Are married men allowed to make new single female friends?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No.

Married men should not create new friendships with single females.

Cordial, polite surface relationships? Sure.

Friendships with regular contact? No.

Completely inappropriate.

I tend to agree, but....

My husband has a colleague at work with whom he works closely. They're friends. She and I are friends. She babysits our kid. I don't see harm in it.

I'm not sure why it is, but this would bother me.

She and I get together once a week. She doesn't get together with my husband outside of work unless we're doing couples things. She's a close friend with no kids and she adores our toddler!

And that would bother me. Maybe it's because I've heard too many stories of the "friend" who was "friends" with the wife too that became the OW that I'm suspicious. I'd also not be kay with a single woman who wasn't the nanny, relative, or longtime friend "adoring" my kid. That too me seems like she's trying to prove her mothering skills.
I'm probably paranoid.
Don't let my projections cast shadows on your relationship.

Not PP but I thought the female friend was married herself since there was a mention of getting together to do couples things. Maybe this is a younger couple (at least no kids yet) who needs to earn some extra income so the wife babysits.

[Anonymous]

Only if she is well past menopause or obese.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We don't allow new single friends of the opposite sex. I can honestly say it's for the best even on my part. Our marriage has gone through some tough times in the past where I could have easily slipped. I'd rather not play with temptation.

What the hell kind of marriages are you people in??????

You read my mind.....especially with social media now, and people reconnecting with the past, I have met up with several married women at Starbucks or something similar and go dutch. It works.

Either you trust your spouse or you don't, that is what it boils down to.

[Anonymous]

If you are woman who is insecure, newsflash! A man will cheat if he wants to. You can't prevent it by controlling your husband's friendships with single woman. I know some women that think like this and their husband is cheating. If you married a good man who appreciates you, genuinely respects and loves you and thinks highly of you, you have nothing to worry about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Those of you who are saying "we don't allow" this, just know that you aren't actually accomplishing anything. When I worked in corporate America and then the government, every single day, a different co-worker whose wife "didn't allow" him to have friends of the opposite sex took me out to lunch. Mind you, I wasn't looking to do anything with these co-workers, and these were just friendly lunches, but I could not for the life of me believe how many of them had wives who "didn't allow" friendly relationships with single people of the opposite sex. In a sense, it made these guys seek out those friendships even more, even though it never went anywhere past friendship. If you all trusted your spouses more and didn't restrict them, maybe they wouldn't actively seek out such friendships - not that I personally think there's anything wrong with single and married folks being friends.

These men were all very sweet, always respectful, kind, and I always told them they could do so much better than their controlling spouses, because they really could. Even when you are married, you do not own another person. You cannot police their lives and tell them they can't f'ing have friends. That's out of control. The sooner you learn this, the better off your marriages will be.

XO,

The Office Pretty Young Thing Befriending All Your Husbands

Oh thank goodness! The girl who isn't married is dispensing marriage advice to everyone's husbands.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are you happy to include your wife in the friendship? When I was single I made "couple" friends with people I met at work.

I guess my standard is - are both halves of the couple in your cell phone?

+1

And going along with that, any text or call should be something that either could read without any discomfort

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No.

Married men should not create new friendships with single females.

Cordial, polite surface relationships? Sure.

Friendships with regular contact? No.

Completely inappropriate.

I tend to agree, but....

My husband has a colleague at work with whom he works closely. They're friends. She and I are friends. She babysits our kid. I don't see harm in it.

I'm not sure why it is, but this would bother me.

She and I get together once a week. She doesn't get together with my husband outside of work unless we're doing couples things. She's a close friend with no kids and she adores our toddler!

And that would bother me. Maybe it's because I've heard too many stories of the "friend" who was "friends" with the wife too that became the OW that I'm suspicious. I'd also not be kay with a single woman who wasn't the nanny, relative, or longtime friend "adoring" my kid. That too me seems like she's trying to prove her mothering skills.
I'm probably paranoid.
Don't let my projections cast shadows on your relationship.

Yup. I totally agree, you should befriend the wife so it doesn't look suspicious. I did it even though I didn't like her a whole lot.

That said, now married, I don't "allow" my husband to befriend anybody. He does it on his own. I don't own his friendships. Nor does he get to "allow" me to have friends. You've got to be able to trust.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: Before marriage is a different thing but after I think the door should be shut. My answer to this would be no. I think this could lead disaster.

As a single woman I can tell you the answer is yes. I have lot of married men who are friends. I am also just a good a friend, if not more, with their wives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you happy to include your wife in the friendship? When I was single I made "couple" friends with people I met at work.

I guess my standard is - are both halves of the couple in your cell phone?

+1

And going along with that, any text or call should be something that either could read without any discomfort

If you are texting you should be texting both at the same time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We don't allow new single friends of the opposite sex. I can honestly say it's for the best even on my part. Our marriage has gone through some tough times in the past where I could have easily slipped. I'd rather not play with temptation.

What the hell kind of marriages are you people in??????

+1

DH here and there is no "allowed to" or "not allowed to" in my marriage. I dealt with this kind of insecure paranoia in my first marriage - and it was incredibly corrosive. Honestly, by the end, I felt like I might as well cheat because I was treated as if I were constantly cheating anyway. It was probably the single biggest thing that ate away at my marriage (or rather: my feelings for my ex-wife). Apparently I was drawn to this dynamic, because the next two LTRs I got into were with women like this. I had several female friends - some gay, some not - when I met now-DW, and I made it clear that I was not going to curtail my activity in any way.

We have a child now and we mostly have married friends (I had a number of married friends, some with children, some without prior to marriage, as did my wife), so when we meet new people, they tend to be people in the same phase of life such that we have that in common, but there are (and will not be) any "rules". That's just nuts. I feel bad for your controlled spouse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No.

Married men should not create new friendships with single females.

Cordial, polite surface relationships? Sure.

Friendships with regular contact? No.

Completely inappropriate.

I tend to agree, but....

My husband has a colleague at work with whom he works closely. They're friends. She and I are friends. She babysits our kid. I don't see harm in it.

I'm not sure why it is, but this would bother me.

She and I get together once a week. She doesn't get together with my husband outside of work unless we're doing couples things. She's a close friend with no kids and she adores our toddler!

How do you do couple things with a single woman.

[Anonymous]

I don't do the "allow" "not allowed" thing in my marriage.

Just found out my H has had 4 affairs in the past 13 years of our 20 year marriage. BTW, I make 1/2 the HHI, we have sex multiple times a week, we never fight, and I have a healthy BMI, we date 3 times a month without the kids, we vacation without kids.

So much for trust and "affair proofing" your marriage..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Those of you who are saying "we don't allow" this, just know that you aren't actually accomplishing anything. When I worked in corporate America and then the government, every single day, a different co-worker whose wife "didn't allow" him to have friends of the opposite sex took me out to lunch. Mind you, I wasn't looking to do anything with these co-workers, and these were just friendly lunches, but I could not for the life of me believe how many of them had wives who "didn't allow" friendly relationships with single people of the opposite sex. In a sense, it made these guys seek out those friendships even more, even though it never went anywhere past friendship. If you all trusted your spouses more and didn't restrict them, maybe they wouldn't actively seek out such friendships - not that I personally think there's anything wrong with single and married folks being friends.

These men were all very sweet, always respectful, kind, and I always told them they could do so much better than their controlling spouses, because they really could. Even when you are married, you do not own another person. You cannot police their lives and tell them they can't f'ing have friends. That's out of control. The sooner you learn this, the better off your marriages will be.

XO,

The Office Pretty Young Thing Befriending All Your Husbands

Single forever

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Those of you who are saying "we don't allow" this, just know that you aren't actually accomplishing anything. When I worked in corporate America and then the government, every single day, a different co-worker whose wife "didn't allow" him to have friends of the opposite sex took me out to lunch. Mind you, I wasn't looking to do anything with these co-workers, and these were just friendly lunches, but I could not for the life of me believe how many of them had wives who "didn't allow" friendly relationships with single people of the opposite sex. In a sense, it made these guys seek out those friendships even more, even though it never went anywhere past friendship. If you all trusted your spouses more and didn't restrict them, maybe they wouldn't actively seek out such friendships - not that I personally think there's anything wrong with single and married folks being friends.

These men were all very sweet, always respectful, kind, and I always told them they could do so much better than their controlling spouses, because they really could. Even when you are married, you do not own another person. You cannot police their lives and tell them they can't f'ing have friends. That's out of control. The sooner you learn this, the better off your marriages will be.

XO,

The Office Pretty Young Thing Befriending All Your Husbands

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Those of you who are saying "we don't allow" this, just know that you aren't actually accomplishing anything. When I worked in corporate America and then the government, every single day, a different co-worker whose wife "didn't allow" him to have friends of the opposite sex took me out to lunch. Mind you, I wasn't looking to do anything with these co-workers, and these were just friendly lunches, but I could not for the life of me believe how many of them had wives who "didn't allow" friendly relationships with single people of the opposite sex. In a sense, it made these guys seek out those friendships even more, even though it never went anywhere past friendship. If you all trusted your spouses more and didn't restrict them, maybe they wouldn't actively seek out such friendships - not that I personally think there's anything wrong with single and married folks being friends.

These men were all very sweet, always respectful, kind, and I always told them they could do so much better than their controlling spouses, because they really could. Even when you are married, you do not own another person. You cannot police their lives and tell them they can't f'ing have friends. That's out of control. The sooner you learn this, the better off your marriages will be.

XO,

The Office Pretty Young Thing Befriending All Your Husbands

But wouldn't your time be better spent with eligible men? Why the constant luncheons with married men? M