As a married/ partnered woman, what is acceptable to you?

[operationsunshine]

What is acceptable to you regarding your husbands/ partners contact with women in general or friendship .
Do you trust him entirely or is there a limit to their contact that you will not accept ?
Following on from a couple of threads in ' relationships'

His lying to her regardless of what it’s about. No good can come of that. You certainly shouldn’t no so much about her personal life considering you haven’t even spoken to her that’s just disrespectful of him and your lapping it up.

Hope she finds out and dumps him.

most of my close friends are men including my best friend. He is more than happy with this, we even all holidayed together last year (best friend is married now).

I would be happy for DH to spend time with his female friends but I wouldn't be happy if he suddenly got a new one which is a bit strange

Has she met you OP? Maybe you could all do stuff together so she can see you are not a threat in the way you interact. Are you single? I can honestly see why she might feel threatened.

I definitely wouldnt be happy with my dp having such a close friendship with a woman as you describe. That sounds more like emotional affair to me and that you are the primary relationship. If he then was doing it anyway, and hiding it, then id leave you both to it. I havent got time for it. I think it would make me feel jealous.
Normal friendship is no problem. I expect my partner to treat women normally, be friendly, get on with women. Dinner dates and what you describe would be too much for me and i dont really care if that makes me not a cool girl. I think if you wanted to have sex with him then he would be all over you like a rash.

I am married with children , cats and dogs.

DH flirted with anyone and everyone, from old ladies to other men. He was kind and generous, and had female and male friends. I knew that he was a completely faithful man, and had no issue with it - likewise, he had no issues with me having more male than female friends, one of whom has always called me "wifey" after a dream I had that we were married. DH was friends with him too. I also have a "work husband" who I frequently travel with for work, never been an issue.

My point is that because we trusted each other implicitly, we never worried about friendships at all. DH was very extroverted and I am really introverted so we were a great team.

I cannot stress enough that there is no sexual romantic or emotional connection in my friendship. I am a much older woman friend and we supportone another .
From this thread, there does not seem to be any overwhelming opinions one way or another on male female friendships . After reading all of this , and even for my own sake, I'm very happy to pull away even though at the start, I felt that I want to protect my friendship , now I feel like I'm protecting him andthat doesn't feel right

I think any friendship (same sex, opposite sex) shouldn't impact negatively on the individuals' relationships with their partner. So a friendship where you're spending more time together than the person is with their DP is a problem. How often on here do we hear women complaining because their DP is always down the pub/at the football/doing a hobby with his (male) friends? The point is that in a relationship, your partner should be your priority.

That said, I have no problem with opposite gender friendships and both DH and I have a number. However, it's true that neither of us have made really good friends of the opposite gender since we got together. His female and my male friends pre-date our relationship. I'm not entirely sure why, but I think making a new friend is a bit like dating in the beginning - you're getting to know each other, doing fun things, thinking a bit about what you say and when and then over time, you become close and comfortable. But I'm not really comfortable being in that in between stage with a man or for DH to be in it with a woman.

We have both met people of opposite sex who we chat and get on with via work/ DC etc. But it's all relatively superficial and doesn't involve one on one dinners/drinks etc.

After reading all of this , and even for my own sake, I'm very happy to pull away even though at the start,

I’m really interested in what you mean by “for your own sake”.

I feel fir him in this case. Why should he have to deny a long standing close friendship because of some one else's insecurities. He could leave sounds like it won't work. I also find it hilarious that some women won't let their husbands be friends with attractive women. I mean are they allowed in the same room? If other people's looks are a threat there's some serious personal issues work needed.

I trust him entirely in that I do not think he would ever cheat in any way. What I do worry about though is other peoples perceptions of and respect for our marriage. He stayed over night at a young female work colleagues house once after they'd been on a work night out. There was another female colleague staying there too. I was a bit pissed off at him and it wasnt because I thought hed cheated. I know full well that nothing happened nor ever would with those women.... the thing is that it looks bad though. And even to the women themselves who might think he was fair game. It would be different if it was a female friend hed known a long time and who I also knew. But it was just two girls from his work whom I've never met. It put me on edge to think that they might think he would cheat on me. Or that they might say that he stayed there to other work mates who might think he was a bit of a player or something... I dont know it just irritated me. I know it shouldnt matter what people think of my marriage but i dont want to look like an idiot iyswim.
My husband didnt get it. He focused on saying 'I'd never cheat on you' which i believe. But that's not what I was annoyed about.

My own sake meaning that I like a quiet life and easy friendships at this stage of
My life

I cannot stress enough that there is no sexual romantic or emotional connection in my friendship. I am a much older woman friend and we supportone another

There is an emotional connection in your relationship. You've said you support one another through difficult times, he confides personal things about her. He lies to her and excludes her to facilitate your relationship. You don't want to give up being his primary emotional relationship and confidant.

@bluedoor4

I'm always surprised at the MN line on male/female friendships when married. My DH doesn't go out on his own with other women.. I actually don't know of any of my friends' husbands who do either.

Yep, this ^ in spades. Sure, my DH and all the males I know in relationships/marriage have female pals who they chat to/have banter with, but none of them go out socialising all the time with a specific single woman - on their own, just the 2 of them, with no-one else present.

And I don't know any married man/man in a LTR, who has a close female friend, who he shares secrets with and opens up to emotionally, who his wife doesn't know and has never met.

Weirdly, when these kind of threads come up; you get certain females popping up who have a married man as a BFF, and they almost NEVER know his wife. Often don't want to either.

I am seeing a kind of 'My best friend's wedding' scenario here, and think it's the OP @operationsunshine who has the problem here. There are a few women like her, who think when a male friend starts a relationship with another woman, that THEY should still take priority over the new woman in his life. And if the new woman gets a bit pissed off with it, she is moany, clingy, insecure, and a nag.

Most women will NOT be happy with their husband or long-term partner being BFFs with another woman, doing stuff that constantly excludes her (his wife/partner,) and where the female 'friend' has no interest in knowing the wife/partner of her male friend. No matter what all the 'cool wives' on here say, most women will not be happy with it.

My DH and I have both male and female friends each I have a male friend who I’m very close to and have been close with long before I even met DH if he said I couldn’t see him anymore because he didn’t like it I would not be happy at all, it would just show he doesn’t trust me. I also don’t have a problem with him having female friends as I also trust him and we’ve never gave each other any reason to not trust each other.

I would echo everything anothernotherone says. He doesn't sound like someone I'd want to be in a relationship with, and your friendship sounds rather intense. That's not to say men and women can't have platonic friendships, of course they can (I have one myself) but if he's spending all this quality time with you either in person or on social media or via text, when is he finding time to spend on/with the person who is supposed to have some importance in his life?

My husband and I both have friends of the opposite sex who we see separately without any issues, but when push comes to shove we prioritise each other and when we're with each other, we're with each other wholeheartedly because we enjoy each other's company - not spending half our time texting or posting to our friends.

Speaking as a single lady whose best friend is a married man, and we met after he was married, I am eternally grateful to any wives who are neither jealous nor try to stop their husbands spending time alone with female friends. I could not have gotten through some stuff in the last few years without him and we have had moments where we've argued about stuff but ultimately we are what each other needs out of a friendship and I respect him enough to know when he needs to prioritise his family. He is the greatest friend I've ever had and we're more like siblings than friends.

Every friendship and every relationship is different - for some couples it works to have friends of the opposite sex and for others it doesn't. It ultimately comes down to trust.

I am married with children , cats and dogs.

How many posts have we seen here from a GF worried because their BF is besotted with some older married woman from work...

It seems that the posters who are most against the idea of platonic honest friendships are those who think i have an ulterior motive . Hardly surprising nor is it coincidental .

I dont have any problem with your friendship with this man

But he is not being honest with his gf, and I think she deserves way better

Oh also I should have said I make every effort to spend time with his wife too. If the effort wasn't there then none of us would feel comfortable. We do talk about it.

Trust him entirely . However am not naive and if he ever strayed and I found out would probably forgive a ‘ one off ‘ for want of a better phrase and anyway if it was all too much and we split I’m of independent means so apart from losing him life wouldn’t change .

My best friend is the Godfather to one of our children and Dh close friend (not best as he is a guy ) is Godmother to one of our children.

Only thing dh ever objected to with regard to my friend was him and I getting drunk and not inviting him and friends to come along to this lunch (and that was tongue in cheek)

His wife have also never had any issue with out friendship. Rare I see him these days a he now lives in Ireland..

My DH was bullied horrendously at school, but did make a close group of friends which was mostly female and one other male. They are still friends now, and I have no issues with them spending time together. 2 of those women are married and one is in a long term relationship too.
Other side of the coin, one of my closest friends since I was about 5 years old is a man. We grew up together, did everything together - even lost our virginity to each other and went through a phase of shagging like rabbits as teenagers He is still one of my closest friends even now! I’m married and expecting my third baby with DH, and my friend is in a long term relationship and has a child. We see each other regularly, our DCs play together, and no one gives a fuck about our previous sexual encounters because they were purely that: sexual. Two horny teenagers who needed an outlet. There was never any romantic aspect to the relationship, ever!

DH has a couple or three close female friends. I have no qualms about any of them, have met them all and spent time with them. What's interesting to me about them is that they're very different from me, both physically and in outlook but we all share the same interests.

I'm very self-assured, independent and not remotely possessive. I take the view that I'm pretty great actually and if he wants to stray that's his look-out not mine. I don't need him for anything, I have him in my life because I love him and like having him around. I feel that gives me power. Also, I completely trust him. We've been married for 25 years.