You guys make some very good points. It is probably not as black and white as I have portrayed it.

There is probably a very big difference between a friend who you share a lot of thoughts and feelings with and perhaps a friend from a previous life (college or HS friend), whom you've known for a long time and you keep in touch with sporadically.

I have female friends, but they were friends prior to when I met my wife. And I certainly never made an effort to spend time with them after I was married. I never really spoke to them other than an occasional email or FB communication ("How's the family?", etc.). Doesn't mean we weren't friends.

I always felt like that trying to get together socially with a female friend without my wife being there was just bad optics. I especially felt it was not right if she were married too.

After all, how would I feel if my wife was getting together with one of her male friends on even a semi-regular basis? I gotta say, I'd be asking very pointed questions of her.

(good stuff in this thread, by the way......)

well, i met him after we were married--told STBX about him (actually he didn't seem to care at ALL)... we communicate regularly, just like I do with girlfriends. I do not share intimate thoughts with him, but he knows a lot about me and I know a lot about him. There has never been any weird confusion that we are just friends. He is happily married and clearly adores his wife. Good man! We are both active on FB and comment on each other's stuff all the time. We both have a kid with the same medical condition (how we met) so we talk about treatments and sometimes argue about that...lol. When we go out to eat I have always told my STBX when and where we are going, and there is never a hint of chemistry or weirdness. It is possible!

I would be okay with this kind of friendship for him to have if he wasn't a pig. LOL. Like I said, BOTH people in the friendship have to have character. Since my STBX doesn't, he could not work a friendship like this.

Emotional is much worse. It's when they break their bond witn you, the glue of your relationship and give it to someone else. I'm not sure if the emotional ever turned physical but I couldn't accept it. And he knew for sure something was wrong about it because he lied to me about it and hid it. Unfortunately, and maybe this is a male point of view thing, he doesn't see it as anything. He left me physically and emotionally, putting all he had to give another into her but becasue he never had sex (so he says), it should be ok. I don't have a problem if he had female friends, but it shouldn't have been at the expense of our intimacy and I should have been able to meet her and at least be included in some mutual activities. He wasn't happy with some things in our life and instead of opening his mouth to talk to me about it, he handled it this way. I couldn't and wouldn't accept it. I made it clear to him. He made no effort toward compromise or change. I took control of my life back. A year later, I'm much better and he's still leaning on the "not girlfriend." Yes, emotional is much worse.

@chic - yes, work "friends" can be an extremely poisonous environment. That's where the STBX was hooking up and met and fell for her latest victim. Hell, at work she hasn't been married since December of last year. Even stopped wearing her ring in order to convince everyone of it.

This was, of course, before she was caught and had to admit to me that anything was even wrong. Nice. I was home taking care of the kids and thinking about plans for the upcoming year and she was off telling some much younger, married man everything she refused to share with me.