What dog does he have in the fight?

[Anonymous]

It's widely suspected that part of the reason men die earlier than women is a lack of serious friendships. He's right to want to hold on to that.

[Anonymous]

In general, men view loyalty to friends as a pretty core value and resent being pressured to drop an established friend because of some perception that it is not “appropriate” to have opposite-sex friends after marriage or as an unnecessary loyalty test imposed by their wife out of insecurity or whatever. (Note: not talking about former girlfriends, but actual friends.) IMO, Men and women think of friendship very differently and it can cause conflict in this way. In general, “do X to prove your loyalty to me,” is a demand that many men would reject on principle, and for good reasons.

[Anonymous]

That marriage won’t last long.

[Anonymous]

My husband has childhood female friends from around age 10 so the friendships have lasted 40 years. I have no idea if there ever was a teen romance and I don’t care. If I’m jealous it’s that I don’t have a 40 year friendship with anyone except my siblings. I know my husband loves me and that’s all that counts. I actually like the women and consider them friends.

[Anonymous]

Would she feel the same way if the best friend was male? Cuz jokes on her, men can also have sex with one another.

If she was okay with this friend while dating, why would marriage change the situation. Obviously he is marrying her, not the friend. And you need to stay out of it, your attitude is not helping.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She’s trying to force him to end a 15 year friendship?

He needs to run, fast.

Not end just have healthy boundaries. Not hang out one on one with her. My response is why does he need to leave out his fiance when he hangs out with this woman what are they talking about so deeply with some other woman. I'm wondering if there is some sort of maybe not physical but emotional affair going on. Texting and calling constantly and hanging out one on one should be something that should be reserved for his fiance not any other woman unless it's his relative like his mom/sister or another female relative.

I think it's perfectly normal as to set up healthy boundaries in a heterosexual marriage between you and the opposite sex. Maybe when they were both single it was ok to have these solo dates or constant messaging but these things tends to fall to the wayside or not happen as often once you get into a serious relationship.

I guess my worry for my friend is that where is all this defensive energy focused into this other woman instead of doing everything he can to protect and show he values the relationship with his future wife.

Damn we expect men to put their finances/wives ahead of their own mothers certainly it shouldn't even be a contest who comes first a female friend or your own soon to be wife.

I am just trying to picture a scenario where my husband would just go off and be calling a female friend or be like I'm going to meet my friend Suzy for lunch but you aren't invited. I feel like once I'm in a committed relationship let alone engaged/married a woman friend of my man is going to become our friend. She shouldn't just be up my man's ass all the time. If it's a truly innocent friendship I would be able to be included in it right? After all it's strictly platonic.

Ah yes, the enlightened Mike Pence approach. Women simply cannot be trusted and are always a threat.

Do you make DH call you Mother, too?

[Anonymous]

I am a woman, & I have a close male friend who I’ve known longer than DH (married to DH for 20 yrs).
I’ll tell you, it would’ve set off alarm bells for me if, when we were engaged, DH told me I couldn’t see my friend one-on-one anymore. Feels like a level of distrust - “I can’t trust you to be faithful so I have to make sure I police your relationships.” Very disrespectful.
Instead my DH became friends with my friend. So now, we’ll all get together with other friends, or I’ll get together alone with my friend (we go to concerts of a couple of bands that we’ve liked forever), and DH & friend will even get together without me lol (they’ve gone to hockey games together, I have no interest). This is how you make it work - my life is me & DH, & we invite my male friend & our other friends into our life. There are no secrets, no distrust or rules about how much or when you can see other friends, it’s just normal. And neither one of us crosses a line where we confide in others over our spouse- our relationship is the primary, most important relationship.
Obviously your friend should feel comfortable with the relationship - she should always be invited to join them if they do something, but it shouldn’t be mandatory like “oh Larla can’t make it to the event on Friday, so I can’t go.”

Your friend should feel secure in her spot as his #1 relationship. If she doesn’t, they need to address that, not try to make rules around this friend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand why this is being framed as more loyal to the friend or putting the friend’s needs first. You can have highest loyalty to spouse but still enjoy a long-standing friendship. Why does the wife feel the need to always be there? I don’t have a single friend where the constant presence of my husband - whom I do love the most- would not change the friendship. Can my husband be present sometimes? Sure, of course, great. All the time? Nope. If she was fine with the friendship pre-engagement, she should be fine now.

And you aren’t helping!

This. Most men don’t have enough close friends. Close friends provide a lot of benefit in terms of mental health/ emotional maturity. I would be happy if my husband had a long term platonic friendship. I would expect to join them most/ sometimes, but I certainly wouldn’t want to cut that off.

[Anonymous]

If a man was trying to isolate and control a woman’s friendships he would be seen as abusive. This woman is trying to do the same thing. He’s allowed to *keep* the friends he already has. If she’s so insecure then she should have dated someone with only male friends. Not fair to try and manipulate the situation after the fact.

[Anonymous]

Hey honey let’s get married, but you have to ditch all your friends first. This sounds like a terrible idea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If your man got defensive about cutting back on contact with a female friend he had for many years because you feel like once you are engaged to be married especially he shouldn't be constantly texting/calling other women that aren't his relatives? Would your alarm bells go off that he was more protective of and viewed the relationship with some female who is just a friend over that of his future wife?

I thank God have a husband who always puts me first and would never let anyone let alone some other woman (who isn't a relative) needs come before our relationship.

But one of my best friends was talking to me about this. Saying how she feels like her fiance gets highly defensive about still spending on one time with this friend of 15 years he has and how important their friendship is. They have been engaged for 6 months and dated for 2 years before that.

I asked her straight up to really and truly think about why he is going to the ends of this earth to protect this relationship with some other woman who he isn't about to marry and start a life with more than the feelings of his own future wife. Shouldn't his loyalty lie with his fiance over the need to continue this clearly over the top friendship. I don't know to me he isn't showing that he views my friend as the #1 woman his best friend.

My friend said she is going to discuss it with him more and have a CTJ talk with him this weekend.

I just can't believe some men are so blind. I just don't understand the dog he has in this fight to be more loyal to this other woman than his own future wife.

Sounds like he values the friendship and he’s trying to be loyal to himself.

[Anonymous]

I’m sort of torn on this one, and I think the details matter. The reality is that I would probably have never dated long term and gotten engaged to someone that was “constantly texting” anyone — male or female. So, I’m not sure that that phrase really means in this context. I like being someone’s primary relationship. I have a number of close friends, but I don’t constantly call or text them either.

That said, my husband was in his late 30s when I met him, and he had at two long standing female relationships. One married and one still single (still single 20 years later). But I never, ever felt threatened by these women. They are both now my friends. I think they generally communicate with both of us to invite to dinner, etc. I’m sure they have some contact 1:1 via text, but not all the time. And if I’m not available for dinner, I don’t care if he goes with one of them without me.

I think you should pay attention to how much time your potential spouse spends with other people — and I don’t even mean for cheating. If my husband wanted to hang out with the dudes and party all weekend long, that wouldn’t work for me either. And I have a super social, mega extrovert husband who has lots of friends. But he understands that his primary focus is at our home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was the female friend of a guy with an insecure new wife.

We had been friends for a decade but she got insecure about us having a friendship and so he cut it off.

Sad to lose him as a friend but at the end of the day his marriage is more important than our friendship and given he chose to marry an insecure woman, he has to live with the loss of friendships that comes with that choice.

A few years later, I was on vacation near where he and his wife and kids lived. He saw a post I made and sent me a message upset that I hadn't gotten in touch given I was so close to where they were. I don't know - maybe I don't want an angry insecure woman ruining my vacation?!!

Your words that you just viewed his wife as an angry insecure woman speaks volumes to how you viewed her and respected her as his wife and their relationship. Did you try to include her in your friendship with her husband or fiance at the time? Or did you just show an interest in him and never tried to reach out to her or include her in the friendship? I bet you didn't and that's why she felt insecure. You probably invited just him and didn't both to show respect to the fact he was engaged/married and didn't extend the invite to her. She isn't just some random angry insecure woman she is his wife and he was 100% right to put the marriage first.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's widely suspected that part of the reason men die earlier than women is a lack of serious friendships. He's right to want to hold on to that.

So you really think this other woman would have more of a factor of keeping him alive than his own wife? He can get that from her as his friend. Also what about his relationship with family members or making other male friends?

If my husband said well I need to stay friends with this woman so I don't die early I would laugh him out of house and home

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your man got defensive about cutting back on contact with a female friend he had for many years because you feel like once you are engaged to be married especially he shouldn't be constantly texting/calling other women that aren't his relatives? Would your alarm bells go off that he was more protective of and viewed the relationship with some female who is just a friend over that of his future wife?

I thank God have a husband who always puts me first and would never let anyone let alone some other woman (who isn't a relative) needs come before our relationship.

But one of my best friends was talking to me about this. Saying how she feels like her fiance gets highly defensive about still spending on one time with this friend of 15 years he has and how important their friendship is. They have been engaged for 6 months and dated for 2 years before that.

I asked her straight up to really and truly think about why he is going to the ends of this earth to protect this relationship with some other woman who he isn't about to marry and start a life with more than the feelings of his own future wife. Shouldn't his loyalty lie with his fiance over the need to continue this clearly over the top friendship. I don't know to me he isn't showing that he views my friend as the #1 woman his best friend.

My friend said she is going to discuss it with him more and have a CTJ talk with him this weekend.

I just can't believe some men are so blind. I just don't understand the dog he has in this fight to be more loyal to this other woman than his own future wife.

Sounds like he values the friendship and he’s trying to be loyal to himself.

What about valuing his wife's feelings though? And his relationship with his future wife?