I view marriage as a tight, intimate bond. I view sleeping in a king sized bed with my best friend of 18 years as a convenience issue that in no way would threaten that tight, intimate bond. However, because of that bond, I would inconvenience either myself or my friend if the situation ever arose again. I’d feel silly doing it because it’s not a threat to my bond with my husband, but do it I would.
Do you really think the people in this thread who have no problem with sleeping in bed with someone else platonically have less of a close, intimate bond with their SO? I don’t think that’s a fair conclusion to come to.
I wouldn’t care, not in the least. I’d also have no problem with my wife sharing a bed with a straight or a gay female, and I wouldn’t even have a problem with her sharing a bed with a straight male, provided it was done due to a shortage of available sleeping space.
I’d like to think that the reason my wife doesn’t have sex with men other than me is because she doesn’t want to have sex with men other than me, not merely because she doesn’t have the opportunity. If I thought that my wife would instantly climb on top of anyone next to whom she happened to be prone, I guess my marriage would be in a bit of trouble.
I agree that it shouldn’t be a “regular thing” but if a situation occurs, then no big deal. I also feel that marriage is “a tight, intimate bond”, in fact, my husband and I are probably quite conservative in our views of marriage compared to many people on this board. But this is not something either one of us feels crosses the line. I respect that other people have ideals in their own marriages about what is and is not acceptable, and it is most important that both partners are on the same page and respect each other, not about what other people outside the marriage think.
I would actually be upset, for example, if my husband was confiding secrets to another woman or going to someone else for emotional comfort before I would get upset about how close to someone else he was sleeping. But that’s me and my marriage.
The question was “would I be OK with it?” not “would I give her permission?” Even though we’re both adults capable of making our own decisions, we do actually ask each other sometimes, “are you OK with me doing this?”
Why bother with sexual jealousy because of a dude who will not and cannot become a sexual rival? Put me down in the “don’t care” category. (24yr/old male)
Female - and my SO can share a bed with anyone he wants to/feels the need to.
If there were open beds/sofas in the house, and he was sharing a bed, I’d ask why. Nothing else available? Go for it. Sleeping is sleeping. I trust my SO. If I didn’t he wouldn’t be either significant or other.
Well, I’m not either of them but I think I can answer this a bit.
As a gay male, I have slept in the same bed with straight male and female friends on many occassions. Several of us go to a annual convention together, usually without our SO’s. 4-6 of us to a hotel room, usually with 2 queen beds. No one has ever had a problem with it.
I likewise wouldn’t have a problem with my SO doing the same.
Honestly, I don’t get the problem. Sleep is just sleep.
I’m female and bisexual. When I went to my best friend’s graduation, I shared an air mattress with her sister. My fiancee’s response was, that must of sucked, I hate air mattresses. Sleeping is sleeping. He’s got a friend from college that’s a lesbian. If he was visiting her and they shared a bed, I wouldn’t really mind, and they have had sex (a story involving a threesome from way before my time that honestly sounds like something out of Penthouse letters, but that’s beside the point). As he tells me, I know you’ve made a commitment to me and I know who you go home to, all the rest is window dressings.
When I was in college, I commonly spent the night with one of my friends so his roommate that was dating my roommate could have some alone time. I slept in the roommates bed and that was that. One of the girls we knew was horrified that I spent the night in a room with a man that I wasn’t married to. I could hardly contain myself from laughing. From then on, I just realized that a lot of people have a lot of weird notions about what goes on when other people are sleeping. I don’t get and I don’t agree with it, but to each their own. She missed out on a lot of fun sleepovers involving popcorn and movies. Ah well.
I’m not a guy, but I don’t see the big deal, and I’d be okay with my SO sleeping in the same bed as a platonic, lesbian friend.
Most gay guys are pretty repulsed at the idea of sleeping with women. If neither party wants to do it, nothing’s going to happen. And I suppose I don’t see the bed as this sacred thing either.
I really don’t think the issue of having sex is why the OP’s husband was upset. Honestly, it’s not a trust issue or an issue of suspecting hanky-panky for me. It’s just that I’m uncomfortable with it.
I mean, when you get right down to it, there’s only a small handful of things that separate someone being a friend and someone being a lover. My girlfriend has guy friends… they go out and do the same things my girlfriend and I do. They go bowling, or go to movies, or go out and have a couple drinks and play darts. They have inside jokes and a longer history with her than I do. None of this bothers me.
But there’s a handful of things that I get to do with her that they don’t. One of those things is sleeping in the same bed with her. I feel like if she slept in the same bed with them, those lines get blurrier and in a weird, abstract way, it’s intruding into something special I get to do with her that they don’t.
Kind of illogical and irrational, I know. But it’s how I feel, and barring any unusual circumstances, I’ll continue to feel that it would be a little disrespectful to my relationship with her.
If someone offers to host a platonic friend, they should prepare separate sleeping accommodations or yield their own. Anything else is a lapse of elementary courtesy.
My wife’s entire wedding party was gay men (she was the only one standing up front in a dress), so there have been circumstances (camping, travelling on the cheap, etc.) where she’s shared a bed with one of them. It wasn’t often and it was always borne out of circumstance, so it’s certainly no big deal to me. It hasn’t happened since we were married, and I suspect she’s probably run it by me first now, but I still wouldn’t mind (as long as I knew him; a gay stranger-to-me would be a little different).
a) I wouldn’t and b) I didn’t (luckily), although if one of us isn’t feeling well, the other has no problem bunking down on the couch. I don’t see how the snoring relates to the question at hand, though.
No, it’s not really what I meant. What I really meant came just a touch earlier in my post – “there are marriages and there are marriages and there are marriages.” Which is to say, there are infinite points of view regarding how a marriage should function. I was wrong to point out just two.
Still, I’d wonder about a marriage that was a tight intimate bond, yet one of the partners regularly shared a bed platonically with someone else, for the reasons that Scissorjack listed back on page one. Obviously it’s just me (and a few other people), but the intimacy represented by the bed isn’t something I can easily turn off, or want to turn off, so as to allow someone else in. I mean, I could – I’m not in a sweat about the thought of it – and I would in a pinch, but I’d prefer not to.
FTR, Male, 44. I agree with your husband. wasson and I sound like we are on the same page…
And you have every right to hold that viewpoint/feeling. In this thread, you made it clear that you can be trusted and you should be trusted by your husband.
And that is definitely the right thing to do. Because marriage is MORE than just trust in each other, it’s also a commitment of mutual respect of each others feelings and boundaries with decisions being made that are loving and respectful toward each other. I learned this the hard way when I trusted my wife for nearly 20 years, but did not always give her the respect she deserved nor always respected her boundaries…the woman I trusted for nearly 20 years began to find emotional intimacy with someone else because of this…even though I never had an thoughts of jealousy or distrusted her. When I found out, the trust that I thought was a rock in our marriage was just sand, slipping through my fingers. At first I was upset with her…for about 5 minutes. Thankfully, she wasn’t there to witness it. After my initial shock, I quickly realized that my actions contributed my share to the marital crisis that we were in. I had to make some changes…
We are now on our 22nd year of marriage, and although the trust is coming back slowly, I learned that trust in a marriage is not enough to sustain a marriage. Boundaries, respect, actually listening to my wife when she needs my support and give her that needed support is just as important as trust. And that might just include her not wanting to sleep with a friend platonically, regardless of sex and orientation. She in turn realizes that for my trust in her to be rebuilt, she will have to cease all contact with this other person that she became emotionally attached to, because I do not feel comfortable with this other person calling her even though she said that she could keep it “just friends”.
I’m pretty sure it varies…some marriages might be to tightly bonded to become very restrictive and limiting…that’s not good either. Some marriages might be too loose and could just be viewed as a convenience for tax purposes. Each should be weighed on it’s own merits. But, trust in a marriage is not enough to sustain it. What think is rock solid now, may not be if you don’t pay attention to the other stuff (respect and boundaries). I believe your marriage is better off because of this decision, regardless of how trustworthy you are. Sometimes it’s not about you, it’s about the partner’s feelings on the issue.
Better yet, seek advice from couples who have been married for 50+ years; they seem to know how to do things right, or how to make it right and stay intact.
Put me in the camp of I wouldn’t, and I wouldn’t want my husband to, either. It really isn’t about trust; I think you said it best, wasson - sleeping in the same bed is an intimacy that is reserved for me and my husband, in my opinion. Sort of like a pet name or something; no one else gets to call him my cutesy pet names for him, either.
For those of you who are sounding a little holier-than-thou about the trust thing, I have a few points for you. The reality of relationships - infidelity (sexual and emotional) is a huge problem in relationships today. There are A LOT of people cheating. I don’t think there are many people in relationships who say to themselves, “Yup, I married a cheater. She’s totally gonna screw one of my buddies someday.” I think the stats on cheating is that roughly about 25% of people cheat - if we have 100 posters responding here that they trust their spouse, 25 of you shouldn’t. Or maybe your spouse shouldn’t trust YOU.
Part of any discussion about infidelities and cheating has to talk about boundaries and opportunities as well as trust. A healthy relationship has healthy boundaries that are agreed on by both members of the couple, and people who want their relationship to stay healthy are aware of boundaries and opportunities and don’t engage in behaviours that cross boundaries or lead to the wrong opportunities.
Rubystreak, when your husband says it would be disrespectful of you to sleep platonically with your gay friend, I think he means it would be disrespectful of your relationship - he is the only man in your bed these days. As a man, it can be fairly hard-wired in them to be suspect of other men in your bed - guys have never had complete assurance of who fathered their children, and a lot of masculine behaviours can be traced back to this. Which is not to say he needs to be a chest-thumping, jealous idiot; just that maybe you can understand some of why this is a bigger deal to him than it is to you.
Naw, I disagree with this. 50 year + marriages come from an era and a mindset that said “you do not divorce”. I’m sure a hell of a lot of them are happy but IME a majority of the ones I know are just together because, well, that’s what you do.
I will value more relationships that last together of my generation, when it’s hardly considered taboo to break up/divorce.
Divorce started it’s upward trend in the late 60’s when most of these marriages were at 10+ years…to dismiss a whole generation that lived 40 of those years where divorce is viewed as an easy alternative, I think there’s a lot to be said about those who have LIVED it, rather than talk about living it. My bio parents would have celebrated their 47th or 48th anniversary this year, but they didn’t make it past 5 or 6 years before they divorced, so I’m not buying the “you do not divorce” reasoning behind the success of some of these couples. You might have a better arguement with those who are in their 60th-75th+ year of marriage, but still, whatever knowledge they can impart on a younger couple on how to stay married (without killing each other) is worth listening to.
I don’t know. Most of the people I talk to in my parents’ generation feel like this. And it’s not because they got married in anti-divorce times, it’s because they grew up in anti-divorce times, and so already had the mindset.