If your DH has a good female friend…

[Anonymous]

…also married…and a work colleague…with whom he spends a fair amount of time texting out of work hours (reportedly not romantic, think re Oscars, or daily life, exchanging jokes etc)…

Would you worry?

[Anonymous]

Yes

[Anonymous]

What if DH insists it’s just friendly? (At the same time, not volunteering to share conversations…) I have to travel for work periodically; is it wrong to try to deny him a friendship?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What if DH insists it’s just friendly? (At the same time, not volunteering to share conversations…) I have to travel for work periodically; is it wrong to try to deny him a friendship?

Yes. He should show them to you. I have a male colleague that I am friendly with and he texts me all the time outside of work. I don’t like him in that way AT ALL, and I happily share texts with my husband, usually while I’m rolling my eyes at it. This colleagues says inappropriate things sometimes too - like he admitted to me that he had a crush on another colleague of ours and he was disappointed when she did not reciprocate his feelings. They are both married too!!! I also shared that tidbit with DH. Definitely, it is worth worrying about!

[Anonymous]

Thanks…I guess I am worried, as I’m chatting with you guys at midnight. I’ll try to figure out a way to broach. We’ve talked about it in the past (I’d say it’s been going on for 7-8 months now) but pretty much hit a stone wall (“all is well, she’s in a committed marriage, I’ve never even come close to cheating in our 20 years together, this is just a friendship”). Now he’s more discreet about the texting (I think because I explained that it made me feel bad), but I still feel - excluded somehow, like he’s distracted. Then I try to be a fun conversationalist, and it feels awkward. Sigh.

[Anonymous]

I’m not the jealous type, but if my DH wanted to see texts I share with male friends I’d happily share them. More often I’ll be saying “hey, listen to this” and he sort of humors me but is doing his own thing. I don’t have male friends / collegues I’m in touch with a ton these days though. When we met I was living in a group house with three men and he was living with two women!

[Anonymous]

DH and I discussed this - our agreement is that if we have a crush on someone, we tell each other, and if we are friends with someone of the opposite sex we introduce them and aside from making plans (like dinner with all respective spouses) we do group texts.

Also, he has the passcode into my phone, and I his.

[Anonymous]

No. I’m not attracted to any of my male friends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DH and I discussed this - our agreement is that if we have a crush on someone, we tell each other, and if we are friends with someone of the opposite sex we introduce them and aside from making plans (like dinner with all respective spouses) we do group texts.

Also, he has the passcode into my phone, and I his.

Group texts? That sounds insane to me. But I don't know your history...

[Anonymous]

To me, the texting would be a little weird simply because he is not big on texting in general.
But I'm fine with opposite sex friendships as long as there's respect for the spouse.

Some people may not agree with me but I do think there are differences between men and women when it comes to friendships. I find it healthy to experience those differences.

[Anonymous]

If its about work related stuff or people, its fine. Texting about Oscars and other random stuff to a married colleague after work hours is inappropriate professional behavior.

[Anonymous]

My DH has a female work colleague that he's friendly with but most communications outside of work is about work (or co-workers). They do chat about non-work stuff at work. It would put me off if he was texting a lot with her after work about non-work things, as he's not a big texter. We barely exchange basic texts during the work day, mostly about logistics.

[Anonymous]

No it didn’t bother me.

Though he did bang one of them.


I’m sure if I told him the texting bothered me he’d stop texting all his female friends but he would have still banged the one he banged.

[Anonymous]

I'm a man, and my text history is basically all to female friends: coworkers, parent friends, a couple women who also volunteer with our kid's activity. It's all friendly but none of it is flirty; hell, recently I was texting with some women about how much we love our spouses. I don't care about who my wife texts and she doesn't care about who I text, because we trust each other.

[Anonymous]

No, it wouldn’t bother me.