” and she says hi back. It’s not rocket science. We never gripe about our SO’s severely or say anything that we wouldn’t share with them first. We’re just friends, and that’s that.
I can’t imagine wanting to prevent my hypothetical husband from having female friends (just as I wouldn’t stand for him forbidding me to have any) but I would think it odd if he never introduced us. Like pbbth mentioned, deliberately keeping a friend secret would indicate something else wrong in our relationship. I don’t have to be there every time he wants to hang out with her.
Jeez, you make it seem like being a selfish, immature 20 year old who doesn’t work or go to school is a bad thing.
Anyway, folks, a spouse being secretive about relationships in general is a bad thing. If a spouse doesn’t seek relationships, but all of a sudden has an all-consuming one that doesn’t involve you, eyebrows should be raised, regardless of gender. I thought there was some gender/possible-sexual-attraction implication here, which is why the question wasn’t about whether or not one’s spouse takes up an uncharacteristic relationship, and was instead described as a friendship (that’s it!) with the gender they’re attracted to (as opposed to not specifying that aspect at all) that was formed outside of work.
Yes, if my SO starts becoming secretive and snuggling on the sofa with anyone, or starts acting in a way completely out of line with typical behavior, then I will start paying finer attention.
I guess, though, this question really only works for people whose spouses don’t already have opposite gender (or insert whatever sexual orientation neutral phrasing here), because everyone I know, coupled or not, has friends outside of work that are the gender they’re attracted to, and will likely continue to make such friends. BFD.
I’m not going to vote in the poll, because I’m not in a relationship much less do I have a spouse/domestic partner/whatever. But for me it pretty much boils down to this: if they’re going to cheat, you’re not going to stop them, and if they’re going to cheat, they’re a cheater that you should break up with anyway. So let the spouse be friends with whomever they like.
Yes, but you are all looking at it from the perspective of the non-friend-making spouse. Certainly, it would be ridiculous to tell a spouse who to be friends with.
But we can also view the situation from the perspective of the one making the new friend. From that perspective we have more information.
I don’t think it is right to say “if I’m going to cheat, I’m going to cheat, so I might as well spend some quality time away from my SO with this smoking hot babe who is also attracted to me. I don’t want to cheat but if I cheat, I’m a cheater, and the relationship wouldn’t have worked anyway. So I’ll let myself be friends with whomever I like.”
It is not realistic to believe you should never share a mutual attraction and interests with anyone but your SO. But if you want your relationship to last, you don’t spend quality time alone with that new person. From YOUR perspective, the one making the friend, it is not ok.
