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Original poster

Would you be comfortable with your dp meeting up with an old friend...

178 replies

annabanana84 · 14/05/2013 07:31

...who happens to be female, very pretty and single?

They were good friends throughout childhood, and although they occasionally bump into each other while out shopping etc and say a quick hello, how are you?, they haven't remained in contact. There's never been any romantic history as far as I know.

Now they have arranged to meet up and go for a curry and a few drinks and a great big jolly old catch up, and I feel quite uncomfortable with this. DP doesn't have any female friends he sees out of work or otherwise anyway, he only ever goes out with his few male pals.

OP posts:
diddl · 14/05/2013 13:20

I thought that that was what FB was for tbh-catching up with "friends" that you haven't bothered ti remain in touch with.

Offred · 14/05/2013 13:20

Chandon - it isn't about excluding your partner. Your partner doesn't come with you to work or to the shops. Why would your partner automatically be included in your own individual friendships. Where it would feel like exclusion to me is where the friend was a mutual friend. If the friend is a friend from childhood then it would be exceptionally boring and a bit difficult for everyone involved if the partner came on the first night out!

AThingInYourLife · 14/05/2013 13:21

"I equally have zero interest in any partners of my friends."

I think that is quite unusual.

And also pretty anti-social.

I'm not interested in having friends who feel so possessive of me as a friend that they are hostile to the idea of getting to know the most important person in my life.

I really like and get on well with the partners of all the friends that immediately come to mind.

Although I do find people who only do intense one on one friendships tiresome, so I guess we would not get along :)

Offred · 14/05/2013 13:22

My good friend I mentioned earlier I have known for 10 years but we had 3 years where we didn't actually speak at all. Now I text him every day and see him around once every week. The friendship resumed suddenly just like this although we didn't go for curry but went to the pub. It can be difficult reestablishing an old friendship, you have to address why you stopped speaking.

Offred · 14/05/2013 13:26

My husband isn't the most important person in my life. I have many people who are important to me. My husband and children are my priorities, I think that's different.

I would find it suffocating to have a relationship where we were "everything" to each other... I also think it is too much pressure to put on the other person.

If my friend's partners are people I like then I sometimes tenuously establish my own friendship with them. The only time it has been difficult has been when there have been break ups but I have remained friends with both in that situ.

iliketea · 14/05/2013 13:27

I honestly don't see a problem with someone meeting an old.friend. DH visited his family for a weekend recently and met up with an ex-gf for a pub lunch. (ex for nearly 20 years!). It never even crossed my mind that it would be anything.other than 2 old friends meeting for lunch.

I think a lot of the issue is a lack of trust - if you believe a partner could cheat with an ex, then it follows you believe they could cheat with anyone and they should never be going out on their own for.fear that the opportunity arises and they cheat.

JenaiMorris · 14/05/2013 13:27

As my school friends and I turned 40, there were a fair few parties full of people many of whom I'd barely seen since our teens (if at all).

We had a blast, and any partners were a bit superfluous to requirements. It mattered not a jot that we'd lost touch.

You don't have to be in continual contact over the years, basically.

Offred · 14/05/2013 13:27

What I mean is I don't feel the need to treat my friend's partners as appendages of them. I don't see why I have to like them just because they are shagging my friend.

Offred · 14/05/2013 13:31

(And I don't expect to be liked just because I am shagging someone else's friend either)

AThingInYourLife · 14/05/2013 13:31

I would find it suffocating to have a friend who refused to get to know my husband. Or my other friends. Or my family.

It just seems so possessive and needy to always have to get me on my own so you can have my full attention.

I have children to compete for my attention.

I prefer relaxed, sociable people when I am out.

Offred · 14/05/2013 13:31

I don't refuse to get to know anyone.

Offred · 14/05/2013 13:32

Not being able to have your own friendships as an individual outside your primary relationship doesn't sound very relaxed though, sounds utterly neurotic.

badinage · 14/05/2013 13:34

I think this is the trouble with OP's who ask what other posters would feel about a situation, without giving any context about their own relationship or their own partner.

Cue lots of messages about very different relationships and very different people. None of which is terribly relevant to the OP, the bloke she's with, or their particular relationship.

I haven't read any other threads from the OP, but I understand why others have because the OP's individual stuff is the most relevant here.

So it's probably enough to say that while good people can do very hurtful things, from what folk are saying there's a more obvious fact staring the OP in the face, which is that a total knobhead who makes a habit of doing bad things is far more likely to want to shag his old mate but this will be just another crappy thing in a long line of crap things.

And what happens in better relationships with better blokes is neither here nor there.

AThingInYourLife · 14/05/2013 13:35

"I don't see why I have to like them just because they are shagging my friend."

I like most people I meet, especially if I meet them through another person I like.

You sound like really hard work.

You don't see why you have to like them? Hmm

Are you 15 and angry with the world?

AThingInYourLife · 14/05/2013 13:37

"Not being able to have your own friendships as an individual outside your primary relationship doesn't sound very relaxed though, sounds utterly neurotic."

Who is in that situation?

I barely ever get to socialise with my husband any more.

But none of my friends are off limits should he get to know and like them.

I'm just not that territorial.

QuintessentialOHara · 14/05/2013 13:40

annabanana why dont you tell us more about your dp and what is behind all this?

Now we now a lot about other couples, but what about you?

Offred · 14/05/2013 14:02

Athing - that's what is conveyed by the idea that not inviting your partner out on a catch up with a childhood friend is somehow dodgy or excluding them from something they should be naturally included in. The implication is that friendships are only able to be had as a couple otherwise you're not a proper couple.

Offred · 14/05/2013 14:08

I get on well with most people, actually actively like few people. I'm not territorial about anyone, I just don't want to be forced to socialise with someone based on their relationship to someone I do like. I don't want to be forced to socialise with dh's friends just because we are married either.

If I like people who are partners of my friends or friends of dh's then I become friends with them. I dislike this idea that simply going out with a friend is excluding a partner and that they should be invited/invite themselves simply because they are a partner. Some of my friends I actually just know dh would find really difficult, to invite him simply because we are married would be insane.

Offred · 14/05/2013 14:10

We would all have a shit time and it would be weird and mean to dh because he'd feel sidelined or it would be pointless because dh and I would exclude the friend. Three isn't always a crowd because someone's after an affair.

Fantaforever · 14/05/2013 14:38

OP, I wouldn't be happy about this at all. If he's meeting up with her, it should be for a meal round at your house or something like that. You should be included. Going out alone together for dinner and drinks is inviting trouble I'm afraid. You're right to be suspicious.

ubik · 14/05/2013 14:43

I'd be absolutely fine with it. I wouldn't expect to be invited. He's entitled to his own friendships.

Flyingtree · 14/05/2013 15:00

If an old male friend of mine wanted to meet up for dinner, I'd ask if I could bring my man along :)

cloudpuff · 14/05/2013 17:01

I dont think people need to be friends with their partners friends or socialise with them all the time, but I dont understand why there would be a problem with the OP meeting the childhood friend (who sounds like an aquaitance now tbh) somewhere down the line, even in a pop in meet the wife and kids kind of way, it doesn't have to be a jealous-partner-meet-my-sexy-single-pretty-childhood-friend type thing.

most of you who are saying that you dont like your friends dhs or your dhs friends, must have actually met them and spent longer than five seconds in their company to make that decision.

Coupled with what op has mentioned in other threads Id be cautious too.

Offred · 14/05/2013 17:05

Cloudpuff - I don't have a problem with meeting them. I have a problem with an attitude that because we are married dh and I are excluding each other if we make arrangements to catch up with an old friend without each other and I have a problem with the idea that not inviting the spouse to catch up with someone attractive and single means they are going to cheat.

cloudpuff · 14/05/2013 18:00

I know that people can be friends of the oppsite sex without shagging, I really do, and I am owndering why I would feel uncomfortable in this situation, I am fully confident in myself and in my marriage and would never stop my DH going out with whoever he wanted, but I know that in the back of my brain Id be uncomfortable with this. If it was my husbands suggestion Id be alarmed because it would be so so out of character as he never takes his mates current or old anywhere but the local pub for a few pints, and if it was the friends suggestion, Id think they would be after something, not neccasarily my husband, I think id feel the same if it was an old male friend tbh

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