I think it is completely possible for men and women to be friends alone. I have meny men who I am friends with, do not find attractive, and would never consider dating for any reason. However, that being said, I think that jealosy is natural for humans. When I see my bf with another girl, I immediately start to wonder who she is. Sure, they're just friends, but I've had "just friends" who I have had crushes on. Does she have a crush on my bf? Does my bf think she's attractive? Moreso than me? Does he imagine her ever? Have either one of them ever considered hooking up? Because I will never actually KNOW the answers to these questions, I don't tend to appricieate it when my bf has a lot of female friends. And he doesnt like a lot of random guys being friends with me either.

Read the book: " Not Just Friends"-it talks about how easily these 'friendships' can turn into affairs. My husband had a 5 year thing with a 'friend' from work. She was 'just one of the guys' always hanging around the men. Never had any female friends at work. Was married- and as far as I know this was her 3rd work 'friend' affair.

I think it was Chris Rock (correct me if I'm wrong) who said something on this subject. He said that there's no such thing as platonic male & female friends, and that to a woman, a male platonic friend is like a penis in a glass case. "In case of emergency, break glass"!

I guess I was completely unprepared to see this level of hostility toward spouses who have close friends of the opposite sex. This has been an eye-opener.

I am a bisexual woman who has been married for almost 10 years now to a very wonderful man who is secure in our relationship. He does not fear my close friendships with other men or women. He understands and respects that m friendships are as essential to my happiness and well being in life as breathing... Essentially, these relationships take the place of family. "Like a back door to go to, in every town..." if you know the Mary McCaslin song, Circle of Friends....

Yes, I do believe that one of these friendships could be considered "intimate" or "passionate" by outsiders looking IN--but not because of sexual energy! There's just a certain intensity and openness there...a level of conversations that we have that are deeper than a typical acquaintance friendships. And I am grateful for that difference.

Among other things, I believe that our friendship has helped us BOTH do the work we need to do within our own marriages to make them stronger... We are each other's support system, to be sure. It just doesn't cross the line into something that either of us would have regrets over. The tenderness that spills over from time to time iS heartfelt, but not sexual.

Case in point, For the past five years we've been coping with very difficult, high conflict situation with my 25 year old stepson. My spouse and I can't seem to have a rational conversation about this. We just lose it. In contrast, my friend gives me some space to vent my frustration, and some tools for coping...My husband can't do that because he can't stop enabling.

So I hope that example explains why some of us truly need those special friendships around us.... Sounds like some of the folks who've written in on this blog have big trust issues to deal with.

I'm thinking they all need a close, trusted FRIEND to talk to. On good days, and bad.

After reading, "NOT Just Friends" my opinion on opposite gender friendships has definitely changed. Prior to reading it, I honestly thought no harm could come of having friends. The thing is, it's not the "friends" part that's dangerous, it's that there's a sense of security and comfort there which makes it harder to see when boundaries are being crossed.

We do let our friends get away with a LOT more than we'd let strangers get away with, right?

I think even same gendered friendships can be damaging to marriages. What about the guy who tells his married male friend, "Oh, c'mon, blow off the old ball and chain and let's go get a beer. She doesn't own you, man!" Or the woman who encourages her married female friend to say demeaning things about her husband. Not exactly supportive/helpful, right?

There are a lot of factors that make a friendship dangerous or unhealthy to a marriage. I personally am not comfortable anymore with my H being friends with single co-workers. I was never comfortable with him spending one on one time with other women when I was specifically not invited to go along.

My husband has not demanded or asked me to cut ties with my male friends, but I have chosen to establish strict boundaries even though it was H who had the A. I also expect a lot more from my H as far as the boundaries he sets with female friends and co-workers.

We haven't established something that works well for both of us, but we're working on it. At this point we are both choosing not to have "close friends" while we work on our marriage. I don't know what the future will hold, but I do know that I will be more aware in the future of the complications of having opposite gender friends.

It depends on the person you are. Not all people are mature enough to have friends of the opposite sex. My husband is one of them. :(

NOOOOOOO! No close friends at least! My wife just KILLED me with a close friendship that went way to far. I now have panic attacks and severe depression, can't sleep, irritable stomach, etc. Of course, it's the old cliche that "I never thought this would happen to me!" I don't think anything but professional relationships with the opposite sex should be allowed in a marriage, NO MATTER WHAT, HOW YOU KNOW THEM, HOW FAR BACK THEY GO AS FRIENDS, IF THEY ARE GAY, OR WHATEVER!

I too just started reading "Not just friends" and what a huge eye opener it is. Though it states that it is possible for men and women to be friends there are lots of caveats...i.e. once they start sharing intimite details about their marriage (either good or bad) then they've started down the slippery slope that often leads to an affair. When they do this, they shut the door to their spouse and start opening the window to the outsider, thus leaving the spouse as the outsider.

My H had an A with a work/friend-they worked together for 13 years. The physical affair started in the last 3 weeks they worked together. (company sold and a lot of people left to pursue other opportunities) but even though the physical part only went on for 3 weeks, the emotional attachment began long before that. It was slow and insidious (she shared details about her sex life with him and about how unhappy she was in her marriage and he started complaining to her about me)and even though my radar was up in regards to this woman at the time "IT" happened I had my own work crisis going on and let my guard down.

I don't know how it's possible to keep tabs on something like that if one of the warning signs is when their relationship becomes more secretive-how does one keep tabs on something that has become more secretive? Maybe I'll have some answers by the end of the book but lately I've begun to wonder if its possible for platonic friendships to really exist. Of course I've also started wondering if marriage is really a good idea.

Sure, such friendships can exist. As long as boundaries are maintained. "Not Just Friends" calls the kind of friend you are detailing as a "Friend of the Marriage," IOW, a friend that supports your marriage, is a friend to both parties, and is no threat to causing a break up.

But even then, you have to be careful. Some long-term friendships end up become affairs because both parties, comfortable with the boundaries they have crossed, aren't as diligent to make sure they avoid crossing other boundaries, and a ten-year friendship suddenly turns into an affair. There is a thread here that details just that situation. You should never assume it won't happen, because that's when it is most likely to eventually happen because you aren't watchful of boundaries.

But circumstances can change the ability to have that close of friendships of the opposite sex. You mention above that it seems a lot of people here have trust issues. Uh, I hate to break this to you, but it would be highly natural for people who have been cheated on to have trust issues, and that is what this forum is about. It would be natural to expect everyone would be responding from their experiences, many of which have been pretty bad.

Usually in an affair, that's how it starts out. My wife became friends with a man at a gym, and it turned into an affair in short order. Could she had been "just friends?" Sure, they could have been. And there are other reasons why it didn't just stay there to go into here, feel free to read my public journal for the whole story. But they didn't. And guess what? if she were to become friends with another man, I would no longer assume it was safe and such. I would perk my ears up and start investigating, and asking her to back off.

I think your friend can still be your friend, but certain boundaries should be in place. One, you make sure you spend more time talking and doing things with your H than you do with him. Either ramp up the time with your H (always a good thing) or pull back on the amount of time you spend talking (that includes texting, emails, phone calls, FB messages, etc.) with your friend.

Also, you should never be sharing things with your friend that you don't share with your husband. That builds walls between your H and you, and opens windows with your friend. The idea being that the more windows you have open with your friend and walls with your husband, you are in essence having an emotional affair even if it never becomes sexual. Whether you are a BS or a CS, both parties should be totally open and transparent with each other. Your H should be aware of all the times you talk with him and what kinds of things you talk about. He should have free excess to all your emails and text message with him. Nothing should be hidden. If your friend is a "friend of the marriage," he would agree to this as well, and have no problem with it. If there are secrets being kept from your H, then you are having an affair, at least an emotional one.

Those are the main boundaries I can see you'd need to make sure aren't be crossed if you want your friendship with him to remain just friendship. But also, if your husband is having problems with your friendship with him, it may mean he senses that some of the above boundaries are being crossed, and it concerns him. The answer may be to only make contact with your friend once a week, or month. Whatever would make your H comfortable. He may be just silly, but that should put his concerns to rest, unless there is something more going on as above, in which case total non-contact is called for.

I have several women friends. One of them was my former boss, and we ate out for lunch frequently. Neither of us have had any hint of sexual interest in the other, or anything more than just being friends. But we were spending a lot of time together. Mostly work related. I consider her a good friend. But when dday hit and I discovered what my wife was up to, and began to learn more about how this all happens, I realized that even though I currently didn't think me and this woman would ever do anything like have an affair on our spouses, I didn't want that relationship to overshadow the one with my W, who is truly the person who I'm closest to and best friends with. So I've made sure I'm not texting her frequently, or meeting with her without my W knowledge or consent, and usually that happens only once a month. Yesterday, my W had lunch with her and another male friend we share. I consider her a friend of the marriage at this point, but I want to make sure it stays that way.

As most of us here have learned the hard way, trust isn't something one grants and forgets about, it is something one nurtures. Most of us are in the stage of working to learning to trust again, if not with our spouses, with another intimate relationship. And such trust doesn't get restored overnight.

But you know what? I'll bet I wont' so easily ignore the signs of broken trust if it ever happens again. I'll never have the same level of trust that I had before, which was complete, innocent, and unquestioning trust that she would do the right thing. That ideal was shattered not just for her, but even for myself. I can't trust myself that way either, which in the end is a good thing, because it is the reality. And doing that will insure this doesn't happen again with either of us more than ignoring warning signs.

Wow, I really appreciate all the comments I got back from my post lasts night. You might laugh to know that the Daily Strength site managers contacted me by email last night to say that I had responded to an OLD thread--and they suggested that I start up a new topic. Apparently not so!

Clearly this friends of the opposite sex issue still has a strong following.. And the feelings are still very raw for people who have been burned by friendships that turned into affairs. I apologize if I offended anyone...I just know how important my friendship is to me... A veritable lifeline.

Your thoughts about making sure not to cross boundaries, and to keep everything transparent were very thought provoking for me. I might actually need to talk with him about boundaries, to see if we need to set ground rules or boundaries of some kind. Your posts also helped me to realize that the reason I do feel so safe in my friendship is that our context for conversations is definitely "friend of each other's marriages"... as well as friend and confidant for other work and family struggles.

My H does not have anxiety about our special friendship.. But now I realize that I should maybe check with my friend to find out if his W does. They are now in couples counseling, and I believe that our conversations as friends were instrumental in them deciding to take that important step.

In terms of what we can or cannot talk about, as friends, I have to disagree with the suggestion that opposite sex friends not be allowed to "open windows" to discuss things that are not discussed with spouses. I don't think that works in the real world. Every woman I know has always had a best friend for just that purpose.

It's essential to have friends you can vent to/talk through the most difficult areas of your life knowing that you won't be judged or cause distress to your spouse or partner.

Case in point (always the same issue) whenever my H asks me, or I DO say what I truly think about my stepson's ongoing life challenges (using drugs, his arrest, his not working, his living off his parents--feeling entitled to every new cell phone, computer or computer game the moment it's released), it drives a terrible wedge between me and my H because he and his ex-wife keep giving him everything he wants, and keep enabling him.. (All of us have had repeated lessons about the dangers of enabling, and how important it is NOT to do it,but both of his parents keep doing it! (As the step mom, I seem to have no standing.)

If I didn't have a close friend and confidant --who also happens to be an LCSW-- and a highly ethical person who cares for me AND my husband, I think it could blow my marriage apart!

So that's all for now. Thanks for the conversations.

I read some of the replies, but not all. I believe that any friend has to be a friend of the marriage. As in, friends with the couple and everything should be open and transparent. But even then, there should be no close intimate friendships with an opposite sex person. It is the proverbial "slippery slope". When we moved to town, we struck up a friendship with our neighbors. Then, after some time, my H and the wife were texting, hanging out, jogging...just "friends". Yeah, right! I am completely jaded and cynical now, but you will never see me being the "friend" to a married man...even when it is platonic. One could be totally unaware that the "friend" is developing feelings for you, and suddenly you are a point of contention in someone else's marriage. Does that make sense? Not that I think that I am so hot and charming that all men want me...but close friendships can change. If we feel that the friend "understands" me, really "gets me" and what have you. I just see it as the "slippery slope"!
And for those that don't know my story...my H and his "friend" destroyed 2 marriages with their "friendship"!

I never look at the dates on the threads! Oops, this one is pretty old!

I haven't read all of the replies yet, but I was the bs and I do not feel comfortable being even just friends with married men. I will make small talk, nod and say hello when passing them, but no- no friendship.

@heart,

If he knows how you feel about your child being given everything, then telling your friend how you feel isn't keeping a secret from your H. But, if you'd never said anything to him, but you did confide in your friend how you felt, that would be keeping a secret from him.

Another example. If you hated rocky road ice cream, but your husband wasn't aware of this because you didn't want to hurt him when he bought some to give to you, so you "held your nose" and ate it, but then went and told your friend the truth, that would be keeping a secret.

A healthy marriage, spouses don't keep secrets from each other. Even without an A to force the issue. Doing that will actually help to prevent them. Once you start keeping secrets, even small innocent ones, it opens the door to keep bigger and bigger secrets.

When my wife started "flirting" with a man, she acted like it was a game. But she told me about it, because we'd always been honest and open with each other. I told her she shouldn't do that because a man will not think of it as an innocent game, but as an open door of, "Hey, I want some."

She didn't listen to me, and when she sent his first sex-chat to her, it fired off all sorts of sexual energy feeling in her, that she became instantly addicted. However, she wanted him to know she wasn't serious. So the next day when she saw him in person (she cleaned a business he worked at), she told him she could never do the things they were talking about, it was only for play. he held off texting her for a few days, but it started up again. She figured he knew she wasn't serious. that it was just for fun, and responded in kind.

The big problem was, she never told me about his sex-chatting. She deleted them off her phone after they were done. She started hiding things from me. If she had confided in me at that point, it may have stopped there. But it would have been hard, because at that point, she was totally infatuated with him. But the moment she decided to not tell me what was going on is the moment it became a full-blown emotional affair. Which led to a BJ the day he was moving out of state. And the feelings she was left with wanted more, and she found it, all the way to a full PA when she found another friend.

When dday hit, and we discussed things in the car as we took our 29th anniversary trip (what a way to celebrate, huh?) I realized that there were several things that I had kept secret from her. Most of it was simple things, some of it a bit embarrassing, but nothing she was angry about. But every time I remembered a "secret" I hadn't told her, I would divulge it, because I didn't want any walls to be between us. A secret represents a wall. It is an area of your life that the spouse isn't allowed into. And that is damage to a marriage, whether it shows up on the surface or not.

Maybe that gives you a better idea of what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about how easy it is to confide in one person over another about things. But no matter how difficult it is, or whether your H agrees with you or not, he should know what you think and how you feel about things. Confiding in the friend things you don't tell your husband is the basis for an emotional affair, or at a minimum laying the foundation for one.

One other note, related. Be careful not to diss your husband in front of your friend. Naturally you'll have disagreements and problems, and it can help to vent to another person, but be real careful about sharing such intimate details of your married life with another, especially someone of the opposite sex. If there are issues, maybe think about a counselor.

I didn't realize this was an old thread either. lol. It's your decision, but hopefully this gives some food for thought.

Dear unsuspecting

That is the million dollar question! I found reading "Not Just Friends" very insightful with pragmatic suggestions on how not to let "Just Friends" become a threat to a committed relationship.