Do you allow your husband to meet his woman friends ?

[splendid]

Do you allow your husband to go to dinner or travel with his female friend just two of them?

"but to ignore the possibility for them to happen in friendships that have no boundaries, is naive in the extreme"

Good Call!!

What an interesting thread.

FWIW - have no issue with DH meeting up with female friends or even travelling with them. In general i'd prefer to be travelling with him but he has one v old friend who lives abroad and I'd be perfectly happy for him to visit her alone. And actually theirs wasn't a completely platonic relationship when they met 18 years ago but he's married to me and I trust him (and her) completely.

I suppose though, hypothetically speaking, if DH or I were to meet a new colleague of opposite sex and then start to meet him/her alone in the evenings that would be a bit odd. Better to invite them round to your house and get to know them together I'd have thought.

Completely agree with what others have said re 'allow' btw

cory I categorically did not say that male-female friendship were not allowed.

And you don't understand what non-sequitur means.

I think we could get past the daft use of the word "allow" by now...

And as for "professional" people understanding better?

Vom.

Only complete knobheads describe themselves as "professional" people, but I'm on the Xenia spectrum where work is concerned. And I have male friends I met at work (including DH).

But if I was suddenly spending a lot of time alone having dinner and travelling and texting and mooning about a new male friend I would not expect DH to be OK with that.

As for needing to be convinced that all opposite sex friendships contained a sexual element? What a crock of utter shit.

Clearly it is possible to have entirely unsexual relationships between men and women. Only sexist weirdos claim otherwise.

But it's just as stupid to act as though sexual feelings arising between men and women is impossible.

Anyway, since you clearly haven't read any of my other posts I'm not sure why I'm bothering really. Just so everyone is clear though - DH and I both have opposite sex friends we see alone and even go for dinner with.

Does not arise with us - our Uni friends are mutual and mostly male. I have had lunch or dinner on a few occasions with a male Uni friend and I don't suppose DH has worried about that, although FWIW, I don't think those are totally immune from the possibility of an affair either.

DH has lunch with female colleagues, but to answer the OP, I would be very concerned about a lone dinner with a new female friend and would agree with WWIFN's thesis that this new behaviour could signal a drift into an affair.

... I meant Uni friendships in general not being immune, not mine in particular

I did not say that professional people understand better because they are cleverer. Simply that they often have experience of male/female friendship because certain types of jobs are conducive to those friendships. But I admit that I should not have used the term "professional" as that brings the whole class question in and I accept that it did sound offensive. I should have said "working in a male/female environment which presupposes socialising as part of the work".

What I meant was that if you have the kind of job where you spend a large part of your waking hours at work, then that is where you are likely to do your socialising. Therefore you tend to make friends at work- because that is where you are. And in many situations that means a fair proportion of the people you are meeting- and hence have a chance of making friends with- are of the opposite sex.

Some people seemed to deny the possibility of male/female longlasting genuine but non-sexual friendships arising as a result of work. To me, that sounds like they simply haven't had this experience. Many other people have.

Cory, the evidence is that working people are more likely to have affairs, though, which is quite obvious. When I was a SAHM, I roamed the streets for hours with a buggy, but was hardly likely to meet someone and start an affair with them. Working in my job, I meet (some) attractive and intelligent men pretty frequently, and deliberately don't start fostering close exclusive relationships over dinner with them alone, or seek opportunities to travel with them abroad, partly so I don't give the wrong impression to them (I'm no great shakes these days, but even I think one or two of them might go for it given an opportunity) but also to keep myself out of the way of temptation. I have known many supposedly 'professional' workplaces to be hot-beds of affairs (not my current work, thank god). Some people see the opportunity to mix with the opposite sex a great chance to have platonic interesting friendships, others end up having affairs.

Jamie

I agree with you about no "type" of friendship being immune from an affair.

I think they are less of an unknown element though, iyswim.

e.g. DH is part of a large group of old Uni friends. Unsurprisingly there is lots of sexual history within the group - people who had longish term relationships, people who lost their virginity to each other, snogs, shags, "will they, won't they?"s etc. etc. My Uni friends are similar, but not nearly so tight as a massive social group so many years on.

But these people are now friends - they are not each others exes or old flames or whatever. They are friends, the history is history. It's part of the story, but it isn't in the present. It's easy to see that when you meet them. Occasionally someone will bring up an old sexual connection between two of them that the newbies (such as I) don't know about, and we'll all guffaw because it seems so incongruous now.

But equally there can be longstanding relationships, even ones cast officially as "best friends" where the subtext of the story is that the two are really "made for each other" or will get it together eventually, or there's some kind of thwarted true love narrative. And that TBH I would not be happy with, although you'd know early enough not to stick with someone who had some kind of "true love" thing going on with someone they pretended was just a friend.

And of course old friends could suddenly find themselves falling in love, but I do think in a situation of true friends that that likelihood is significantly decreased by the existence of a wife or husband that has become friends with the old friend.

Some of DH's women friends are some of my best friends now. They are all people I like enormously. I have never seen anything that has given me even a moment's pause. Stopping him from seeing them because of the vanishingly small possibility that they would both betray me in the most awful way seems a compete overreaction to the actual risk.

But if I did start to feel that something had change, that something was amiss, I would expect him to listen to me.

The reason I focus so much on the "new friend" thing is because it's such a cliche - you see it on here over and over again. And also because I think it is more risky - brand new exciting person, so much "getting to know you" intimacy to have. You don't really get that with someone you've already snogged years ago and who's seen you at your silliest.

My point in answer to the OP is that for me the correct answer to "do you allow your DH to go for dinner or travelling with female friends?" is "a qualified yes"

Yes, I am happy for him to do those things (well, the travelling isn't something that's ever come up) BUT I am not happy for him to do those things with any woman at all. "Friendship" can cover a multitude, including the early stages of a sexual relationship. And if that's what seems to be going on, then I get to call bullshit on "we're just friends"

The thing is, you only get 2 chances to call bullshit in an entire relationship - so you have to use them very wisely.

I still have both of mine fully intact. And hope to keep them that way for as long as possible. Maybe forever.

Where is the OP?

DP sometimes has lunch with women friends - old classmates (from as far back as school, but mostly from when he was a student) and former colleagues. He also has lunch with male friends.

I also have lunch with male friends

This may have already been said, but it IS possible for someone - even if they have the opportunity to do so, and have someone to do it with - to NOT fuck about when they are in a relationship.

Is the OP going to give us some more detail?

I have an old friend who is male, we were very very close, we went travelling together, went on holidays together, lived in each others pockets for a few years. We did sleep together a couple of times, but when we were 19/20 and had had too much to drink, we moved on from that phase what seems like a lifetime ago.
he's good friends with my DH, but due to his DW just not liking me very much the friendship has dwindled to almost nothing over the past couple of years.
It's so sad and I really miss him, our children are close in age and the few times we have met up it's been lovely, but I just have to accept that the friendship's over. I still send cards etc, and will be happy to get to know them again in the future if possible.
He was a huge part of my youth and it's just really sad that the person I shared so much with is no longer around, for no real reason.
I wouldn't ever stop DH spending time with his female friends, which he has a number of. One of them he was in a relationship with for 3 years, but that was a long time ago, I'm making her wedding dress for next summer

yy spidookly - did not have the time to expand on my comment about old friends, but I totally agree with you

"Is the OP going to give us some more detail?"

probably, on the Matthew Wright show.

cory, thanks for coming back and qualifying your statements x

Agree with the previous posters.

If the friend pre-dates the relationship and the DH/DW/Partner objects to them meeting old friends - then that relationship is seriously flawed.

what if the friend is an ex from long ago does this make things different?

brusselspouts not in the slightest. To my mind there is a reason why these people are exes - they aren't compatible and they've both figured that out and decided just to be friends instead.

Even if one of them held a long burning candle for the other, does it matter as long as they don't act on it?

We have a rather sweet neighbour who is desperately in love with my DH. She's always really nice to me, super fun to have around, helps out with babysitting occasionally, and takes DH off to have brunch or boozy time too. Doesn't bother me at all.

The only time I've been slightly is when he took another female friend of his to a very romantic and expensive restaurant on an odd Saturday night. There was no special reason, like her birthday or anything. We would only really go there for a birthday as it's quite expensive. In DH's defence, he just really likes the food there and knew she wasn't really geared up for spending that amount of cash. And in her defence, she insisted on paying half the bill, as otherwise "It would feel like a date". DH got an earbending from both me and her about that actually. He conceded he was in the wrong and that next time, I get to go to the fancy restuarant too!

If it did bother you, then you should discuss it with your DH and resolve the issue. Because you either trust him or you don't, in which case why bother being together at all?

DP has female friends (one of them he used to tutor when he was doing his DPhil) as well as female business colleagues and associates. Many of them I've never met. It wouldn't cross my mind to be suspicious of them and 'forbid' him from seeing them.

That said, I'm friends with some of my exes and would find it very odd to not be 'allowed' to see them. DP can be a bit jealous sometimes, but that just means I have to sit him down and give him bit of a talking-to.

Curious to know why this has been ressurected?