Come and talk to me about the protocol for single women being friends with married men

[Panoramic]

... and help me get out of a mess I seem to have obliviously ambled into. The mess is too wearisome to explain in detail, but the short version is that a woman in my village who I have been friendly with in the past but less so of late, but whose husband I do get along well with - and have got up to no funny business with - has been gossiping about me getting too friendly with her husband and telling people that she thinks there may be something going on between us. There isn't.

This had never occurred to me before now, because I have a handful of male married friends who help me out or come over for a meal and a chat with their wives' blessings, but is there a protocol that I'm missing, for how single women generally should and shouldn't interact with male friends who are in a relationship?

Please tell me, as a rule, are greeting hugs/pecks on the cheek OK? Them helping unblock a drain or fix a burst pipe? Can I have a drink with them? Can they pop over for an impromptu chat and meal (that I'm cooking for myself anyway)? What does and doesn't look OK from the outside looking in? Because I have obviously got something wrong somewhere along the line - even if that's just been being nice and friendly and not looking like the back end of a bus.

I really don't rate being gossiped about as a morally bankrupt husband predator (which I'm not), and want to make sure I know The Rules moving forward so I can make sense of why this has happened, and make sure it doesn't happen again.

Thanks.

sgb...do you really rely on men to do all your little jobs around the home ?

you don't strike me as a helpless female

I think you are being naive about this OP and it puzzles me that you didn't wonder why your friend had been distant with you before this gossip reached your ears.

Why on earth haven't you been to see your friend to have this out?

AF: I am not great at practical things. but I am not great at housework either. THough TBH if something needs doing I usually ask my dad (who loves having the opportunity to nose round visit me).
THe OP may be pushing her luck and fluttering her eyelashes a little but the thing about the monogamist mindset that's so irritating is the assumption that everyone single is a threat. Or a freak.
I mean, I just don;t hang out with mundanes much so I am not too often exposed to it, but it's the same sort of mentality that leads to miserable isolation for some single women - if everyone they know is not just a Noah's Arker but a monogamist (ie not just someone who prefers a monogamous relationship but someone who is obsessive about it and sees everything in terms of 'How can I stop my partner being fucked by this person, I can't look away for a minute'.

I can't see the need to get someone to 'pop around' to do jobs whatsoever, I was single for 30 odd years and never felt the need to invite other peoples husbands to do household tasks (have you not heard of Mr Muscle Sink and Plughole unblocker- much better than a man anyway?) However, I think it's perfectly possible for a married person to socialize with a single person, go for lunch, for a drink whatever, if everyone is happy with it. I don't actually quiz my husband over whether he went to lunch with a single female friend or colleague (perhaps I should) and he does from time to time but if a new single female started popping up a lot or seemed to be seeking out lots of situations to see him in, I would want to at least check out how attractive they were.

Finally, some people are irrationally jealous, you can't do anything with them to convince them you are not having/want to have an affair with their husband, so you just have to avoid them both for a bit. Sad, but the way it is.

Get a plunger and one of those JML snake things, too. YouTube it, too.

I would be very uncomfortable with a single woman who hadn't cultivated my friendship too inviting my husband around alone in the evening for meals and asking him to do chores.

I think the phrase that another poster used be a friend 'to the marriage' is very insightful.

I think you should be asking yourself why you are cultivating friendships with married men. IMO there is something else going on here, maybe with you playing out a temporary wife/little woman role with men who seem like they are unthreatening as they are already married or perhaps you have feelings for some of them. Perhaps you are actually being competitive with the wives as deep down you are jealous of them.

You might not even be aware that something like this is going on with you, but as you are talking 'friends' plural I think you need to be very honest with yourself indeed.

And, this is as true for married women as single ones. I was very chatty on meeting a dad with daughters in my children's class on a walk recently and came away feeling how nice it was that the girls all played together and nice to meet new people so on. I told my husband all about this nice man as I thought they would get on well, children get on etc. Clearly this is not how his wife felt as she has ignored me studiously since then and actively avoided our children playing together (I've heard her daughter saying 'can I play at Cornetto's house?' and her shushing her and hurrying her away). I've hardly dared look at the man since! SGB is right, small towns are drainingly incestuous at times, and one has to be seen to be not having an affair with any married men at all times (curiously enough, lots of people are, but never the ones who look like they are IYSMIM).

That's what makes it so hard for stay-at-home dads. They can't invite anyone over for a coffee or go to their house without it being an issue.

Hmmm. I kiss most people I know, I had married male friends when I was single, and I still have married male friends now I live with someone.

I tend to think that single women are not throwing themselves at Mr Inferior ; that he's entitled to see his friends, male or female; and that should he have an affair with one of them - which I think is fairly unlikely - it would be his decision, not that of some Evil Minx who had been lying in wait for him.

Oh and I don't particularly see why someone who does know him and doesn't know me should have to get to know me too.

Mind you I am slightly pmsl at the idea of him being lured into a den of seduction.

I would be if DH befriended a single woman.

Even if it was innocent - and I do trust him, 100%, but our lives are so busy with just...'life'... that I would be really very put out and suspicious if he chose to spend what little free time he had with another woman, innocent or not.

So are we all supposed to spend our time with Couples, or sunk into Family Life ?

And are those of us afflicted with a partner never allowed to kiss anyone else ever again ?

It's not that DH doesn't allow me to kiss another woman's husband.

It's just that I really don't have the inclination to feel another man's skin under my lips, thanks muchly.

I often meet with male friends, both single and shackled in a mundane relationship. DP meets female friends similiarly.

However, I am imagining walking in this evening, seeing that DP has prepared supper, and saying 'actually I am popping over the road to have a drink and dinner with XXX, and he's asked me to bake him a cake ' (XXX being the single father of DS's school friend, and friends with both of us), leaving DP to an evening putting DS to bed. It's possible that after the first time DP would raise an eyebrow.

This is bizarre. What if you've known the man longer than you've known the women? Are you supposed to pretend that you're not more friends with the man? That he hasn't waled you home as a perfect gent when you were a student? That he took you out and got you pissed when you broke up with the last terrible boyfriend without requiring you to dissect every syllable of the last conversation as (equally lovely but definitely female) best friends did?

My OH has loads of female friends (some pre-date me, some don't, some are single, some not). He has dinner with them, gets pissed with them. I wouldn't bat an eyelid if he when round for dinner at their house without me, planned or impromptu (doesn't happen cos we live in London so there is frequently more interesting places to go for dinner than at Single Happening Girl About Town's house - plus most of the SHGAT that we know really do just use their fridge for champagen and freezer for vodka). If they had a domestic emergency, then of course I'd want him to help them out. The fact that he would makes him a great person, a lovely man and one of the kindest people I know.

It works the other way around for me. I have lots of male friends, many of which I've known longer than my OH. One in particular, I go for dinner and drinks with alone frequently. His wife is a doctor and works shifts and doesn't mind. We have a laugh, a bitch about mutual friends and go home separately.

If the husband in this case is neglecting his wife/family, then that's a different issue. In that case, and if he's a really good friend, I might gently point out to him that he should be spending more time at home and/or ask him if his relationship okay and perhaps call someone else the next time something breaks. But I wouldn't change who I am with friends on the basis of small town gossipers

Expat but what if you are a kisser? I kiss; okay it's a deeply affected superficial London kiss which is kinda but not quite on the skin but it's kinda ingrained now. If I have to remember not to kiss single men, that's going to get complicated. And is it okay to kiss married friends since I'm practically married? or not?

Blu, "However, I am imagining walking in this evening, seeing that DP has prepared supper, and saying 'actually I am popping over the road to have a drink and dinner with XXX, and he's asked me to bake him a cake ' "

And coe to think about it, I must leave work and go home, or DP may well think I have another man's bun in the oven.

(He won't really thihnk that, he'll think I'm working late, or even having a drink with a collegue instead of frittering about on MN )

Guys to be honest if you trusted your husband/other half then you wouldnt be worrying. My DH has loads of female friends, some of them he has known since he was a child, others college and the most recent a colleague from work. I have absolutley no problem with him socialising with them with or without me there, the work one is a bit of a bore in my opinion, lovely girl but we just arent into the same things so off with the pair of them to the pub and leave me to mys good book/laptop. Panoramic if your friends wife has an issue with your friendship then that is something that she needs to address with him. The problems in their marriage really seem to have little to do with you and more about trust issues. There are no rules for single women/men with married friends except the ones that you would apply generally to any friendship, loyalty, trust etc. Fuck the gossipers - nasty small minded fools!

Hi there OP,

I'm a married bloke and so I'm looking at this from a different perspective.

It's very clear, looking at this page, that even with 'no hanky panky', tremendous damage can be caused to relationships by emotional affairs. People know that emotional affairs alone can be curtains for a relationship.

Maybe it's not clear to this fellow-villager what the level of emotional intimacy is between you and her husband. Maybe she's worried about this.

At different life-stages and in different environments, various unwritten rules may apply. I had several close female friends until I was married and then that number dropped off gradually. It wasn't a deliberate plan but I think it may be difficult to sustain a high level of disclosure and intimacy with someone else without appearing to be disloyal or hurting your partner.

I have developed a close female friendship over the last couple of years, which is very much above board and without any behaviour that I wouldn't repeat in front of my wife, but even that has already caused some very heated rows here.

At some periods in life, too, people may feel more vulnerable than at other times.

For example, after having a baby or a second or third baby, some women feel a bit more fragile and at this time maybe it's not the best idea for her husband to be popping off for a drinky and a natter with some gal (again, he is the one responsible for putting the kabosh on that type of behaviour if he knows it's upsetting his wife).

Some people can feel pretty vulnerable after losing their job, particularly if they're the chief breadwinner, and this can lead to a time when they feel a little more uncomfortable about their spouse heading out for an inpromtu meal chez single person of opposite sex.

The DIY thing, though. C'mon. Women are just as capable of unblocking drains and hanging curtain rods as men are.