Wouldn’t bother me in the least, and I would think twice about remaining in a relationship with someone who would object to such a thing.
In fact, once, when I was a teenager, and I had a boyfriend (of 3+ years at that time), I spent the night in the same building as the boyfriend but in a bed with a guy who not only wasn’t my boyfriend and who was a teenager, but who was straight.
No hanky panky ensued. The boyfriend did not mind.
And once I spent the night in a tent with three straight guys, two of whom had girlfriends. No hanky panky. No objections.
And in fact the guy I’m dating now has spent the night in bed with (straight) women who aren’t me, and I don’t mind at all.
Count me in the “if you don’t trust your SO, then why are you together?” camp.
With a gay guy: I wouldn’t be comfortable with it. The gay guys I know well are (by their own enthusiastic admission) completely indiscriminate and have in the past had sex with women. I trust my wife completely, but I wouldn’t trust those guys not to be obnoxious around her, even if they didn’t actually try to get in her pants. And from that, I generalize to gay guys I don’t know well.
With a straight woman: No problem, really. She has in the past, like when going on trips with her friends.
Why the difference? No rational explanation. I’m a straight male, and while I understand rationally that a gay male wouldn’t be into women, I still find it hard to fully believe a guy wouldn’t find a woman sleeping with them to be a turn-on.
It would bother me a little, but I wouldn’t make an issue out of it.
A lot would depend on how well I knew the friend and I’m not saying that if I knew the friend better I would feel better. Heck, it might make me feel worse.
I would allow my guest to have the bed and I would take the floor, in another room.
Agreed. I find the notion of boundaries very strange, when it involves what another person does - that is very close to claiming ownership IMO, and doing that would piss my GF off a lot more than me sharing a bed with a friend.
As I suspected, she wouldn’t be happy with the reverse. I asked it she minded if I slept in the same bed as on of her gay friends, which would seem to be more of a concern to me, but that was OK.
This is a good point. I trust my wife. I trust her not to share a bed with another man when she’s away from me.
That being said, it probably wouldn’t bother me that much, but there would be a tiny bit of discomfort. As a man, I have always offered my bed to a platonic female guest and I went to sleep somewhere else (floor, couch, bathtub…whatever) and I’d wonder about the motive of a man who didn’t think & act the same way.
Call me a bit old fashioned, but I’d never impose to share a bed with a woman for a hanky-panky free, platonic night’s sleep. I think of it as being a gentleman. I don’t see how the guy in the op, gay or nay, wouldn’t want to offer the same bit of courtesy…especially to a married woman.
VWife is extremely clingy. I’d be so surprised that she actually wanted to voluntarily spend a night away from home and me that I wouldn’t care about sleeping arrangements.
I think you’re nuts. You can’t have that strong a grip on someone and call them your wife. Relax. You want your wife to go on a fishing trip with you and three of your stinky buddies?
Like you said it’s a partnership not a slave ship. You agree to trust each other and that means you guys should be able to spend a few seconds apart.
As far as the “sacred bed” theory goes, I certainly would never share my marital bed with anyone, nor would I be happy if my husband did. That physical space–not some platonic ideal–is really special to me and I would not like it invaded. In fact, I don’t even really like–and never invite–anyone else into my bedroom. This was true for my parents growing up–we kids were very rarely in their room, and to this day when I am visiting, I wouldn’t walk through their bedroom to get a bottle of shampoo from the bathroom without asking.
Other than that, I don’t think it would bother me too much, but I think it would bother him tremendously–he likes to sleep at home–so I don’t see worrying about it.
I just asked my husband. No problem. It’s just sleep, and we’ve both done lots of non-sexual crashing at friends’ houses before marriage- it’s late, there’s no other room, whatever. Sleep doesn’t have to be reserved specifically for your spouse.
Heck, there are straight friends of the opposite sex neither of us would have a problem sharing a large bed with. Mutual friends, with mutual trust all around.
Mind you, I wouldn’t be looking to seek out opportunities to sleep in the same bed with someone not my husband. It would be a bad sign if either of us were making up excuses and reasons we had to sleep with someone else a lot. But occasionally, when there’s not a lot of other options? Once a year, when visiting another city? No problem.
I (straight male) backpack a lot and have spent many nights in small, two and three person tents with straights and gays of both genders. No one has batted an eye. There’s a lot less intimacy in a king-sized bed; it wouldn’t matter to me in the least.
My opinion is that the only legs next to my wifes in bed should be mine unless there are extenuating circumstances that we both agree to (and the reverse is true as well). People who don’t care: good on ya. You and your spouse both agree. People who both do care: Still OK because you both agree.
People who disagree with their spouse on this: its your marriage and talking things out and finding compromises and solutions is the minimum basic requirement involved. So do the work, talk it out, and find an arrangement you both can deal with.
BTW, kudos to John Carter of Mars for coming up with the air mattress solution. Even if she has special back needs, there are specialized mattress cots that can be purchased & shipped that would solve the problem and provide for modesty. Also, if the wife agrees to the cot/mattress solution and still sleeps in the guys bed, the husband has bigger problems than can be solved by Posturepedic in my opinion.
I don’t understand why everyone keeps saying that if you trust your partner it shouldn’t be a problem. Can someone explain to me why this keeps being said, and where this “trust” stops giving your partner a free pass to do whatever they want?
I like my showering example. Do you trust your partner enough to let them shower with someone else? Why or why not? Is “trust” still a big issue when nudity and slipperiness is involved but sex is not?
That sounds like you are saying you would be against it in order to protect her from her own actions. If she can’t handle someone being “obnoxious around her” what is she doing out on her own? Unless you mean rape, which isn’t someone being obnoxious at all.
What I mean by “trust” in this case would be something like “feel absolutely secure in my relationship with that person - so secure that I wouldn’t even bother speculating whether something could happen between her and her friend, knowing that she would never do anything I could find offensive”. And her being naked with a friend in the shower would not offend me - situations can arise where that (the nakedness, not necessarily the showering) is the only option. She must have done that several times when she were travelling with her friends a few years back. I don’t mind - it really is very meh to me.
Remember: we are talking about a friend , someone who knows your partner well, and whom s/he knows equally well - not “random guy from bar”. And like other posters have said: How often does it happen anyway? My GF and I sleep together almost always, but a few times a year situations appear where we have to spend the night apart. I let her judge how she handles that situation, and she lets me do the same.
I hope this is a whoosh. This is absolutely ludicrous, and the idea of being involved in a marriage like that makes me shudder. I hope you’ve already got such a compliant wife permanently attached to your side, because if anyone I was involved with expressed such expectations from our marriage, I’d escort them to the door.
So you trust your girlfriend to shower with a friend, but you do not trust her to shower with a random guy from the bar? Why not, what’s the difference? Trust is trust, right?
And then you mention this “few times a year”. What if she slept with him once a month? Once a week? Or every single night you didn’t sleep with her? Would you still keep saying you trust her, or at some point would you be bothered with the situation?
Listen, I don’t think any of us are saying there’s absolutely no reason, ever, ever, EVER to sleep in the same bed as a member of the opposite sex, but I think it should be avoided out of respect for your partner.
That is very chilling Mr. Partriach. I didn’t know it was legal to marry your siamese twin in most states. My wife is an executive in the gourmet foods business and has to travel frequently. Some of those trips are a mixture of work and pleasure due to the nature of the business. I have gone to some of them but it isn’t my thing overall. I don’t even have that much vacation time. Should I quit my job and downsize to a smaller house so that I can make sure this never happens again? Your words are about as relevant as encountering a very old Southern slaveowner giving a speech about the way society has to function. Have you ever considered that your views aren’t normal or optimal even for you and your wife? It is really disturbing and I don’t see the point unless you have committed yourself to some kind of perverse stunt. I, for one, am certain that my wife is satisfied enough with me that she won’t start sleeping with other people as soon as she gets past baggage claim.
To the OP: I would think that it was a little strange but nothing to make a fuss about.
As a married man, my fear would be the old cliche that they keep telling us there is no “absolute” sexuality, it’s all a continuum. Absolutely every gay man I know is a total whore given the opportunity, has had sex with women in the past, and a number of them claim they enjoyed it at least minimally. How would I know that the alleged gay guy is not secretly bisexual and has just been waiting for the right opportunity with the right gal?
I know that’s not a totally rational fear, but I don’t think it’s totally irrational either. But I wouldn’t prohibit my wife from spending time with an obviously gay friend, and I’m not worried about her leaving me, so I’d prefer she just managed her own sleeping arrangements without telling me any irrelevant details that would squick me out.