Single Women and Married Men Friendships - What are the rules??

[SurreyAstronaut]

Hello - first post here so please be gentle, I need some advice on a friendship...

I am the single woman (27), until recently I worked with a guy who I get on well with. It was innocent enough and was just chats over coffee, friendly emails and occasional lunches. He is in his mid forties and married. I have always considered us to be mates and nothing more, I am not attracted to him and he has never said or done anything that implies he is attracted to me.

He has recently left our company and we have stayed in touch, although less frequently than when we worked in the same office - we email maybe once or twice a week, very standard/friendly catch up emails on what the others are up to. I had never questioned it or felt that we were doing anything wrong until recently when I mentioned to a friend that we had discussed meeting up for lunch and she told me that it was a bit weird "going out with other peoples husbands" and now I am worried that I am inadvertently breaking some unwritten rule.

Is it a big no no to meet a married friend for lunch if it's just the two of you? Am I being naive in thinking that we can carry on being friends now that we don't work together?

There was an interesting discussion on this topic recently here.

Hi Surrey

I don't think you are doing anything wrong, personally. But are you sure that he doesn't have feelings for you? No doubts at all in your mind?

Your friend who made the comments sounds a bit odd TBH. Does she know you both quite well? Could she be trying to give you a hint that people at work are gossiping about it?

I find all this politics a bit of a PITA, but you have to be super careful. Do you talk about his wife?

I may be just speaking from personal experience here, but I don't tend to speak to even close female friends as often as this. I am in a relationship and busy with my family, so in a different situation to you, perhaps.

But think of it from his point of view (or his wife's). He works, he has a partner, he is busy and presumably not desperately lonely or looking for social opportunities to fill his time. If you are just a casual friend, then he would spend more time and attention on others. How much time do you think he has to do this?

For him, even emailing twice a week is likely to be closer contact than he has with his Best Man at his wedding. Does it sound casual now?

I am not implying that you are lonely or looking to cause trouble, but you would be naive to think that he has the space that a single person might to devote to nice lunches and emails. If he does, then it suggests to me that he is either unusually sociable or after something more.

I would say 100% this man is keeping you on the back burner perhaps as a little fantasy, perhaps with the hope of something physical developing.

Unless you have some big shared interest - music, a particular sport..why would a married man in his forties want to be friends with a single woman some twenty years his junior?

Why not read that "not just friends" book that people talk about a lot on here. Then you can decide if you are being a "friend of the marriage".

I sometimes go out to lunch/drinks with "other people's husbands" but I have known them for years and know their partners too and there are usually other mutual friends there too.

I think it's a nono, SurreyAmazon.

I think it all depends on what kind of behaviour is he exhibiting. There's a massive difference between an honest friendship where you would exchange the odd chatty email when bored at work, or have a cup of coffee and a talk, but you know he is above board and he talks about his wife and kids in a positive way, and the situation where you know he likes you but you are choosing to ignore, or he slags off his wife or makes "joking" comments about if he were single etc.

FWIW I have friendships with men 40 years older than me that are like the first situation, friendly and nice and normal. I have distanced myself from the ones that are like the second.

You totally have my sympathy, SA! I changed my public Facebook profile to say I call everybody darling, it doesn't mean anything (paraphrased that so I'm not instantly searchable, btw) - purely because of slightly paranoid wives. It does my head in.

On the other hand, as I've just posted on another thread, I never get into trouble for my ego-boosting activities when I'm out in a group. Some people are wildly insecure about ANY one-to-one activity between male & female. Unfortunately, you have to pander to them or risk damaging a friend's relationship.

I have offered to send the entire proceedings to friend's partner via video call, but then they get even more offended

Good grief - do people really think that it is impossible to be friends with married men?

I have lots of male friends - some married,some not. We email, chat, text, lunch, have dinner and go for drinks.

Have never felt the need to analyse whether relationship appropriate or not and behave with them as I do my married girlfriends.

what bitof said. who has time for all this texting, lunches and shit?

If you don't fancy him and he doesn't fancy you as far as you know, the emails are fine.

I would hesitate to meet for lunch alone though.

"email, texting and lunches shit..."

spot on

Same old same old. Married men can't be friends with ANYONE because all they want to do is fuck them, betray their wives, hurt their children and knacker their mortage.

Why do you people even bother with men?

And back to reality.

This may come as a massive shock to some of you, but yes - people can be platonic friends.

Eh?

I am chained to a desk most days. I send frequent emails. Including to male friends. With whom I sometimes have lunch. I believe Mr Inferior has lunch with former colleagues including women sometimes. (In fact I know he does, as I know one of them.)

Strangely enough, we have all managed to keep our libidos in check. Well, obviously DP might be nursing wild fantasies (I quite hope he is, he doesn't get out much) and/or having a torrid affair, but I've never spotted the latter .

Maybe all these people have older children who can also drive or have left home, but emailing, texting, dinner, lunch, drinks.

And a full-time job?

Seriously?

Fucking hell, how do they carve out the time to do this regularly?

I don't work outside the home now, but man. School run, all the work in the home, then picking them up and nearly every day something: dance, football, Rainbows, swimming, dinner, baths, supervising homework, etc.

I barely have time to read a book in the loo over the course of a fortnight.

OP hasn't said anything about texting has she?

And 'lunch alone' is presumably lunch surrounded by a lot of other people, in public. It's hardly a suggestive setting. I mean, if he suggested 'lunch' as in 'a bottle of champagne and smoked salmon sandwiches in a hotel room' that might be different. Obviously.

I guess it does get to be more possible once they're all in school.

But even when I worked FT, I still didn't have time to do that regularly, tbh.

what has smoked salmon got to do with it ?

I hate smoked salmon....

One or two emails a week is hardly a full-on pursuit. I work. I read books. I do a couple of evening activities. Sometimes - gasp - I leave my desk and have lunch with a friend/contact/work colleague. Sometimes I go out as my partner comes in, and head into town to meet friends for supper.

God, my life's boring enough without becoming a hermit.

I spoke to my friend Laurence yesterday. 'Sorry I can't find that contact to chase up for a photo for the copy I wrote you,' I said. 'No problem,' he said. 'And we really must have that lunch soon.'

Curiously enough, this didn't resonate with sexual tension.

Well, I'm a hermit and boring, too, I guess.

Because I'd rather have champers and smoked salmon sandwiches in a hotel alone and in complete silence. That would be the ultimate treat, IMO.

Admittedly I've always been a real loner, because when I was working FT I liked nothing more than half my lunch hour eating and the other half just wondering around completely on my own. Or running errands. I did a lot of errand running in lunch hour.

I think, Surrey, you will know which way it is.

I did stuff like this in my twenties and there is no fixed rule: sometimes, it was just friendship and sometimes I was surprised (although not too surprised) when the bloke suddenly (although not too suddenly) declared he wanted more.

we don't know him and we don't know you ... but if you are concerned, perhaps a quick chat would put your mind at ease.

people can be platonic friends, but come on, why do you even want to commit time to email "catch ups" once or twice a week? And texts, and lunches? Isnt that just needy? And odd, and slightly stalkerish?

I email my best friend "catch ups" once every few months! I dont really think I do enough interesting stuff in my every day life to bore her with more than that, truly! Why anybody would relay intimate details about their lives so often to "just a mate" is a bit odd, dont you think?

Like expat say, who has time for shit like this.