Does your spouse have a best friend who is of the opposite sex?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
DH and I have had "best" friends of the opposite sex, at work and at different moments of our lives. DS has a girl best friend, they have known each other since they were 2, and are really like brother and sister.

Just because we love and married each other, it doesn't mean we fulfill 100% of each other's needs 100% of the time.

I don't see what the big deal is.

+1

+2

You people who insist that your husband/wife is your best friend are a bit hard to believe. I'm deeply and profoundly in love with my wife. I would never do anything to hurt her. But we are each our own person. We have friendships, hobbies, and interests that are different from each other (we of course also have friendships, hobbies, and interests that coincide). Our ability to each be a unique individual strengthens our family and our love.

I'm not disagreeing or agreeing with you, but being a friend with anyone -spouse or otherwise - doesn't mean you're identical. I find the term "best friend" sort of silly. My wife is an amazing friend, but I also have a other friends that run the gamut from superficial to very close. Each of these friendships is different and unique, and together, they make life more fulfilling.

To address the OP - I choose to have deeper friendships with men rather than women. I have found that I transition from platonic to having romantic thoughts too easily, so I just don't go there. But this is my specific situation. My wife had a couple of male friends, then one started a lot of overtly sexual stuff with her. Killed the friendship pretty quick. Makes it for women, that's for sure....

[Anonymous]

One of my husband's closest friends is a woman. They met in grad school, and she was already married. She, her DH and my DH all became very close. They still are, but she and her DH welcomed me into the friendship warmly.

When DH and I went through rough times when we were dating, she was supportive of us both, and encouraged us to work it out. I think she was the happiest of all our friends and family when we got engaged.

I have no problem when she and DH meet for lunch these days. And I jealous? Yes - of him! I don't get to see her nearly as much as I'd like.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One of my husband's closest friends is a woman. They met in grad school, and she was already married. She, her DH and my DH all became very close. They still are, but she and her DH welcomed me into the friendship warmly.

When DH and I went through rough times when we were dating, she was supportive of us both, and encouraged us to work it out. I think she was the happiest of all our friends and family when we got engaged.

I have no problem when she and DH meet for lunch these days. And I jealous? Yes - of him! I don't get to see her nearly as much as I'd like.

I love this! Thanks for sharing.

[Anonymous]

It's all on an individual-by-individual basis.

The above positive examples are great and I've seen those in real life. For other people, it might not work because of their experiences and worldview. But it is certainly possible for this sort of friendship to occur in a natural, healthy and positive way.

[Anonymous]

So if I am jealous/not in favor of my spouse's opposite sex BFF, what does that say about me? Insecure in my own marriage? Trust issues? General insecurity about myself?

In my heart I know I have nothing to worry about, but I just don't like it. There is always that "what if" lingering...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So if I am jealous/not in favor of my spouse's opposite sex BFF, what does that say about me? Insecure in my own marriage? Trust issues? General insecurity about myself?

In my heart I know I have nothing to worry about, but I just don't like it. There is always that "what if" lingering...

I don't know what it says about you, especially since you say you know in your heart you have nothing to worry about.

I'm the woman with the 17 year-long friendship with a man. My partners, and my friend's partners, have never been bothered by our friendship. That said, we keep it appropriate, too. We occasionally (once or twice a month have an hour+ long phone call - (he's chatty lol)) but when we see each other, it is virtually always with his partner present (I'm not seeing anyone seriously right now). Sometimes I will meet up with his partner and some other girlfriends when he's not around. Are you always (or almost always) welcome/invited to join them when they get together? I can see where if you weren't invited or included that would start to raise concerns. With us, it's never been an issue. When "Joe" got together with "Jane" any time he or I suggested we get together, it was implied that Jane was welcome, unless he said he specifically wanted my help with something for her (e.g. picking out her birthday present) or I wanted to talk about something very personal to me (e.g. family issues) that I'm just not as comfortable sharing with her.

[Anonymous]

I would watch his email and phone. I didn't have any issues with a partner having a girl that was a best friend. But then DH cheated on me with his friend who fed him lies about me. Or, she reinforced his insecurities. I didn't care they spent time alone together. Then again, I will never let that happen again.

[Anonymous]

My husband has several good friends who happen to be women. I've met most of them, and they are cool people that I enjoy hanging out with. I'm not remotely threatened by them. I would worry if there was a new "friend" who he didn't introduce me to, or a friend that he never included me in plans with, but long-standing friends that I know and spend time with? No problem.

I agree with the PP who said that no one can fulfill 100 percent of another person's needs 100 percent of the time. My husband's gift for deep, long-lasting friendships is one of the things that attracted me to him--why would I want him to give those up?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So if I am jealous/not in favor of my spouse's opposite sex BFF, what does that say about me? Insecure in my own marriage? Trust issues? General insecurity about myself?

In my heart I know I have nothing to worry about, but I just don't like it. There is always that "what if" lingering...

Is there something in particular that sets you off? Or just the fact that his friend is a woman? If you're never included in things with them, if you have some reason to think the friend is not supportive of your marriage, etc.--a reason to maybe be worried. Are you generally jealous of other women, or is there something about this particular woman/relationship that bothers you?

[Anonymous]

I had a male best friend and in retrospect I realize there WAS an undercurrent of will they/won't they that persisted throughout our single years and fueled our relationship in a strange way. We discussed our relationships ad nauseum and were each other's platonic back-up date to many an event. Once I met my husband I found my friendship with my guy friend naturally cooled. We exchange FB messages every once and a while but I don't think we could be close again. I don't mean that all opposite sex friendships are over once you're married - it depends on the friendship and the marriage. DH and I have more casual opposite sex friends we've met through work, kid functions, etc. and those friendships often involve hanging out as couples.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Everyone who is saying your spouse is your best friend, cut the bullshit. That doesn't count.

I am a single female but one of my best friends is a gay guy. Would his being gay make our closeness more acceptable than another male friend?

I'm hesitant to wade into this debate b/c I was certain I was done posting on DCUM, but so be it.

First of all, I think you are being purposefully obtuse. Yes, of course, it's implied that the idea is, would you be okay with your spouse being closer to someone he/she could potentially have a sexual/intimate relationship with than he/she is with you?

If you are a single female, have you ever been married? You offer no explanation about why a spouse "doesn't count" as a best friend. Just because you haven't experienced that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Here are my thoughts. I think men and women (even if they are both not gay) can be friends. And I don't think that is the issue. What we are talking about is very *close* friends, in fact, the closest of friends. And that is where the problem lies.

I have no issue with my husband being friends with other straight women. But I do have an issue if he is closer emotionally to those women than he is with me. Why? Because my life is completely intertwined with his. Marriage isn't just about sex. It is a partnership. And if he has a deeper emotional connection to another woman, especially one that could also meet his sexual needs, then that is problematic.

Getting married doesn't mean you give up all of your friends. But it does mean that you put this one other person first. I don't think that intimacy is just sex. It's also sharing deep secrets and inner feelings that you don't necessarily share with everyone. If my husband is experiencing that intimacy with another woman, then, yes, I have an issue with that.

That said, I don't think that marriage is for everyone. And if you are best friends with one woman and then marry another, with the intention of still maintaining the level of closeness you have with the best friend, then you are doing a disservice to everyone.

No one has to get married. If you don't want to be in a partnership, if you don't want to pledge a commitment solely to this one other person, then don't get married.

Having said all of that, I do also think that marriage does, by necessity, affect even relationships with people of the same sex (or with gay people of the opposite sex). For example, sure, my husband still has close male friends, but we are partners. I would think there is a problem in our marriage if he is frequently sharing things with them that he doesn't feel comfortable sharing with me. Again, our lives our intertwined. We don't need to know all of the mundane details about each other, but we definitely need to know the deep things. And the level of closeness between us should be deeper than any other relationship either one of us has.

I didn't get married until later in life, because I felt pretty strongly that, to me, I'd prefer not to get married at all than to marry someone with whom I wasn't *best friends.*

I also have seen so many examples of people who were best friends for years, arguing up and down that neither of them had any physical attraction for the other, and then one day, when the circumstances and timing come together, guess what? It turns out they are attracted to each other. So I am very skeptical when people insist that there is no attraction, especially when there is clearly chemistry. And with most "best friends," even of the same sex or even with opposite sex but gay, there is a kind of chemistry. If your spouse has that chemistry with someone else to a greater degree than he/she has with you, that's an issue. It's certainly more of an issue if there's potential for a sexual relationship, but I would also argue that it is an issue even if there is no potential for a sexual relationship. It doesn't mean the spouse can't be close to other people. It means that the spouse shouldn't be CLOSER to other people than he/she is to the person he/she married.

In my observation (purely anecdotal), the beginning of the end to a lot of marriages seems to be when this happens and the couple doesn't address it.

[Anonymous]

I am generally cool with DW's male friends, except for the one she hooked up with many years before meeting me -- we see him once in a while at big events but generally I prefer him to not be around.

[Anonymous]

I wasn't going to get into this either because these conversations devolve into paranoid snakepits pretty much instantly.

I am close friends with my spouse. We are lovers. We have a child together. We are each other's unofficial strategic consultants about professional decisions. We have similar interests (though not 100% aligned) and enjoy each other's company.

However, I also have a best friend. I've known this person since I was 17 years old. We were romantically entangled when we were about 19, but we established pretty quickly that no romantic relationship was of interest to either one of us and moved on. We have, since then, had multiple relationships with other people. We chat online almost every work day and stay at each other's houses when we visit each other's cities. My best friend knows my spouse and they like each other. This is a person I have known for half my life, who I have confided in about important life events, who I value as a friend. I would never jeopardize the friendship by pursuing a romantic relationship with this person.

You'll note that I've said "this person" rather than indicate a gender. I've done that deliberately, because I do not believe that gender is what is important in this debate. It is about trust and security in your relationships - platonic and romantic. I really don't know where you "friendships with opposite sex not possible because SEX" people draw the line. If your spouse is going to cheat on you, it hardly matter whether it's someone your spouse has known for half their lives or someone they met five minutes ago, whether you're married to a man or a woman.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone who is saying your spouse is your best friend, cut the bullshit. That doesn't count.

I am a single female but one of my best friends is a gay guy. Would his being gay make our closeness more acceptable than another male friend?

I'm hesitant to wade into this debate b/c I was certain I was done posting on DCUM, but so be it.

First of all, I think you are being purposefully obtuse. Yes, of course, it's implied that the idea is, would you be okay with your spouse being closer to someone he/she could potentially have a sexual/intimate relationship with than he/she is with you?

If you are a single female, have you ever been married? You offer no explanation about why a spouse "doesn't count" as a best friend. Just because you haven't experienced that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Here are my thoughts. I think men and women (even if they are both not gay) can be friends. And I don't think that is the issue. What we are talking about is very *close* friends, in fact, the closest of friends. And that is where the problem lies.

I have no issue with my husband being friends with other straight women. But I do have an issue if he is closer emotionally to those women than he is with me. Why? Because my life is completely intertwined with his. Marriage isn't just about sex. It is a partnership. And if he has a deeper emotional connection to another woman, especially one that could also meet his sexual needs, then that is problematic.

Getting married doesn't mean you give up all of your friends. But it does mean that you put this one other person first. I don't think that intimacy is just sex. It's also sharing deep secrets and inner feelings that you don't necessarily share with everyone. If my husband is experiencing that intimacy with another woman, then, yes, I have an issue with that.

That said, I don't think that marriage is for everyone. And if you are best friends with one woman and then marry another, with the intention of still maintaining the level of closeness you have with the best friend, then you are doing a disservice to everyone.

No one has to get married. If you don't want to be in a partnership, if you don't want to pledge a commitment solely to this one other person, then don't get married.

Having said all of that, I do also think that marriage does, by necessity, affect even relationships with people of the same sex (or with gay people of the opposite sex). For example, sure, my husband still has close male friends, but we are partners. I would think there is a problem in our marriage if he is frequently sharing things with them that he doesn't feel comfortable sharing with me. Again, our lives our intertwined. We don't need to know all of the mundane details about each other, but we definitely need to know the deep things. And the level of closeness between us should be deeper than any other relationship either one of us has.

I didn't get married until later in life, because I felt pretty strongly that, to me, I'd prefer not to get married at all than to marry someone with whom I wasn't *best friends.*

I also have seen so many examples of people who were best friends for years, arguing up and down that neither of them had any physical attraction for the other, and then one day, when the circumstances and timing come together, guess what? It turns out they are attracted to each other. So I am very skeptical when people insist that there is no attraction, especially when there is clearly chemistry. And with most "best friends," even of the same sex or even with opposite sex but gay, there is a kind of chemistry. If your spouse has that chemistry with someone else to a greater degree than he/she has with you, that's an issue. It's certainly more of an issue if there's potential for a sexual relationship, but I would also argue that it is an issue even if there is no potential for a sexual relationship. It doesn't mean the spouse can't be close to other people. It means that the spouse shouldn't be CLOSER to other people than he/she is to the person he/she married.

In my observation (purely anecdotal), the beginning of the end to a lot of marriages seems to be when this happens and the couple doesn't address it.

Did you write a longish post about a DH with ADHD (I think) in another thread? I forget which one. Same kind of lucid, intelligent, compassionate stuff as you wrote here. I really respect what you write. I mean that sincerely. While I understand the impetus to stop posting, if people like you don't post, it opens the door for a lot of crap to filter in. I hope you will at least leave your thoughts here on occasion to raise the average just a bit.
LHP

[Anonymous]

Well I have a male best friend who is gay, so my DH has no problem with it.