DH and female friends at work

[Hmmthatsinteresting]

I’m not sure how to explain this or why I’m posting but I wondered if this sounds strange at all to anyone. Sorry if this is longwinded.

My DH works in an area where he has quite a lot of female colleagues his age. I’ll start by saying I genuinely don’t think DH has been unfaithful to me, I really don’t think these women are interested in him in that way. He’s not a flirty or particularly confident person, I just can’t see it. However, every time he’s moved to a new team or project (which is frequent in his area) there is usually a female friend he seems to latch on to and become quite good friends with? Unless I’m just noticing the women and less so when he talks about other guys, but I could list off the top of my head the various close female work friends he’s had in the last 7 years we’ve been together. They’ll often be texting outside working hours (‘about work issues’) but I’ll caveat by saying he is in WhatsApp work colleague groups and there is generally a lot of messaging amongst his colleagues.

I’ll hear quite a lot about the latest female friend, often he’ll want us to meet up with her (sometimes they’ve got a partner, sometimes not) but if we have happened to meet it’s never been awkward, I genuinely don’t feel suspicious when I see them together but something just makes me think this repetitive female friendship is slightly unusual?

Almost as soon as the friendship has begun, there’ll be a change in work or something and he’ll spend less time with current friend and then I’ll never hear her name again. DH isn’t the best at keeping in touch with people, so maybe this is just him. It’s like a sudden intense friendship that then fizzles out but always seems to be women.

I’m not sure what I’m getting at here but is it normal for a man in his late 30s to have a sequence of close female work friends? I have always got on well with men at work but I think it’s rare I’d be messaging any of them outside work (unless there was a specific reason) and talking about them so much to my DH. It’s like he develops an intense interest for a while and suddenly drops them. I suspect he is ASD (undiagnosed, that’s a whole other story!) so not sure if that is a factor.

I’m not sure if this is relevant but DH was very geeky and unpopular with girls at school/university and was a real late bloomer - part of me wonders if he just enjoys the attention of female friends in the workplace? Unsurprisingly every single one of them has been attractive!

Anyone else have a DH like this? Is my DH just better at being friends with women? Or is this odd?

Not this again.

People can have platonic friendships with the opposite sex. I wish people would stop being controlling over friendships like this.

Of course, and I’ve said I have friendships with men at work too but it just seems odd that DH has had a string of close female friendships that seem to follow the same pattern and I very rarely hear about any male friends in the same way. I don’t hassle DH about it at all.

I think the mentionitus at the beginning of the friendships and the messaging outside work is worrying. Its sort of like when a couple first meet and they are beginning a relationship.
It sounds as though he really likes the validation of women liking him. And it really doesn't seem appropriate for a married man.
Have you talked to him about this?
I think it's reasonable to ask him not to be messaging these women outside working hours. If he is seeing them all day at work why does he need them intruding on your time together outside work?

I think the fact that he wants you to meet them is quite reassuringly nice. I think if these women were anything more, then he'd be keeping them well away from you. The fact also that you do all get on and you say that they're nice when you meet....rather than picking up a vibe or a look between them, again is reassuring.

I also think as you move through life, you can't keep in touch with everyone you've ever met. My husband often says he feels bad that he didn't keep in touch with x,y or z.. and tbh I don't...I just think that's life. I'm 50 plus, if I kept in touch with everyone I've ever met through work, groups, my children's school and hobbies, my goodness I'd never get anything done! I'm happy that we were all there for a period of time together and then we all moved on. I've encouraged my husband that if he feels like that, then he should make more effort to keep in touch and them he admits in the next breath , he can't be bothered! Which is how most busy people feel, I imagine, so again, I can understand how your DH seemingly might have lots of friends that pass through, particularly if it's work related.

I do know a few adult people who have (undiagnosed) ADHD. They do get very fixated on things for a period of time...to forget them completely in another time period. I know someone who is mad on cars and goes "all out" on them...buying, researching, doing them up, attending shows, joining forums, auctions etc etc for a few months to leave them rotting in the garage, not caring if they ever see then again. Someone else I know collects a certain comic/superheroes....against goes to shows, buys and sells all around the country and eBay, sets up instagrams ...for it all just to fall through/not update/ not care. In my experience they go 20000% at these things ,to go to being completely burnt out and disinterested in it only a few months later. I don't know if this is relevant to your DH. Not that he's "obsessing " about these women...just that he's putting his all into the friendship and then he just can't be bothered.

I'll be honest and say in my experience I do think it's hard for women and men to have platonic relationships. I've seen a lot of life, I find it hard to sign up to that thinking. But it could be that your husband just does get on better with women. If I'm honest I'd say that about my eldest son (nearly 30). He's supersoft ,he's super sensitive and tbh I think he finds women friendships deeper and softer. Maybe your husband finds that in women's friendship...particulaly if you say he's quite geeky...he's not a "man's man ".

I must admit if I'm being honest, I'd find it hard to take/listen to. I've been married for 30 years, I'm not an idiot, I'm sure my husband has been tempted/had crushes/had his head turned....but I haven't heard too much about other woman and I would find it hard to hear about other women so enthusiastically. I'm not sure I'd see it necessary that he be messaging term outside of work hours.

My husband connects much better with women than men. He has also had a succession of female colleagues, and having been in the air force for almost 20 years, many of those working relationships are very short lived. A detachment can be as little as 8-16 weeks. A posting is 2-4 years.

For my husband, it’s just how he is. Although he lived with both of his parents till he joined up, and 2 sisters, his dad was a bus driver from when he was about 10, so often out doing early, late and weekend shifts. So DH was mostly in the company of girls and women.

His mum is awesome, and, as well as showing him how to be a good human being, also taught him to cook. He’s very useful to have around.

Mentionitis is a good way to put it! And as has been said in other threads, I can’t imagine him messaging or talking about ‘Dave from Accounts’ that much.
I’ve asked him about it before over the years when I’ve felt it’s maybe got too much and he’s done the usual ‘am I not allowed to have friends?’ ‘I’m insulted you don’t trust me’ etc. And to be honest, they’re usually fizzled out within a matter of weeks/months and I never hear about them again so I kind of forget about it - until the next one!

Looking at it positively, I know it’s nice that he gets on so well with women and they clearly feel safe around him etc - I would just hate to be taken for a fool if this actually sounds suspicious.

Well I don't think his reaction to you trying to talk to him about it is very good.
It comes over as quite confrontational. Instead of taking on board your legitimate concerns and trying to reassure you he is digging his heels in and making it clear he has no intention of changing his behaviour.
I think that would make me more uneasy about his motives in befriending a succession of women

My first thought was he becomes attached to them and talks about them a lot then after a relatively short amount of time HE drops THEM? 🤔

Maybe he's too full-on and they drop him, rather than the other way around

It's just a punt but maybe he just comes across as nice guy in a good relationship that female colleagues feel 'safe' with. That leads to friendliness quickly. It is a compliment to your husband.

I have worked in office environments like this where people come and go a bit on various projects. There have many people I've got on really well with but hasn't endured past the time we've been working closely together.

Ridiculous, I have the phone number of numerous male colleagues (and female) and we send random text messages all the time. It’s nothing like when a couple first meet and are beginning a relationship. I’ve worked where I am for 19 years and have been married 30 years and have never looked at another man.

And do you make a habit of striking up an intense friendship, talk frequently to your DH about your new friend, message this friend outside working hours and then drop this friend for someone new and start the whole process again? Numerous times?

I know this will not be a popular opinion, but I think texting outside of work hours should be a big red flag. Some men like the attention of women, even if they never go the full way and get physical with them. Women who want to be best mates with someone's husband...not ok.

Females can be more interesting than men, who often can’t hold a conversation about much other than cars or football.

This female friend thing worries me every time it crops up, which happens fairly regularly.

I am a bisexual female, (right down the middle on Kinsey), do some of the attitudes often reflected mean that l am not allowed any friends?

l really do not want to go to bed with everyone l meet.

Sounds par for the course for work friendships. They can be quite intense because you're thrown together with a pretty big thing that you spend most of your day thinking about in common. If you want to talk about your job goals, workplace politics or just the general overall field of work that presumably you have some sort of interest in - you've got a ready-made group of people you can plunge in and natter away with on all the above. And then you might well have non-work interests on top of that in common.

But they can be quite short-lived when the work in common is taken away because in my experience there's always a veneer of professionalism to a workplace friendship - you're not being your full, true self with them. So if someone changes job they can fizzle out really quickly. And some people are very good at bonding with people who are around them IRL and awful at keeping up contact when they're not!

The whole suspicion of female friendships thing is just depressing. I've said it on here a billion times but men being platonic friends with women is a green flag because it shows they see us as people first, not just sex objects. I doubt he's revelling in all their sexual attention because I doubt there's all that much, if any, of it. When I chat or text to my male friends and colleagues it is not because I want to shag them ffs. If you can't get your head around the concept of getting along with someone but not wanting to have sex with them, the problem is you.

In this case if his workplace contains a lot of women his age well, that's obviously who he'll strike up friendships with.

The whole "it's never Dave from accounts" line is such bollocks too given the absolute overwhelming history of male friendships in the workplace (often in a bro-bonding way that excludes women). What you mean is that you have confirmation bias because you're so territorial about other women.

All of the above honestly makes me furious because it's so disrespectful and harmful to women being taken seriously in the workplace. Just because we like to talk to your husbands does not mean we want to shag them (or he wants to shag us) ffs!

Some men actually like women and, more than that, feel more comfortable with them than they do with men. And often women (at least I’m speaking for myself here) pick up on this liking and respect and are naturally more open to friendship with them than they might be with a more dismissive man or with one who clearly can’t view them in anything other than a sexual way. Maybe it just means your husband is a good guy.

This! Absolutely this!

I agree with this too. It took my a very long time to accept my husband of 24 years just gets on so much better with women than men (he is ADSD), and trying to control this just made me unhappy. I realised through therapy that alot of it was my own insecurities, and that in turn was causing issues in our marriage as I was pushing him away.

Ultimately you can't or shouldn't ever control who your partner talks to, my mindset is completely different now in that if something did happen it will happen whether I worry about it or not, and I'll deal with it.

I'm actually grateful he has female friends to talk stuff through with, as he's getting a perspective other than mine!

Does he have many male friends in work Workplaces can be quite a battle with all male egos flying around and he may just find that it's more comfortable around people who arent such dicks

I have a friend who is a male nurse. All of his work group are female. Similar with a male teacher friend.

I don’t understand this, have you never made actual friends with your colleagues? I spend 8-9 hours everyday sat with the same 5 people, we are good friends and contact each other outside work, unrelated to work all the time both male and female

Are they fizzling out, or is he hitting on them and they've immediately broken it off and/or reported it?

So many such short friendships with attractive women seems unlikely otherwise.