S/O How do you interact with opposite sex spouse of a couples friendship?

[Anonymous]

I'll bet that married women are more likely to regard other guys as "just friends" and interact with them in that frame of mind while married men are less likely. Just because, in general, women are happier to regard men as friends than vice versa.

To me, an interesting corollary of this dynamic would be to determine whether women are more likely to become involved in affairs that "just happen" than men are.

[ThatSmileyFaceGuy]

Anonymous wrote:

ThatSmileyFaceGuy wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

ThatSmileyFaceGuy wrote:I will admit to being attracted to some of my friends wives, I am human after all. Sometimes this even goes to mild flirting and making risque comments, but that is where it ends.

Do your spouses pick up on this, and how do they react or feel about it?

She knows who I'm going home with at the end of the night, and that is what matters.

What are you 23? Jesus.

Your snark is so pointless. It just means that she knows that all it is flirtation and fun, that I'm not trying to sleep with any of them and they aren't trying to sleep with me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'll bet that married women are more likely to regard other guys as "just friends" and interact with them in that frame of mind while married men are less likely. Just because, in general, women are happier to regard men as friends than vice versa.

To me, an interesting corollary of this dynamic would be to determine whether women are more likely to become involved in affairs that "just happen" than men are.

I'm a woman. I don't understand what you mean by "just happens"? Please explain.

[Anonymous]

This is actually kind of interesting to me at the moment.

My husband and I both has opposite-sex friends, and it's never been something I've given much thought to. We recently made new friends though, and due to our schedules, I'm hanging out more with the man than the woman (we're both home with our kids after school gets out) and for some reason it feels kind of awkward. Part of it is that I think I have more in common with the husband than the wife, and if I'm honest, I'm probably a little attracted to him (although I'm happily married and would never act on it). I feel like there are some unspoken rules I should be abiding by in this situation, but I'm not really sure what they are. I've definitely felt the need to make sure everything is on the straight-and-narrow -- copying his wife on texts to make plans, etc. It's weird.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'll bet that married women are more likely to regard other guys as "just friends" and interact with them in that frame of mind while married men are less likely. Just because, in general, women are happier to regard men as friends than vice versa.

To me, an interesting corollary of this dynamic would be to determine whether women are more likely to become involved in affairs that "just happen" than men are.

I'm a woman. I don't understand what you mean by "just happens"? Please explain.

Often when a cheating spouse has an affair, the cheated upon spouse will hear something like, "I didn't mean to have an affair, it just happened." So, I'm wondering if affairs sneak up on women more frequently than men. And, if so, whether affairs aren't so sneaky for men because they kind of wanted to have sex with their female friends the entire time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'll bet that married women are more likely to regard other guys as "just friends" and interact with them in that frame of mind while married men are less likely. Just because, in general, women are happier to regard men as friends than vice versa.

To me, an interesting corollary of this dynamic would be to determine whether women are more likely to become involved in affairs that "just happen" than men are.

I'm a woman. I don't understand what you mean by "just happens"? Please explain.

Often when a cheating spouse has an affair, the cheated upon spouse will hear something like, "I didn't mean to have an affair, it just happened." So, I'm wondering if affairs sneak up on women more frequently than men. And, if so, whether affairs aren't so sneaky for men because they kind of wanted to have sex with their female friends the entire time.

I don't believe affairs just happen. If you have chemistry, you both know it. You then need to stay away from each other or minimize contact. Saying it " just happened" is a cop out.

[Anonymous]

Pp here. I'm female, FYI.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is actually kind of interesting to me at the moment.

My husband and I both has opposite-sex friends, and it's never been something I've given much thought to. We recently made new friends though, and due to our schedules, I'm hanging out more with the man than the woman (we're both home with our kids after school gets out) and for some reason it feels kind of awkward. Part of it is that I think I have more in common with the husband than the wife, and if I'm honest, I'm probably a little attracted to him (although I'm happily married and would never act on it). I feel like there are some unspoken rules I should be abiding by in this situation, but I'm not really sure what they are. I've definitely felt the need to make sure everything is on the straight-and-narrow -- copying his wife on texts to make plans, etc. It's weird.

Good on you for noticing and feeling awkward and to make sure everything is above board by copying his spouse. To the extent possible, I'd say just avoid being alone with the other guy in the first place. A marriage is so much more important than a random friendship. Sure, the chances may be slim that anything untoward would happen, but why open the can of worms even a little bit?

Let's call the benefit of the friendship worth 100. Let's call the cost of an affair worth -1,000,000. If there is a 1% chance of an affair, you're looking at benefit of 100 versus a cost of .01*1M = -10,000. Obviously my numbers are arbitrary, but you get the point.

[Anonymous]

I tend to be kind of generally flirty by nature, not in a hair-tossing eye-batting kind of way but more like a ball-field gentle-ribbing kind of way. Since I don't fit the mold of the typical woman, I don't usually have to worry about guys thinking I'm sending off signals that I want to sleep with them. So, I joke and tease my male friends but I don't make sexual comments or innuendos. There are some of our friends whom I find more engaging and attractive than others, but for the most part I treat them the same as I treat women or male friends that I have in other parts of my life. I have no interest in an affair and I assume that comes across loud and clear.

[Anonymous]

EWWW. I thought TSFG stayed on the explicit forum. Now he's here, too!!!!
He knows about everything!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'll bet that married women are more likely to regard other guys as "just friends" and interact with them in that frame of mind while married men are less likely. Just because, in general, women are happier to regard men as friends than vice versa.

To me, an interesting corollary of this dynamic would be to determine whether women are more likely to become involved in affairs that "just happen" than men are.

I'm a woman. I don't understand what you mean by "just happens"? Please explain.

Often when a cheating spouse has an affair, the cheated upon spouse will hear something like, "I didn't mean to have an affair, it just happened." So, I'm wondering if affairs sneak up on women more frequently than men. And, if so, whether affairs aren't so sneaky for men because they kind of wanted to have sex with their female friends the entire time.

I don't believe affairs just happen. If you have chemistry, you both know it. You then need to stay away from each other or minimize contact. Saying it " just happened" is a cop out.

I tend to agree. But, I also think people are less than honest with themselves in this situation. So, if they're with the other person in reality because that person gives them a shot of sex-charged dopamine, they'll want to continue it but their brain will try to rationalize it into something more acceptable. My suspicion (and no I can't prove it) is that the ladies will be more susceptible to such rationalizations being successful because they're more likely to be able to convince themselves that the other man is a non-sexual friend. Because men are more likely to regard women as potential sex partners in the first place, the "just friends" rationalization is less likely to take hold.

(Now, I'm not saying that men are less likely to have affairs -- I'm saying that men are less likely to enter into affairs having convinced themselves that anything accidental took place.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is actually kind of interesting to me at the moment.

My husband and I both has opposite-sex friends, and it's never been something I've given much thought to. We recently made new friends though, and due to our schedules, I'm hanging out more with the man than the woman (we're both home with our kids after school gets out) and for some reason it feels kind of awkward. Part of it is that I think I have more in common with the husband than the wife, and if I'm honest, I'm probably a little attracted to him (although I'm happily married and would never act on it). I feel like there are some unspoken rules I should be abiding by in this situation, but I'm not really sure what they are. I've definitely felt the need to make sure everything is on the straight-and-narrow -- copying his wife on texts to make plans, etc. It's weird.

Op here. This is the kind of thing I'm talking about. Interesting. Do you feel like he's being cautious as well?

[Anonymous]

If a woman doesn't want to sleep with me; I don't want her to be flirtatious with me. I regard it as manipulative, and I distance myself.

If a woman does want to sleep with me; I don't want her to be flirtatious with me because I'm married. I regard it as inappropriate, and I distance myself.

So, yeah, other than my wife, I usually hang out with the guys.

[ThatSmileyFaceGuy]

Anonymous wrote:EWWW. I thought TSFG stayed on the explicit forum. Now he's here, too!!!!
He knows about everything!

If you have nothing to constructively add to the conversation, then either go away or just be quiet and you might learn something.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
This is actually kind of interesting to me at the moment.

My husband and I both has opposite-sex friends, and it's never been something I've given much thought to. We recently made new friends though, and due to our schedules, I'm hanging out more with the man than the woman (we're both home with our kids after school gets out) and for some reason it feels kind of awkward. Part of it is that I think I have more in common with the husband than the wife, and if I'm honest, I'm probably a little attracted to him (although I'm happily married and would never act on it). I feel like there are some unspoken rules I should be abiding by in this situation, but I'm not really sure what they are. I've definitely felt the need to make sure everything is on the straight-and-narrow -- copying his wife on texts to make plans, etc. It's weird.


Op here. This is the kind of thing I'm talking about. Interesting. Do you feel like he's being cautious as well?

Yeah, I kind of feel like we're all doing this little dance around it - he, his wife, me... not so much my husband, because he just assumes the best in people and probably wouldn't raise any concerns even if he had them, although the stuff I do to make sure everything is "above-board" is for his benefit as well as everyone else. So, I might want to invite FH (friend husband) to do something with me and the kids, but I make sure to do the initial inviting in front of FW (friend wife). When it gets to a point where FH and I have been spending a lot of time together, he'll reach out to plan something the my husband, and/or I'll think of some reason to make plans with his wife.

I'm hoping the whole thing will get less strange as we all get to know each other better. We're both new to the area, have kids the same age, and get along really well. That's been hard for us to find, so I really want our friendship to continue - but if things get too weird, yes, I'd pull away. I tend to send out the opposite of flirtatious vibes to guys, so I'm probably way over thinking this in the first place.