...to be sick of women being made to feel uncool for feeling insecure about their husbands female friends?

[Alphabetsoup4]

Is it just me?

There are often threads here from women, girlfriends, wives who have husbands who have a ‘close female friend’ and are exclusive of the wife/gf. Often they get told on MN that they are jealous, insecure and controlling for feeling uncomfortable.

Isn’t this a case of other women being a bit misogynistic towards a poster feeling insecure?

Why on earth is it ‘cool’ to be oh so fine with your man having as many close female relationships as he likes?

And why is it assumed that cheating only ever happens because the man is going to cheat anyway, it’s hard wired? That it doesn’t matter whether they have female friendships are not.

I don’t understand and I think we are in danger of putting ourselves down as women telling others not to trust their instincts.

Why aren’t healthy boundaries cool? I think that they are.

That’s not to say that opposite sex friendships are banned, but there is a healthy balance.

Unless a woman is being very jealous, not letting her partner look at another woman etc, then I’d say 90% of these posts are from women who really are being disrespected and demeaned by their partners.

Just feel a bit depressed to see so many women be put down for this!

Asta, then you believe the alternative is to prevent them from having female friends (and colleagues? as that would only have stopped your example I suppose) to stop the possibility of cheating? I'd rather not be with someone I only thought was faithful because I policed them that closely. That sounds very stressful to me and i'd never be able to be with dh with the job he's in, i'd have a nervous breakdown from all the worry or trying to stop him from working.

Well no, the alternative is I meet a man who feels the same way I do. There are plenty out there. I’ve dated some of them! It’s not controlling if you both feel the same way.

Oh and the colleagues got together after all the cosy after work drinks as “friends”.

To say my attitude is “abusive” is a bit daft really. Let’s get real.

My DH goes round the world with his job all the time - no idea where he is sometimes. While here I am. A SAHM for over a decade. Not a controlling or hysterical member of the Amish community, just a mum in Fulham who understands the boundaries in her marriage.

Your “boundaries” are many, many, many other people’s controlling and abusive. You’re doing a very good job of making yourself out to be that way without us pointing it out

Surely this is just basic stuff in any marriage?

Did you actually mean 'in my marriage' ?

I’m not abusive. What planet are you on?

The whole point is, I don’t have to tell my DH to not have female BFs or whatever nonsense you want to call them. He wouldn’t want one anyway!
Why would he? He’s not interested in that and he doesn’t have time. I’m not interested either and I don’t have time.

In nearly 20 years this has never even been a conversation between us, let alone an issue.

Mine has one male friend, the rest are women. If I got upset every time he has dinner/a drink/coffee with them we wouldn't have lasted five minutes. He's not an irresistible sex god, in fact he's probably a pretty specialist taste!

Wow. This is a weird thread. My husband is one of four brothers and as a result didn’t really make a lot of close male friends outside family as he already had his brothers. Aside from his brothers his best friends are two women. We’ve been together 20 years now, one of these two women was my bridesmaid and the other is my DSs godmother and they are really lovely women that I’ve been privileged to have in my life.

Having female friends was a good sign because it was, I’ve since discovered, an indication he wasn’t sexist and didn’t view men/women as ‘us and them’.

I would have missed out on an awful lot of things which have brought me a lot of happiness over the last 20 years if I’d kicked off about it.

I’d be devastated if he moaned to anybody about our relationship instead of talking to me regardless of sex.

He’s not interested in that

What, friendship? Or the bizarre twisted opinion of what a male-female friendship actually is...?

@BejamNostalgia did they exist pre your relationship with him out of interest?

And really do that many actual grown-ups (as opposed to 8 year olds) have BFFs?! 😅

Why can’t some posters just accept that people are different. It’s not “twisted” - it’s just about being honest.

People are different. Some women are more “women’s women” (for want of a better term - I can’t think what else to call it). So they naturally gravitate to women similar to them, I guess. This is a normal process. You don’t really feel like you’re missing out on not having a particular male friend. It’s more that it doesn’t really occur to you in the first place. And it’s the same with some men too. They don’t avoid women or have a twisted view. They just have more in common with men on a social level, I that tends to be how their friendship pan out.

Basically you do what you’re comfortable with.

Is that ok with everyone? Thanks.

And by the way, never once in my life have I stopped my DH going anywhere with anyone. This is a total non- issue because we were on the same page in the first place.

People are different

And yet you think you can tell people what the basics of 'any marriage' are.

Why can’t some posters just accept that people are different. It’s not “twisted” - it’s just about being honest

You say honest, I’ll go with disingenuous.

As I said pages back your choice of language makes it very clear your actual thought process.

Ok “most” marriages then

I still maintain that most married people or people in committed relationships do not go out for dinner etc exclusively with other opposite sex friends on a regular basis. It’s different if it’s an extension of a hobby or something - I get that. But I mean the type of attitude of “dont get between me and my male friend, DH”.

Jacques I’m sure you’ve heard the term “pot calling the kettle” so not go there.

I agree with you Pa1oma, that people tend to be with likeminded people. My parents never understood why I had male friends and why i'm not bothered about DH having female friends. They see it as a betrayal and think it's odd. My dad did a trade job which means he rarely mixed with women and mum did an office admin job which meant she had little interaction with men. So the opportunity never came up really for them.

But for me and DH our lives and work have meant we have had more mixed groups to choose friends from.

I resent being called a cool wife tho. I think it's a silly and reductive insult meant to suggest my opinion is pointless and should be ignored because it's fake. It dismisses my agency and accuses me of being false and only doing things for male attention and hiding my real feelings. It's very rude and offensive.

I've plenty of male friends who aren't friends with my husband. Luckily he is 'cool' with it 🤔. I'd find it controlling and insulting if he asked me not to be friends with them.

I am not someone who is flirty or overly open with any of my male friends and I'm mindful of their wives if they have one.
I was really good pals with a SAHD and our kids were good friends too. If he had not been married I would have hung out with him a lot more but I didn't want to cause his wife any worry at all so subtly made sure we only got together in public places and usually when other people were about. There was never any romantic interests between at all (that's just too weird to contemplate) but I didn't see any point in worrying his wife on the off chance she was insecure like some of the posters on this thread.

I'd be deeply insulted and annoyed if my husband thought that I'd have an affair. In fact I suspect if he suddenly came out with nonsense like that I'd have to rethink the relationship.

I don't understand why someone would want to be in a relationship if they couldn't trust their partner to be around people of the opposite sex. That's awful.

@NotWhatWhat, one of my friends finished her marriage just before their silver wedding because her husband accused her of having an affair with an old friend. She said if he didn't trust her there was no point.

The overwhelming majority of my friends are female, Pa1oma, but I have male friends, too. The two adult people I am closest to in the world other than DH are one male and one female friend. I don’t recognise the ‘man’s woman’ versus ‘women’s woman’ distinction at all. I certainly don’t have any ‘traditionally male’ interests.

To the poster who asked further up the thread whether it was generational, or ‘a London thing’, DH and I are mid-40s, and my close male friend is in his early 50s, DH’s close female friends are in their 40s and 50s, though he had one very close female friend who was much older and died of cancer about ten years ago in her 60s. Neither DH nor I nor my close friend are originally from the UK, did live in London for ten years, but currently live in the English midlands. If I extrapolate outwards to ‘our circle/s’ and friends’ friends, we’re all 40s and 50s, a mixed bag of nationalities and people from/living in Manchester, rural north Wales, Glasgow, Kent, Bristol, Norfolk, Leicestershire, Hexham, London, and we’re academics, medics, lawyers, a potter, a pharmacist, someone who works in sport, a policeman, a civil servant, an NHS manager, a foster carer, an editor, someone who owns a shop and a couple of writers. Off the top of my head.

I still maintain that most married people or people in committed relationships do not go out for dinner etc exclusively with other opposite sex friends on a regular basis.

Most married couple you know ots notbthe case for all of us. I have a Male best friend who has recently relocated across the world. Dp knew he was my friend when we met. If he didn't like it, he didn't have to be with me.

I dont think everyone should be ok with it. But it's what works in YOUR relationship

*I resent being called a cool wife tho. I think it's a silly and reductive insult meant to suggest my opinion is pointless and should be ignored because it's fake. It dismisses my agency and accuses me of being false and only doing things for male attention and hiding my real feelings. It's very rude and offensive(

Exactly this. What people dont realise when they are calling women 'the cool wife's is that they are being very misogynistic

I still maintain that most married people or people in committed relationships do not go out for dinner etc exclusively with other opposite sex friends on a regular basis.

Most married couple you know ots notbthe case for all of us. I have a Male best friend who has recently relocated across the world. Dp knew he was my friend when we met. If he didn't like it, he didn't have to be with me.

I dont think everyone should be ok with it. But it's what works in YOUR relationship

I resent being called a cool wife tho. I think it's a silly and reductive insult meant to suggest my opinion is pointless and should be ignored because it's fake. It dismisses my agency and accuses me of being false and only doing things for male attention and hiding my real feelings. It's very rude and offensive

Exactly this. What people dont realise when they are calling women 'the cool wife's is that they are being very misogynistic

I’ve never called anyone a “cool wife” because I’m not 100% certain I know what it means or if I might be one by MN terms.

Copper - I’m not British- born either and DH is only semi-British-ish. So just for context, when I was a teen, if you wanted to go to a party to “make friends and mingle with boys” you effectively had to have someone such as a brother or cousin as a kind of “chaperone” or you couldn’t go. This designated individual would be keeping an eye on any male “friends” you may be making. Yes, it’s true - this was in the late 80s / early 90s . This thread made me remember all that.

When I talk about my life now, most of the women are SAHM or work part-time. Most of the DHs are bankers, CEOs etc because it’s that kind of area. Very long working hours. So basically I might see a female friend or two once or twice a week. We might have people over for dinner or go out for dinner. Maybe theatre or something? But beyond that, everyone’s too busy to meet anyone socially, male or female, especially as everyone has kids in the mix.

Depends what you mean by close friends. I have men I've worked with or went to school with who I will chat to if I meet them in town.

But I wouldn't have a male friend who was closer than that. Because i know that if I like him enough to want to be close friends, I like him enough to shag him. So when I was married I didn't put that temptation on myself.

I couldn't share a bed with a man I liked and not want to touch him. So I don't. And I suppose that colours how I see other people's friendships.

For me, men are never non sexual unless they are gay, relatives or many years older than me.