My close male friends wife accused us of wanting to be together

[nancyfromthefarm]

I am absolutely reeling tonight having not long got back from dinner with a couple my husband and I are friends with. It is actually me who is close friends with the husband of the other couple although I always normally get on well with his wife. We met in our early 20's (we are all late 30's now) and quickly became very close. When we met we were both with our current partners the people we would go on to marry so were never single in all the time we knew each other. Once or twice while very drunk we talked about it, not getting together but that we probably would have if we had both been single when we met. We also laughed and said it was a good thing we weren't single as we would make a terrible couple and at least this way we would always stay friends and we just agreed not to go there. We could have got together if we really wanted to neither of us was even engaged at that time but we both loved our partners and felt we would be better as friends. I has been a fantastic and treasured friendship, we have a lot in common intellectually more than anything else that we are unable to share with our spouses and it is lovely to have an outlet for those things.

For the most part both our partners have accepted our friendship without issue and we all hang out together on occasion like tonight. My friends wife had her 1st baby in February and this was the 1st time we have all got together like this since the birth.

The Baby was with a relative overnight and so my friends wife let her hair down with a few drinks. Towards the end of the evening she was very drunk and agitated. My friend and I are both very interested in politics and so had been discussing the new labour leader as well as other things when she started in on us. She was speaking to my husband saying that they should just leave and let us get on with it, that she didn't want to be a gooseberry. She then said that the only reason my friend and I married who we did was because we hadn't met each other first and that we should just put everyone out of their misery by getting together.

I tried to reassure her and so did he but she was very worked up at this point. My husband said that we should just leave, my friend agreed and we did. My husband was a bit quiet on the way home, not angry but he has gone to bed. I have texted my friend and his wife is apparently sleeping now. I don't know what to think, it may be that she is just stressed with the baby but I am scared for what this could mean. I want to say to her that that isn't how we feel about each other, if we had wanted to go down that road we could have years ago and we didn't because we loved our respective partners.

I just need some advice or reassurance about this, will she be ok, is it likely to blow over?

Wow, multiple narratives going on here that seem to have nothing to do with the op, this bloke or his wife. Limerance?? Ffs, this is barmy.

As a pp said, we werent there. But this incident has certainly lit the touch paper.

noticed twinkie ids with ow in threads on that topic. don't think she's coming back either.

Oh dear, nancy, I thought this would go tits-up when I read the title. Are you still here?

If so, here's my tiny contribution: I acted like this a few times with my ex and his women friends. As it later turned out, my fears were justified in more than one case - but not all, and it's the others I'm thinking about here.

The thing was that he was withdrawing from me, while giving positive affection to other women. This obviously felt like salt on open wounds, and I behaved with uncharacteristic anger/envy/fear. In that scenario my instincts were correct but their focus was scattered.

As your friend hasn't acted like this in all the years you've known each other, it sounds very much as if she's suffering fresh feelings of vulnerability. It might be that he is giving her reason, or maybe it's the pregnancy.

Of course, I think it's wise to be sensitive and considerate of her feelings - but I'm not with all the PPs who seem to think sharing a political interest with a male friend is the same as having an affair

No one said that, Garrick - it's the "he wouldn't stop texting even if I did" and "I'd know if there was a problem in his marriage" points that are more concerning.

Sorry MissBattleAxe, that list doesn't add up to bad behaviour.

A relationship that could have happened in the past that didn't, that's all I see evidence of here.

I'd say the same about my close friends, Yonic, of both sexes and various persuasions.

Twinklestein- fair enough, but I see the OP being so possessive about him that it's no wonder the wife finally blew up about it. It's the intimacy that would annoy me.

My friend and I are both very interested in politics and so had been discussing the new labour leader as well as other things when she started in on us. She was speaking to my husband saying that they should just leave and let us get on with it, that she didn't want to be a gooseberry

What did I take from that? Well, what OP said. They were discussing the new labour leader, a conversation I've had many times since Corbyn was elected. The wife seems to have been feeling paranoid and insecure about her husband's history with the OP, and went off one one.

but I'm not with all the PPs who seem to think sharing a political interest with a male friend is the same as having an affair grin

It's absolutely NOT about sharing a political view! why do people keep over simplifying it like that?

After the debacle in the opening post, the OP was fixated on contacting the male friend rather than his wife or her own husband. That says a lot. It's bugger all to do with what subject they were discussing at the table. It's the OP's attitude and real fear that he and she may not be able to stay close and sod the feelings of everyone else!

I don't see possessiveness at all, but diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks.

The point of these forums to field different responses.

Indeed Twinkle.

It's not platonic friendships that are in question here OP, it's how people behave within those friendships and it's very much about respect.

Oh God, this has been a really uncomfortable read.

OP, you need to back off. Big time. You are no friend of their relationship, you can't even disguise your contempt for her.

And don't even get me started on the different intellectual plane that you insist you and her husband are on. Nor the "if I wanted him I'd have had him".

Vile.

I hope you were just drunk and defensive last night and you make the decision today to cool your 'friendship'.

it's very much about respect.

Yes, I agree. Only one of XH's female friends tried to reassure me - the others were very quick to buy the 'histrionically jealous loon' narrative. This obviously made me feel a hundred times worse, especially when I was meant to feel guilty that they were upset.

From Bancroft's Abuser Profiles: Women around the Player seem to get angry at each other a lot, rather than at him, and sometimes get into physical confrontations. These tensions work out well for him, diverting attention from his infidelity and dishonesty.

Not saying the chap in OP's story's an abusive game-player, but in general this explains quite a lot of 'paranoia' around opposite-sex friendships.

Oh dear. I think you need to focus on your relationship and let him get on with his.

Hopefully it was all just drunken spats and you're all going to just give space now, though I have to say I'm on the belief that when drunk the truth tends to come out so his wife's likely been feeling like this a while. In that case, you need to just let him get on with everything and step back so they can sort out their relationship- that you don't want to be involved in in any way.

Just wonder how you would feel op if this was your dh. Saying you weren't his intellectual equal and being all cosy with an another woman. Especially if you had a baby fairly recently and maybe were feeling not as attractive as usual, a bit wrecked from sleepless nights and maybe sexlife not totally back on track. If you knew your dh would discuss your marriage problems with same woman. Wake up. You are in danger of being over the line big time.

You are over involved with someone else's dh. His dw is pissed off about it and has let you know.

Her being pregnant has fuck all to do with it and hugely patronising to suggest it has. From where I'm sitting, your behaviour, and his, is out of order. She has called you both on it.

Back off. Let them sort it out. Have a chat with your own dh instead maybe.

Sorry...not pregnant, but new mum...

I wonder if you and your friend's wife dpsimpky have very different models of what a good marriage looks like? My model of a good marriage - and he one I thought I had - was like that soppy passage in 'The Prophet' - we were the pillars of the temple, side by side, holding up the 'roof' of the family - both looking outwards and engaging with the world and other people. I was not in the slightest bit jealous of my dh's relationships with other women, we were partners in a joint enterprise.

My dh, otoh, saw marriage more as a 'gazing into each other's eyes' relationship. After 24 yrs he left me for another 'eye gazer'.

These are fundamentally different ways of viewing what marriage is. I'm not arguing that one is correct and the other wrong - just that they can't be reconciled. If I ever remarry (not at all likely tbh!) it will be to someone who holds the same model as me - i.e. we are side by side not face to face.

My exh was jealous of my friendship with a female bf and with a gay male colleague - I really couldn't understand or cope with this, and absolutely was not willing to give up either relationship. I think I was right, both are still (5yrs later) important friends and support for me - but he was also right, they provide, for me, the support he believes should only come in marriage.

If you and your dh share a view of what marriage is then your relationship with your friend is not a threat to your marriage, it might be a threat to your friends marriage if his wife holds the 'face to face' model. If he and his wife hold different models then his marriage is vulnerable no matter who his friends are.

Catsrus, I agree with your views on marriage and totally disagree with you, Marchy when you say You are over involved with someone else's dh

You make him sound like a possession, not like a human being. So in some people's view, nobody should ever have a friend of the opposite sex, unless both parties are single in which case they treat such a friendship as dispensable when either of them gets a partner. Personally I think friendship are the mainstay of society and are not dispensable, although some are not for life.

So in some people's view, nobody should ever have a friend of the opposite sex, unless both parties are single in which case they treat such a friendship as dispensable when either of them gets a partner.

Not one single person had said anything even remotely like that on this thread. In fact, the overwhelming majority have been entirely supportive of genuine, platonic M/F friendships.

Disingenuity abounds...

My DH has a couple of brilliant female friends. I'm friends with one, and not with the other, but they are great people, and I never have and can't imagine I ever would be concerned. He's godfather at one's son's baptism next week, actually.

Their friendships look absolutely nothing like this. People need to stop squawking about the externals and start looking at what it is that seems boundary stomping and disloyal of the respective marriages here. That's the problem - not the genitalia, per se, of the participants.

I think the issue is that many people, including myself have seen the scenario when a platonic relationship turns into a romantic one if there are problems in the marriage. The person you don't have to live with, who you don't have to share the boring minutiae of everyday life with but can confide in is suddenly very attractive. I have a couple of friends who have platonic relationships with married men. When we discuss these friendships, it sounds very familiar- the wife is always a little bit thick, or kept having babies against the friends will or makes him do housework or night feeds when he works sooo hard. They are single and childless and listen to their woes, stroke their egos, tell them they are right. In both the cases I know though, the friend has criticised the wife back and he has dropped the complaining and backed off. In this case, the wife is being ignored in her own home and belittled on the internet. Not nice at all.