having male/female friends over when you are married/in a relationship

[suchislife2]

Today my sis said something interesting that somewhat bothered me. So, I have a make friend coming over tonight for pizza and movies. Been friends with this guy for a while now, hubby knows him. I've gone out and done things with him all on my own in the past and there have been no issues. Hubby isn't a jelous type won't care if he's there or not.

But my sis was like..."is DH going to be ok with you have a GUY over by youself? "

ummm yes...why is this such an issue for people? Now that I am married does that mean that I can't have male friends? Or have male friends over/go out with them without them?

What are your thoughts?

[Wingates_Hellsing]

My thoughts are that we're never going to move forward as a culture when it comes to gender unless we get the hell over this whole 'no one can ever be trusted around anyone' mentality. Anyone still assuming that all men are sex-crazed, violent, jealousy-ridden apes and/or that women are all helpless, incompetent and either slutty or frigid *inhales* may hereforth jump off a cliff.

The best way to make something 'not matter' is to think and act accordingly, anything else is counter-productive.

[insertNameHere]

Well it really depends on how much sex you have had with this guy previously. I really don't care if a girlfriend has guy friends she hasn't slept with and wants to hangout with but when it comes to previous lovers I draw the line there. And even with random strangers at some point. I base that off personal experience with me being along with ex's. And my most recent ex being left alone with one of her ex's, and what she did. When hanging out alone with someone you have already been intimate with espeically if for a significant period of time it just leaves a lot of temptation.

Sure I can trust a GF, but some random douche bag she used to date I have no desire or reason to trust because well after you have had them jump in her bed while you were on a break, or better yet got blown off for her to hangout with them since well she wanted to meet new people.

Then you have my best friend, he was engaged to a girl who started hanging out with a new guy friend and a month later they were broken up because well this guy tried something and I guess she liked it and is dating him now.

So really it depends, on how long you have been together and the level of trust between the involved parties. I know I could leave any of my girlfriends drunk off my ass with my best friend and he wouldn't take advantage of the situation even if she pushed it, but some random fuck stick is likely to do whatever.

As long as her friend doesn't get more time with her than me, I really don't see a problem.

edit:
I completely forgot one of my good friends is a girl and I wasn't allowed to hangout with her according to my EX, when nothing has ever happened between us more htan a quick makeout 6-7 years ago which is a long time when your only 22. YET she wanted to hangout with her previous boyfriend who she was highly sexual active with? Haha probably why she left me to fuck a couple.

[Plaidman]

No laws or rules stating that people can't have friends of different genders.

I have alot of female friends. I have some male friends. Alot of my female friends are married or have boyfriends. They're husbands/boyfriends don't care.

Why? Because *GASP* they trust their lovers.

I know! I mean, just wow. My female friends don't immedity rip of my clothes and rape me the second they're alone with me.

It may be because I'm not like that, but they also know that if a guy tries to hit on them, their wives/girlfriends just laugh at them and remind them they are married.



However:

This doesn't mean that title of boyfriend/girlfriend wife/husband have an automatic defense against all people. Guess what? people cheat. Just a fact of life. Not all people cheat, but not all people are 100 percent faithful.

Of those that cheat, there are two kinds. Those that cheat just because. (be it they feel like it, got drunk, want to hurt their lover, could be any reason of because that is just a over excuse of them just not giving a shit about their lover).

The other is because they fall out of love, and fall back in love with others.

Love isnt' exactly some kind of perfect chemical in the brain. Love is a constant battle to keep the other intrest. You can't just drop them, can't just ignore them or treat them like garbage and expect them to always be there.

The sad part of that though, is that a good chunk of the time it's one person that does alot of give, and in their weakest moments of they dare to express annoyance or stress, they do get dumped for daring to try not to stress out the other by expressing anything. That person just doens't see it or care, they werent' the main object.

Some people need time alone, others need to be always there.

love is a complicated piece of chemical garbage that is just different for everyone. That's why it's both the most complicated, most rare, and most powerful thing in the entire multiverse.

[Boozy]

My husband has a few female friends, and I wouldn't mind if they spent some time alone together. Hell, I would be perfectly comfortable with the two of them sharing a hotel room.

They just aren't his type. They hang out, laugh, and talk about geeky stuff that I have no interest in, so there's a nice friendship there. But there's just no way he finds them sexually appealing. He's never gone for that type in a girlfriend in the past.

I have a few male friends whom I'm sure he feels the same way, and whom I could have over to watch a movie with when Mr. Boozy isn't home. But if he ever said he was uncomfortable with it, I'd respect that. I don't think it's crazy or overly possessive.

[guywithashovel]

I'll admit to seeing this as weird in the past. One time, at a previous job, a female co-worker mentioned going out with a male friend, and she was married. As I listened, I thought it was weird that she did that. It wasn't that I suspected her of cheating on her husband. It was just that no other married couples I'd ever been around had done that. My mom and dad never had opposite sex friends that they hung out with. Sure, they had opposite sex acquaintance, and there were couples that they were both friends with, like R and D. R was a long time friend and co-worker of my dad's, and D was his wife. Mom and Dad were friends with both of them, but my mom never would have called R up and said, "Hey, you want to go out for drinks tonight, just the two of us?"

Basically, it just hasn't been something I've been exposed to much. Not that there's anything wrong with it, though, as long as neither person in the relationship cares. I'm probably biased, though, because anymore now, I tend to lean against having opposite sex friends. I usuallly can't socialize with a girl without imagining something serious between us. It's just the way I'm wired. If other people can, then good for them, but I just can't. I did have opposite sex friends in high school and college, and I think that was good, because it helped me learn about opposite sex relationships. Anymore now, though, if there's no relationship, then I'd rather us either be strangers or casual acquaintances.

[Kaylyn]

Almost all my friends are male, and my husband has no problems with me hanging out with any of them one on one. I've even dated one of them in the past. Of course, he turned out to be gay, so...

The only issue he's ever had was almost a year ago, I managed to develop a massive crush on one of my WoW guildies. He was more threatened by our online friendship than any of my real-life friends, even though the guy lived 2000 miles away. I've since gotten over it, and our marriage survived.

On my end of things, I would have no problems with him hanging out one-on-one with a female friend, if he had any. But then again, I'm not the jealous type. Even if something did happen between them, even if I walked in on it, I probably wouldn't care, because I can kinda get behind polyamory. Doesn't make sense to me that just because you love one person means you can't fall for someone else and still love the first person; the second person likely fills in gaps that the first person can't.

[McDreidel09]

I've had boyfriends in the past try and tell me that I couldn't have guy friends. Right then and there, I dropped them. Why? I refuse to be controlled in such a way where my friendships are dictated to me. I don't get along with women as much as I do men. I prefer to hang out with men most of the time. To sit there and tell me to get rid of people that have been there for me through a lot and make my life enjoyable is a huge no-no.

Why should it matter what gender or sex a friend is, just because one of them happens to be in a relationship?

[Plaidman]

The only issue he's ever had was almost a year ago, I managed to develop a massive crush on one of my WoW guildies. He was more threatened by our online friendship than any of my real-life friends, even though the guy lived 2000 miles away. I've since gotten over it, and our marriage survived.
.

Creepy. My pal had many a girl fall in love with him over WoW or Everquest. Even had women begging him to let them move across country to be with him.

What was your crush user name?

It's a small world sometimes, It be an creepy coincidence if it was the same person.

[Greenday]

I personally don't care if I had a girlfriend and she wanted to hang out with a guy. If she wanted him, she would be with him and not me. If I'm dating someone, I trust them enough to not do stuff with other people. If I didn't, I wouldn't date them. And anyone who tells me I can't hang with my girl friends can go to hell.

I know my mom would disagree with me. It's one of the few things we disagree on.

[DrFaroohk]

Thank god my wife and I have never had this problem. We both trust each other to go out alone if one of has to stay home with the kids or something, there are male and female people here all the time hanging out while the spouse is away and it's never an issue at all. Trust is a major, major importance to a relationship, I think.

[Amina516]

Trust is a major factor.

However, its also important for yourself to keep yourself out of situations where you may be somehow tempted. You need to trust your partner, but trusting yourself is a huge part. If you dont trust yourself, youre going to be at a huge disadvantage regardless of how much trust your partner has in you.

Just my two cents...

Annnnnd rest.

Lol.

[ExRetailDrone]

My husband has a female friend that he's been friends with for a good 5 or more years now. He's known her longer than he's known me. She doesn't live in the area anymore, so I have no problems when she's in town if they go have a drink and hang out for a few hours. I trust him and know that he won't do anything with her. He's not attracted to her like that. The same goes for me and my guy friends. I have a really close guy friend that I've been friends with since high school. He lives across the country, so I haven't seen him in years, but my husband would have no issue if my friend and I were to get together and hang out if we were in the same city. We trust each other, which we both feel is an incredibly important part of any relationship.

I've been with guys who were jealous of my other guy friends, and it pissed me the hell off. A guy that I dated in high school turned out to be really possessive. I remember one instance during finals time when I went out to lunch with a huge group of people, both guys and girls. My ex got really angry with me that I would even dare to go to lunch when there were other guys there. That was one of the last straws. If I had been a stronger person back then, I would have probably ended it then, but I was a bit of a pushover at the time.

The only issue he's ever had was almost a year ago, I managed to develop a massive crush on one of my WoW guildies. He was more threatened by our online friendship than any of my real-life friends, even though the guy lived 2000 miles away.

It's crazy how often I hear variations of this since I went through something similar. In my case, though, I was with my ex when I began playing WoW (he was the one who got me into the game, ironically enough). I met a guy on there who I really hit it off with on a friendship level, and we began talking a lot. We were in the same guild (he was friends with a friend of my ex) and lived in the same town at the time (he was attending the university in the town I lived in), so eventually we end up hanging out in real life. Well, this guy made me realize what a dick my ex actually was, and because of everything that happened, I learned that my ex was a master manipulator (those were even words my ex used to describe himself when we were going through our break-up). I ended up leaving my ex and dating the guy I met in-game, who is now my husband Since then we've met at least 2 or 3 couples (both in game and IRL) whose stories are similar to ours.

[MaggieTheCat]

My husband and I often shake our heads and sigh at the couples where one or both partners won't let the other hang out with members of the opposite sex. We find it sad, really, that someone could be so jealous and mistrusting of the person they're in a relationship with. (I'm talking extreme cases here, where say the girl had a good male friend before she got into a relationship, and that friendship was ruined because the boyfriend was mad-jealous of the time the girl spent with her male friend even though there was nothing going on between them.)

About 70% of my husband's friends from college were female, and I back in my hometown most of my friends were male, so when we end up seeing each others' groups of friends, it's often members of our own gender (which worked out pretty well for me, actually, since one of his female college buddies and I have become really good friends, and I haven't had a close female friend in YEARS.) He's stayed in a hotel room with a bunch of girls before and I've stayed in a hotel room with my best guy friend and neither of us have an issue with it.

[smileyeagle1021]

My fiance and I have never had a problem with this. We trust each other. Hell, I've before told him to go ahead and hang out with a guy who I know wants in his pants (I don't even ask him to ask permission, he asked that time since he knew that I knew this guy and what he wanted).
My take, I trust him... and I trust if he does go looking somewhere else it's just as much my fault as his for not recognizing whatever need it was that he would have that I couldn't provide.
As they say, it takes two to make a relationship work... it also takes two to make it fail.