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Can Men and Women be friends when one is married?

deleted_user
This is a loooong one - sorry - but I had to get this out and am hoping you'll throw in your 2 cents.
My STBX has only a handful of friends. One is a woman. They met 7 years ago at his job. For a long time it was an occasional get together but nothing more. The second time I met her was at her wedding. She introduced my husband to her mother as "Me with a penis." Not only did I find it inappropriate given the setting, but her comment struck a cord because it meant to me she felt a kinship with my husband. Needless to say it made me "uncomfortable." Fast forward 7 years and my husband and I had our second child. (The most adorable little boy in the world ;)
We were strapped and needed daycare. This woman needed a job. We hired her to watch our son. Now my husband went from a 3 times a year outing, to seeing her everyday. He would have lunches at her house, they'd take trips to Target and bookstores, go out to eat - when he was supposed to be working. I told him how uncomfortable it made me but he always said the same thing. "We're just friends. The fact that she has a vagina should not make a difference. I've done nothing to cause you to not trust me. How would you feel if I questioned your friendships?"
During the school year, her relationship to her husband began to disintegrate because of her own dissatisfaction. Cooncidentally (or not) when she moved out, my husband began talking about separating from me. She told her husband she wanted a divorce. Mine told me he wanted one 2 weeks ago. And then one week after we told our daughter, he took her and my son to see her and go out together to a harvest festival.
I voiced my concerns to him and he continues to insist that they are still just friends. Feel free to voice your opinion on my specific situation, but I'm also wondering from you: what limitations do you think are reasonable for married people and opposite-sex friends? Can woman and men be just friends and also be married?
Thanks for your time with this one!
My STBX has only a handful of friends. One is a woman. They met 7 years ago at his job. For a long time it was an occasional get together but nothing more. The second time I met her was at her wedding. She introduced my husband to her mother as "Me with a penis." Not only did I find it inappropriate given the setting, but her comment struck a cord because it meant to me she felt a kinship with my husband. Needless to say it made me "uncomfortable." Fast forward 7 years and my husband and I had our second child. (The most adorable little boy in the world ;)
We were strapped and needed daycare. This woman needed a job. We hired her to watch our son. Now my husband went from a 3 times a year outing, to seeing her everyday. He would have lunches at her house, they'd take trips to Target and bookstores, go out to eat - when he was supposed to be working. I told him how uncomfortable it made me but he always said the same thing. "We're just friends. The fact that she has a vagina should not make a difference. I've done nothing to cause you to not trust me. How would you feel if I questioned your friendships?"
During the school year, her relationship to her husband began to disintegrate because of her own dissatisfaction. Cooncidentally (or not) when she moved out, my husband began talking about separating from me. She told her husband she wanted a divorce. Mine told me he wanted one 2 weeks ago. And then one week after we told our daughter, he took her and my son to see her and go out together to a harvest festival.
I voiced my concerns to him and he continues to insist that they are still just friends. Feel free to voice your opinion on my specific situation, but I'm also wondering from you: what limitations do you think are reasonable for married people and opposite-sex friends? Can woman and men be just friends and also be married?
Thanks for your time with this one!
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I'm sorry but things are talked about and shared between them that creates more of a bond and your husband is just plain blind or stupid to think that he can control the attraction that he obvious has for this person.
Besides, you voiced your opinion and how you felt. As your husband, he should have honored you and put you first, regardless.
Tell him to get out and stay out .. or leave her alone and never see her again and get you both in counselling..
I am so sorry for your pain.. the warning signs were all there.....
Wrong. He's had an emotional affair with a "friend" since February and now has a thing with somone whom he had been friends with since highschool
It is tricky. Some of his girlfriends are only friends but now I know to trust my instincts.
The limitations depends on the people involved, but when you expressed your discomfort with the situation your husband should not have put his friendship with her before his own marriage.
I haven't been in that type of situation. But I think my counselor would say that it was the marital relationship that was unhealthy. I haven't heard anything said that would indicate his relationship with his friend was unhealthy.
I do agree that the relationship with the friend could be healthy under other circumstances, but the fact that his own marriage suffers from that friendship makes it unhealthy in this situation. A simple way of keeping both marriage and friend could have been to include LBJ in all activities with the friend for instance. IMHO.