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Relationships

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Original poster

Does your dh or dp have lots of female friends?

71 replies

wombat2 · 22/01/2007 18:41

My dp (we have been together about 8 months only!) has a lot of female friends. I want to be completely fine with this and not be at all jealous, however I do struggle with it a little. We don't live together (although moving in together in a few weeks!)
He has had female friends to stay for weekends at his flat and often phones them/texts them. Two of these were very close friends before/during his marriage break-up and one of these I think he virtually had an affair with while he was married but didn't. Both of them are in other relationships, so I suppose their partners must be OK with it anyway!! I trust him but it still makes me a bit insecure. Am I being paranoid? Do your husbands/partners have lots of close female friends??

OP posts:

OrmIrian · 23/01/2007 13:13

I don't know about this. My Dh doesn't have lots of female friends. He has had some in the past related to work and one of his/our closest friends is female but I have never ever had the slightest suspicion that anything untoward was going on (actually there was one who used to play on his pool team but when I told him I wasn't happy about it he stopped playing). But round here many people have been born and bred in this town - they shared schools, friends everything since they were born, and obviously some of these strong long-lived friendships are between men and women - I can't beleive that all of these are a cause for concern for their partners.

oxocube · 23/01/2007 13:16

My dh did have a few v good female friends in one particular job. He fell in love/had a major crush on one of them. It almost broke up our marriage. It was all a long time ago but forgive me if I'm a little biased on this topic

oxocube · 23/01/2007 13:18

BTW, she was beautiful, very intelligent, spoke several languages, by all accounts a really nice, fun person and was younger than me who had just had a baby and was struggling to keep it all together

Original poster

wombat2 · 23/01/2007 13:36

Thanks for all the replies, didn't realise this thread had carried on going! I think as some have said that I am lucky to have found a man who empathises and gets on well with women and it is early days yet - I already feel more comfortable with most of said female friends than initially, so I think it is something that I can learn to live with... Interesting to see how there is such a difference of opinion on this!

OP posts:

expatinscotland · 23/01/2007 16:25

I'm a woman and I don't really talk about "clothes and that" even with my female friends, so if you think that's all a woman would have to offer a man other than sex or the possibility of it, no wonder you'd be wary of a partner's motives for wanting to be friends with one.

Um, no, that's not all I think a woman has to offer a man.

I was referring to MissGoLightly's post about chatting about clothes w/her man.

Wary of my partner's motives?

FFS, is it a full moon or something?

Everyone's gone round hte bend w/analysing random posts and assuming all sorts of indepth stuff about people they don't even know from a line or two.

Get a grip!

I said that type of bloke wasn't for me. So I gave blokes like that a miss, b/c usually, it wasn't just the friends thingy, there were almost always other traits that went w/that that I didn't particularly find attractive.

I also didn't fancy men w/kids before I had them. That just wasn't for me, so I didn't go out w/blokes in that situation, either.

Never any big deal. Just went my way after a couple of dates. They weren't bothered.

And now all of the sudden I'm someone who only offers sex to my husband and assumes that all women are good for.

Christ on a bike!

divastrop · 23/01/2007 16:35

actually,i dont talk about clothes either(other than how much i hate maternity clothes atm).

my experience of men who got on very well with women and joined in 'girly' conversations etc was they turned out to be gay(i had 2 close male friends 'come out' to me when i was in my late teens).thats why i,personally,may assume a man like that was gay and wouldnt be attracted to him.

expatinscotland · 23/01/2007 16:40

Maybe some just use it as a ploy to get into womens' knickers, diva .

I just fancy really blokey chaps.

Scotsmen can be a bit more reticent, too.

I like that. I don't like to be 'talky' about a lot of things. Prefer action or other forms of expression.

Maybe because I was in ballet for so many of my formative years and always found sport a great way to express and de-stress and just be me in general.

Even now, if I'm really stressed or angry, nothing like a walk or to write in the journal.

I've found, than many Englishmen, particuarly Souther/SouthEast Englishmen, whom I found to be more like their American counterparts on the whole. More inclined to be talky.

lazyemma · 23/01/2007 16:40

steady on! the general gist from your posts was that you wouldn't be comfortable with your partner being friends with a woman. Did I somehow completely misread you, or something? Because that's all I meant when I said that I can understand you being wary of a partner's motives for wanting to be friends with a woman outside a relationship.

I'm a bit confused by your defensiveness here - either you're completely OK and comfortable with a partner being friends with women, or you're not - whichever, it's up to you. I was just pointing out that your views, by your own admission, seem to have a lot to do with wanting men to be traditional masculine types (hence trades/uniform vs suited and booted), who wouldn't have much in common with women, who mostly talk about "clothes and that" - which was a direct quote from your post, so not sure why you're getting the hump about it.

expatinscotland · 23/01/2007 16:45

b/c saying stuff like 'so if you think that's all a woman would have to offer a man other than sex or the possibility of it, no wonder you'd be wary of a partner's motives for wanting to be friends with one,' implies that taht's what I think about men who have lots of female pals.

Erm, no.

I'm about confused by your offensiveness, tbh.

I mean, BFD, I don't dig blokes w/lots of female pals.

NOw all the sudden it's b/c I'm into strict gender roles and think women are there to offer sex to their husbands.

And being suited and booted is somehow less masculine? Huh? That turns some gals on b/c a lot of men in those professions are the archtypical 'provider' in the cave man sense.

I give up!

Wombat, as I've said before, horses for courses.

If it doesn't float your boat, c'est la vie.

You can deal and stay with the dude and maybe in time, things will change.

Or move on.

lazyemma · 23/01/2007 16:48

"I'm in direct contrast to you, I'd be deeply suspicious of a man who had lots of female friends, and tbh he'd put me off"

I'm not sure how this is any different from what I thought you said, but you know. Whatever.

expatinscotland · 23/01/2007 16:50

Yes, whatever! Please!

Find someone else to pick on.

It's getting old.

expatinscotland · 23/01/2007 16:51

He puts me off b/c when I went out w/blokes like that, they cheated on me. I admitted that in the posts, too. Would you like for me to dig that up and save you the trouble?

And blokes like that always had other traits I didn't fancy.

Several other posters felt the same.

Want me to drag up their posts so you can single them out, too?

Whatever.

expatinscotland · 23/01/2007 16:53

Better run, diva, before she reads your comment about men w/lots of female friends being possibly gay, too.

lazyemma · 23/01/2007 16:56

I'm not picking on you - at the worst, I've misinterpreted what you've said and am now trying to work out how. I mean, it's probably fairly obvious that I don't agree with you, but that's OK, right? I mean, I started my first post with "I see what you're saying, expat". Whoa! major offensive strike there - call in the UN peacekeeping forces, it's a world war 3 situation.

divastrop · 23/01/2007 20:29

i was simply putting my views on the subject accross and explaining why i have those views.

lazyemma · 24/01/2007 09:02

right - and no-one has a problem with that.

Have I been reading a different discussion, or something? I'm not sure how anything I've said can be taken as offensive or aggresive in any way. Unless I've missed a new mumsnet etiquette memo, item one of which reads:

Don't disagree with anyone ever. Don't respond to someone in the hope that they'll explain their views a bit more clearly: this is the most heinous social crime imaginable, and will result in a flurry of enraged "WTF??!!1 BFD!!! Pick on someone else" posts, combined with snide remarks for the benefit of other members whilst your own attempts to calm the situation fall on deaf ears.

DetentionGrrrl · 24/01/2007 10:12

DP has the same friends as me, which include one or two close females.

I can totally see why the staying over thing might make you feel a bit uncomfortable, but at the same time, this is a new relationship and if you don't like the set up you don't have the right to change him / his mates. Either accept it or move on.

RustyBear · 24/01/2007 10:26

DH probably has more close female friends than male - he met most of them on a the science fiction fanfiction forum. DD calls them the 'nerd herd'

He talks to them all the time on MSN, meets them regularly either in groups or just one at a time, for lunch or dinner & they have regular weekends which I occasionally go to too.

He's certainly been out with one of them more than he has with me in the last year, and it doesn't bother me - but then we have been together a bit longer than you & your DP - 26 years in May.

Asfar as I know he has never talked to them about clothes!

lazyemma · 24/01/2007 11:13

My husband has always had as many female as male friends - he grew up in a small town and has stayed in close touch with a lot of the people he went to school with and later to college with. This includes a couple of girls he's been out with in the past - one of whom, he used to be really smitten by - and I can't deny I felt a bit threatened by her when I was first going out with him - mainly because she was a bit frosty with me at first, I think because she might have felt a bit threatened by me too.

It's natural to feel that way, especially if you've never been in that situation before. I'm sure, especially once you've moved in together, you'll start to feel more relaxed about things.

Original poster

wombat2 · 24/01/2007 17:25

Yes, I suppose the situation is all a bit new - as I said before, I'm not expecting him to change his friends in any way. I was with ex h for 17 years so know that 8 months is a very short time, but you have to start somewhere. I suppose ex h never really had any female friends, other than the other halves of his male friends, and I never felt insecure or threatened at all. So this is rather different for me, and I am trying to get used to it. I get the message loud and clear: deal with it or move on.

OP posts:

Booboobedoo · 24/01/2007 17:45

Hi Wombat.

Just to add to the mix of anecdote/opinion, my DH has quite a few female friends, a couple of whom he's made since we met.

I have quite a few male friends.

Before we got married, there was one particular man I used to go and stay with (he lives 300 miles from me). I don't do that now we're married, as I now wouldn't feel comfortable about DH doing that with a female friend. Do as you would be done by and all that.

However, when we'd been together for only 8 months it just wasn't an issue. Don't think I would have moved in with him that quickly, but that's a different issue...

I know that some of my male friends' girlfriends felt uncomfortable about me. Never found out about it until after they split up. I can assure you that from my side of the fence, there was nothing to worry about. I like the lack of complication that you get with male friends (in general).

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