AIBU to have a male friend to stay when DH is away?

[clothesoverbros]

ok, background: have known this man for 20 years, never had a relationship or even any drunken fumbles when younger. I would class him as one of my very closest friends, we say each other regularly and email / chat often.

DH and he get on ok - but very different so not really friends if you see what I mean. DH is generally happier for me to see friend on my own.

He's recently lost a parent and split up with his long term girlfriend, so I'm a bit worried about him.

DH will be working away during the week, returning at weekends so I've arranged for my friend to come visit and because of the distance he'll need to stay over. We now have a young DD and so it's difficult for me to go out in the evening as I would have done pre-baby.

My DH thinks this is 'inappropriate' my response was 'how dare you tell me who I can or can't see'.

So am I being unreasonable?

I have pondered on this thread on the drive home.

DH and I enjoy a very loving marriage, we've been together a long time. Sex with someone else wouldn't necessarily be a dealbreaker for me, something more emotional, very definitely. I trust DH, he does me. We don't spend all day every day wondering how we can stop the other from straying, we just enjoy our relationship. When we don't then we'll sort it. It's not some wierd possessive thing to just want to be with one person, it's just how some people live. What is right for some people may not be for others, our relationships and the issues we bring to it are our own. It has taken me a long time to trust and believe in another person and their faith and love in me due to my family background. DH and I both have opposite sex friends, I was always a "go down the pub with the lads" type in any case, as well as having lasting female friendships. No issue in our case (now, anyway!), I can understand why in others it could well be.
It's not right to belittle and mock the monogamous style of life purely because it is not how you live SGB, I wouldn't mock/belittle your lifestyle.
Mocking the norm is just as odious as mocking the minority.

Is it safe to come out yet...?

see what you started OP? Drop a bomb and then run away! Well, have you and your husband come to a solution?

clothesoverbro- look at all this mess you made! clear it up at once! There's buns stuck to the wall, buns on the floor... Goodness me.

I have no problem with people being monogamous and finding likeminded partners to do it with. It's the 'ooh, waa, you can't have friends of the opposite sex now you're Married! It's wierd to have friends of the opposite sex that you don't have sexual tension with and it SHouldn;t Be Allowed!' that suggests grim, narrow, exhausting little mundane lives.

I am relatively new mumsnet - about two weeks- and I have found this thread really really interesting, v.lively, diverse, forthright, at times, and reassuring in the way that peeps have jumped to others defense, self-policed apologised if they felt were wrong. Healthy debate basically. Thank you all for a great intro to the network!

Exactly, Springchicken; and I'm not sure how or why people saying it's OK to have an opposite-sex friend stay the night has been turned into 'you're mocking monogamy' type statements . Especially as I, and several other posters, have either made it explicitly clear or very much implied that we are in monogamous relationships.

It's interesting that Carmina's last post seems to conflate the notion of having male friends/having them stay over with the idea that women 'don't really want to share the father of their children with any woman who winks at him' and that one's DP is 'that one special person'. I would happily have a male friend stay over, and would be equally happy for DP to have a female friend stay. BUT ? amazing, this ? I don't want to share DP (and I'm pretty sure he doesn't want to share me) and I absolutely consider him to be that one special person (and again, I'm pretty confident that that's how he thinks of me).

Friendship is not a threat to a committed relationship. IMO.

I also thought spring's comments were a little odd:-

"What a ghastly, exhausting, depressing and pointless way to live - your whole life focussed on Preventing Someone Having Sex With Other People. If you're a monogamy fetishist, find another one to shack up with and then you can, you know, get a life."

As very many have said already, people's feelings can often have little to do with logic. The OP's DH may be illogical in his reaction but that doesn't escuse some of the speculative the villification.

She also said that her friend and DH were very different and "...not really friends if you see what I mean..." which could also explain a lot.

Agree.

I am not good, for a number of reasons mostly to do with my own insecurities, at non-monogamy. I would be deeply pissed off if my partner had sex with someone else (I am also fully aware that for a lot of people monogamy doesn't work - a surprising number of people are having sex with other people besides their partners).

But I do expect him to have friends. And me to have friends. And some of those friendships to predate our relationship and/or have (some degree of) priority from time to time.

And I think I have a more robust view of the male ego than some other people too.

Agree with LadyCC, that is.

Actually, what I really have a problem with the idea is that just because someone's feelings are hurt, they have to be indulged. Having hurt feelings doesn't necessarily make you right or reasonable, sometimes it makes you a whiny, self-obsessed PITA who should grow the fuck up.
As in this case: catering to the DH's irrational ickle hurty feelings means causing hurt to both the old friend in need of support and the OP who is, after all, trustworthy. So the DH is the one who needs to get a grip.

Ladyclarice - I was replying to SCGB's post where she basically said people in stable loving relationships are boring and should - 'get a life'.
I could be having sex with a different person every weekend if I wanted to - thankfully, cold meaningless sex does nothing for me.
And yes of course it's ok to have friends of the opposite sex, but there's a limit to how 'friendly' you get with them - emails, texts, seeing them regularly ( just the two of you ) wanting them to stay over when your partner is away - that's taking the piss - sorry but it is - and I would seriously question the integrity and morals of the people who continue these friendships when their partner isn't happy about them.

And what I can't understand is the 'my partner would never cheat on me, we trust each other 100%' - oh really - well take a look on the relationship board any day of the week - it's full of women whose partners are cheating on them - and 9 times out of 10 it's with someone at work or with a 'friend'.
I've lost count of the people I've known/know who have had affairs - lovely, kind people - it happens. That's why people are insecure and worry if they see their partner enjoying the company of another person - it's completely natural.

I'm not sure what a friendship is if it doesn't involve being 'friendly' with the other person. I'm pretty certain that friendships often involve seeing people regularly and communicating by text or email. I fail to see how exchanging emails with a friend or seeing them alone is 'taking the piss' . As for 'wanting them to stay over', it's not as if the OP is talking about doing this regularly with this friend, like a sleepover. It is a one-off situation where an old friend needs some support and logistics suggest that an overnight stay is the easiest and most sensible option.

As for affairs, well, of course I wish people didn't hurt each other in that way, and I'd be devastated if it happened to me. But I am not going to worry about DP every time he enjoys the company of another woman. It's a waste of time and energy, and, more to the point, given all the talk on this thread about respecting your partner, it's very disrespectful to him. And it goes both ways; I'd be offended if he worried about or gave me grief about enjoying the company of/wanting to give support to a male friend. I would also contend that respecting someone includes respecting their choice of friends (even if you don't get on with them that well yourself) and respecting, even admiring, their commitment to their friends.

Trusting someone in a relationship is not something that you either do or don't do; it's a conscious choice and an ongoing one, and sometimes one has to work against natural but irrational feelings of doubt or suspicion and actively work on continuing to trust.

Indeed - but back on planet earth most people are jealous and possessive.

'back on planet earth'. That's quite offensive.

I'd have to debate 'most people' as being rather a sweeping statement, and also add that my argument does not preclude people being jealous and possessive; I just think it's possible and desirable to work against these tendencies, and that 'trust' is a process and something you do as a mark of respect for loved ones.

I'm really sorry if I offended you with my planet earth comment -

Do you want me to give you one last explanation or am I sleeping in the spare room? (( joke!))

I'm not personally upset, I just thought it was a flip and not very nice thing to say, especially as I tried really hard to make my last post sober, unpersonal (if that's a word) and reasoned.

But no, you don't need to take your pillow to the spare room.

Comments such as "...a whiny, self-obsessed PITA who should grow the fuck up..." and "...get a grip..." would not be of much use in a situation like the OP's.

This thread is just like a precarious box of dynamite. Always ready to blow!

Ladyclarice - I'm genuinely very sorry. I know we're on completely different wavelengths over this, but that doesn't mean I haven't really enjoyed your posts ( I have ) and I shouldn't have replied so flippantly.

It's just trust is a funny thing - if you gave me a million pounds in cash and asked me to pay it into your bank account, it would be there within 10 minutes ( yes all of it !) - ask me to look after your new born baby for a week and she'd be the best looked after baby in the world - but - if you allowed me to stay over at your house while you were away ( let's just assume I'm a good friend of your dp's and I need consoling ) I couldn't guarantee that after 4 glasses of wine I wouldn't start kissing him - ( only if I fancied him of course - which is always a possibility )
So that's my point - 'trust' is flexable.

I know, Carmina, it's fine, that's why you don't need to sleep in the spare room!

See, I think trust is 'flexible' too but in a different way. I think one has to keep working on it, and also that trust and respect go hand in hand. So in your scenario I would have to ask myself, do I respect my DP enough to assume that he wouldn't allow you to put the moves on him? The answer is yes. I also think my DP respects me, and if you were his friend would respect YOU, too much to allow that to happen. If I had any twinges of doubt I'd have to work on not letting them get in the way of your friendship with DP and the fact that you were in need of support. To not 'allow' you to stay over would be to disrespect DP's friends and his commitment to his friends.

at my appalling spelling of flexible.

you are a wonderful trusting person. But I'm going to say something reallyquicklylikethis - ( primal urges sometimes get the better of us )

I don't think there's anything more to say.

I don't think I'm a wonderful trusting person. I'm just a person who doesn't want to live in a world where (taking the OP's situation) extending the hand of friendship to someone in extremis would trigger angst, jealousy, prurience and fears about 'primal urges'. I'd rather believe that I, my DP and the male friend in question were all going to behave sensibly, and that DP would be able to focus on his business trip without burning up with jealousy, my friend would feel loved and supported by an old friend, and I would have a safe and looked-after child and the knowledge that I had helped out a dear friend.

karamastar - you are right, it's been a great thread (i've lurked ) MN at it's best.

Haven't had time to read this whole thread, but picked up a couple of things - someone said 'its your home, you should be able to have whoever you want to stay', to which I would say, well actually, no, if you are in a relationship, your home belongs to BOTH of you and in my opinion you would BOTH need to be comfortable with who's staying, whether your OH was there or not.
Also, I agree with Carmina and her 'primal urges' :D We are all human beings and we all have human failings, we are not all perfect, I think it's actually quite arrogant to imagine we have complete control over ourselves ALL of the time.