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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To be fed up of losing male friends?

92 replies

Enirroc · 02/02/2018 12:01

I've always found that I got on really well with men. Even as a child I spent huge amounts of time playing with boys, I've got some awesome female friends, but I'm getting utterly fed up of losing male friends because their partners or other people around us assume that I can't control myself around them or vice versa.

Why can't people believe that men and women can honestly be just friends?

OP posts:

NeedsAsockamnesty · 02/02/2018 13:53

I haven’t experanced this other than when it’s fully appropriate for me to not remain a friend like when it’s been flirty or a bit to close and I have loads of male friends

DoJo · 02/02/2018 13:56

I'm getting utterly fed up of losing male friends because their partners or other people around us assume that I can't control myself around them or vice versa.

Shouldn't you be fed up of losing male friends because they prioritise their partner's'other people's misconceptions rather than defending your friendship and continuing it regardless?

Firenight · 02/02/2018 13:57

I have some very close male friends. My friends, not my husbands. There’s no way he would stop us spending time together, because he trusts me. And thankfully said friends have wives/partners who trust them too.

It’s really lovely to have a different male perspective on stuff.

Trashboat · 02/02/2018 14:04

Didn't help that my best friend said to his gf that if they hadn't met and I hadn't met my DH, we'd probably be married!

Erm, yes, that's probably cemented the end of any friendship. And if I was her, I probably would have fucked him off too.

What a horrible thing to say.

SandyY2K · 02/02/2018 14:06

I think a proportion of women are weary of other women who have mainly male friends and very few female friends.

There's a lot of suspicion in why they don't equally get along with their female counterparts.

In a number of cases...it's because those women like male attention. Not in all cases

Boundaries are important in such cases. It also depends on how close you are to these men...and if you include or exclude their partners...how frequently you text.

TrinitySquirrel · 02/02/2018 14:10

Everyone here saying the op is bu... have you really stopped your partner being good friends with other women?

If you can't trust them to turn down any advances why the hell are you with them?

Or is it simply because you're insecure and think he might find better?

Bonkers. Every last one. And your partner is probably best well shot of you to be honest.

TrinitySquirrel · 02/02/2018 14:13

@Sandyy2k it could also be because a proportion of other women are batshit crazy/annoying/not nice people/have different interests... the list goes on.

Just because someone else has a vagina doesn't mean we have to be friends.

Piffle11 · 02/02/2018 14:24

A good friend of mine met her now DH on a night out: he was out with his very good female friend. As my DF and her DH became more serious, she basically gave him the 'her or me' lecture. I was quite ashamed of her, as there was clearly no romantic feelings on either side. And he sided with my DF and cut this other woman out of his life. I was very friendly with a man I used to work with and his GF took against me the very first time we met: I said hello to her and she made a snide comment about something I was wearing ... it wasn't like I was draped over him or anything, or even trying to get his attention. Bizarre.

OldPony · 02/02/2018 14:32

Isn't it more that when people couple up they just prefer each other's company to anyone else's for a while and tend to do coupley things?

I haven't experienced this at all and am still close to my male BF and other male friends. Although when I socialise with my friends my DP is usually with us.

ReanimatedSGB · 02/02/2018 15:00

Those of you who appear to think it's OK to prioritise couple-relationships, to the extent that 'socialising mainly with other couples' is the grown-up, sensible, appropriate way to live... have fun when you split up with your partner and find yourself with no friends, because as a single person you're both wierd and an immediate THREAT TO MONOGAMY.

Not all adults want to form or remain in couples anyway. Many of the nicest, most interesting people you could meet are long-term single, or only have casual partnerships. Many people have friends they have known since their childhood - and yes, those friends may well be more important to them than someone they just started dating who is suddenly up in their face the whole time doing the 'Friend or me? Our RELATIONSHIP must come first!' to the partner and everyone around them.
If someone you are dating tries to see off any of your friends, that is usually an indication that you're dating either a whiny Klingon, or an abuser.

SandyY2K · 02/02/2018 15:01

@TrinitySquirrel
Just because someone else has a vagina doesn't mean we have to be friends.

I didn't suggest this to be the case. I certainly don't get on with all women..
but there's often an underlying reason for specifically getting close and having friends of the opposite sex.

Perhaps working in a male or female dominated industry is one reason.

Could be because of past experiences with female friends being bitchy, spiteful and cruel.

I find it easy to get on with men...they're less complicated and more easy going...but it's very much about maintaining appropriate boundaries if they have a partner.

Not calling and texting a lot. Not being demanding if their time and wanting to go out one on one a lot...whilst excluding their partner.

Those kind of things make the partner feel threatened....and if course there will always be those who believe men and women can't be just friends.

I'm not one who believes that....however if there is a mutual attraction...it an attraction on one side... anything is possible.

ChelleDawg2020 · 02/02/2018 15:02

To be honest, the reason straight men are friends with women is that they want to have a full-on relationship with them, or at least to sleep with them.

We tell men that they should get to know a woman, so they do.

ShatnersWig · 02/02/2018 15:04

Chelle As a man, can I just say that's total bollocks. I'm sure it may well be true of some men, but not all.

Youshallnotpass · 02/02/2018 15:05

No partner should ever get to dictate who someone is friends with, that is controlling behaviour and abusive.

I have female friends, my OH has male friends. We trust one another.

My best friend is female and I've known her longer than my OH, if my OH told me to never see her again I'd tell her no. If we broke up as a result then so be it? (She never would ask me anyway, totally hypothetical).

Youshallnotpass · 02/02/2018 15:06

Chelle

That is complete and utter bollocks as above

demirose87 · 02/02/2018 15:08

But how many of us women would be comfortable with our husbands/ partner going round to see a female friend for a cosy evening in/ an intimate supper together? Not many, I suspect. And it works the other way too.

Original poster

Enirroc · 02/02/2018 15:30

Thank you for your perspective @ShatnersWig

Lol @AnneLovesGilbert I'm really not...!

I don't treat my male friends any differently to my female friends, we have the same conversations etc. The person I'm thinking of who didn't have a partner was a really good friend and had been for many years, perpetually single, we were friends while I was married and through my divorce and then acquaintances decided to report us as having a relationship for benefit fraud... He's since pulled away to protect himself and we barely speak now.

The others have all had partners. The most recent two, their partners have forced them to stop being friends, with no evidence at all that there was ever anything more than friendship between us... Where is the trust?

I've tried making friends with the partners too and they just never let me- but I'd really love that.

Also, in some cases, the friendship had developed after the relationship, so there not always a new partner.

@demirose87 I'm not talking about cosy evenings and intimate dinners... I'm talking about doing exactly the same things and behaving exactly the same way as I would with female friends.

@ChelleDawg2020 I'm genuinely saddened that you feel that way.

OP posts:

petbear · 02/02/2018 15:44

There is nothing wrong with a married man having single females as friends, but I find it very odd when a single woman claims a certain married man is her BFF, and that they are 'soulmates;' and yet she doesn't know his wife.

And in some cases, she seems to revel in the fact that his wife is quite insecure about the friendship she has with this man, and is needy and clingy. She seems to think of herself as an irresistible 'siren' who could have this man if she wanted, and she paints the wife as a petty, needy little woman who is trying to stop her man having female friends.

My husband works at a place with 15 women and 3 men, and he has 5 or 6 female friends there. Some days, he spends half an hour after work chatting to them, and having a coffee too. Half of them are married and half are single/divorced. I have all of these woman on my facebook friends list, and they chat to me on there, and regularly 'like' my photos and posts. I am also invited to works parties.

One lady who is a single mum of 3, and originally from Sierra Leone, calls me her Sovereign Sister, and always buys me and DH little gifts when she travels to Africa and the Middle East. Me and DH buy pressies for her kids too, for Christmas........

THIS is what a married man's female friends should be like; friends of the wife's too. I think it's a bit weird and sinister if a married man has a close female friend who he socialises with, and the wife has never even met her. I mean, WHY?

Not saying YOU are like one of these women @enniroc; (someone who has married male friends and claims they are BFF's but does not know his wife,) but some single women with married male friends are........

And as @demirose says.......

Of COURSE most married women are not going to be happy with their husband cosying up to a single female friend of his for a quiet movie night in and a bottle of wine (without her there!) And ditto, no MAN is going to be happy with his wife doing the same with a male single friend.

Anyone who says they are OK with it, is lying.

KimmySchmidt1 · 02/02/2018 15:58

You must be flirting with them subconsciously. Otherwise it wouldn’t keep happening. Do you include the girlfriends or try to spend time alone with the bloke?

ReanimatedSGB · 02/02/2018 16:20

Sometimes, friendship is about shared interests. if your favourite hobby is one that is more usually thought of as 'for' the other sex, then you may end up with more good friends of the opposite sex, because the friendship is built on the shared hobby. Sometimes a hobby friend gets a partner who is also interested in the hobby, and that person joins the hobby social group, but if the new partner has no interest then they won't necessarily meet the hobby friends.

AnneLovesGilbert · 02/02/2018 16:26

Why do dinners get perceived as “intimate” or “cosy”?

It’s people eating together.

It’s not being a cool wife to be completely okay with your spouse eating with another person while they catch up. We know all of each other’s friends, it would be weird if you didn’t after being together a while. But I have friends I made at a specific time in my life, uni or wherever, where DH would spend the whole time trying to catch up, so I’ll catch up with them alone and fill him in on any gossip later. People he’s met and likes, absolutely, but who he doesn’t know as well.

EggsonHeads · 02/02/2018 16:26

Maybe there is a reason why their partners don't trust them? Do a lot of your friends have a history of cheating? Do you have s history of being involved in an affair? Do you have rather flirty banter? Do you cone across as overly friendly/sexy (you may not realise it but seriously covsider this-I didn't realise that I did for years). Or it may just be bad luck? The whole my boyfriend/husband must not have female friends thing is very odd. I'm sure that you won't loose all of them.

g1itterati · 02/02/2018 16:27

OP, I think you just have to accept that once they're in different kind of relationship, as in in love with someone, that's a far deeper connection and it will take precedence.

Life changes, priorities and people change and if you try and cling on to "friendships" with married men as if nothing has changed, you will look a bit desperate and a loon. Sorry to be harsh, but this is reality in most cases.

TheNaze73 · 02/02/2018 16:31

YANBU, there are some incredibly needy & possessive people out there, who get in a relationship, then get all territorial

Aridane · 02/02/2018 16:47

YANBU. And it is sad. Happened to me. Didn't help that my best friend said to his gf that if they hadn't met and I hadn't met my DH, we'd probably be married! Found out she was a jealous type after and lost my DF.

Bloody hell, steamy - wrong on so many levels and you characterise the gf as jealous!!

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