- Blog
- Bios
- Boards
- Classifieds
- DIY
- Gallery
- Vendor Reviews
- Shop Weddingbee
Weddingbee boards
I've read more than a few posts that mention guys having close female friends even after entering a serious relationship or getting engaged/married. So I was just wondering if all the bees are completely cool with that or if you guys set some kind of limits?
I personally would not be comfortable with FI having a close female friend whom I also wasn't friends with. We have mutual friends of both genders, which we're both fine with, but my "non-mutual" friends are girls and his are guys.
It's funny, because FI was always a "girl's guy" and had many female friends, many of them close. But those relationships sort of drifted apart naturally as we got closer. So we never had to argue about this ... but if he ever wanted to have a close girlfriend and do things like meet up regularly just the two of them or develop a close emotional bond with her, that would not fly with me. He feels this way about me and other guys as well.
So, where do you and your SO stand on this issue? If you don't really care about FI being close with other girls, I'd be curious to hear your reasoning.
FI has a close female friend and they're on a bowling team together (that I'm not on) and it doesn't bother me. She's married, anyway. It would probably be a different issue if I suspected they were attracted to each other, but it's totally not the case.
All my male friends are actually my female friends' husbands, so no issues there, either.
I'm not sure how to answer this poll because I trust him but it's an issue that hasn't yet come up. He has some female friends but I guess I wouldn't consider them "close" friends. When he was moving cross-country he stayed with a good girl friend, but I never even asked about it.
If anything, the fact that he works with teenage girls all day long bothers me more. I trust him completely, but that didn't stop me from freaking out when I was 8 months pregnant and there they were with their little bodies and tiny clothes...
R has female friends from classes, etc. It doesn't bother me in the least, although it did when we were in high school.
I might have a problem if issues started coming up (like if he was going over to another girl's apartment alone or something) but I haven't been jealous of his friends who are girls in years.
Funny thing, I randomly met one of his friends who is a girl on campus a few days ago and she was like, "oh I've heard so many stories about the two of you! You seem like the perfect couple." If it hadn't been for that last bit I might have wondered what he was saying about me. :P
He's got close female friends, I've got close male friends and we have no problems with it. We're fully 100% committed to each other, so much so that I really can't imagine him cheating. I mean, I really can't.
We really don't have any friends of the opposite sex that we would hang out with w/o the other being there. Our close friends are of the same sex.
We have however, discussed how we want each other to handle friendships in the office. Even if we become friends with members of the oppostie sex (which we have) we agreed that we are not comfortable hanging out one on one with a person of the oppostie sex, unless its at least 3 ppl. We agree that we think its inappropriate to go out to lunch or whatever one on one with a member of the opposite sex (of course unless its an actual biz lunch or something like that.)
I have absolutely no problem with my FI's close female friends, and he has no problems with my close male friends. Actually, I'm sure such a problem would have been a deal breaker long ago. We each came into our relationship with close opposite-sex friendships, and have developed additional ones since then.
We just have a very independent relationship. I go out to dinner with just a male friend, for example, and he will hang out at a bar with just a female friend. Of course I would draw the line if things got fishy, i.e. he didn't want to tell me about a female friend or vise versa. But we are very different people, and have very different friends needs, so we don't always click with eachother's friends. I tend to have nerdy, cerebral, very career oriented friends, and he tends to have more fun-loving, carefree friends. I don't always have a lot to say to, for example, the pot-smoking yoga instructor or waitresses he knows, and he doesn't really care for my pretentious lawyer friends. But we don't hide these relationships, they just fill needs that neither of us can accomodate for eachother.
EDIT: I should add that we may just be unique in that we both totally recognize that the kind of people we like to be friends with are often not the kind of people we want to date. I love to hang out with nerdy lawyers, but I would NEVER date a fellow lawyer. We're CRAZY! Similarly, one of FI's big attractions to me is that I'm career oriented and driven, so he isn't going to start dating some hippy girl who doesn't have a plan for her life. If we were hanging out with people who were actual competition, things might be totally different.
My Fi has a few close female friends, and while we've been together he's done one-on-one things with them, and it's fine. There was even one that was interested in him romantically... But I don't ever worry because he told me about it. He came home and was like, "OMG, most awkward night EVER!!!" lol!I trust him, and neither of us is really the jealous type so it's not really an issue with us.
It doesn’t bother me at all but I understand that I might be in a different position than many others. FI and I both have really close friends of the opposite sex.
One of FI’s closest friends is a chick. They’ve been friends since kindergarten and went to college together. I think they “went out” in the 3rd grade, but that’s about it. Hah! On the flip-side: my best friend from college is a guy – I was in his wedding 2yrs ago and he’s in ours as well. I’ve become friends with her on my own and FI will go hang with my college BFF on his own too.
Before we were engaged FI and I talked about it – I’d have his kindergarten BFF as a BM and he’d have my college BFF as a GM. Since we’ve been together our friends sort of mush together so we’re each happy to have the other’s friend on our side.
Total non-issue. I would never consider dating someone who would have issues with me hanging out with close male friends. I'm pretty sure he's the same way. We both have a lot of good friends of the opposite sex, some of whom we've previously dated or slept with. While we normally will hang out with friends together, it's not an issue if occasionally we don't. We're both of the opinion that we're with each other because that's who we want and being around other people we like as friends is not going to threaten that.
Well, since I'm bi him not wanting me to have friendships with people of a gender that I'm attracted to would mean I wasn't allowed close friends... at all... not cool.
If we can agree that I'm capable of having non romantic close friendships with girls why wouldn't he be capable of the same?
He doesn't have any close girl friends so it's a non-issue but I have a lot of close guy friends. He has no problem with me hanging out with them because I made it a point to introduce him/have him hang out with all my male friends so he knew they weren't sketchy and they also all have girlfriends/fiances/wives and FI has met their SOs as well. Non-issue. I wouldn't marry a man who had a problem with me hanging out with my male friends because that means he has trust issues and f**k that.
We don't have any rules, as this has never really been an issue. My SO does have some female friends, but they are also my friends and I wouldn't say that he is super-close to any of them. All his best friends are guys.
I, on the other side, have two very close male friends. One is gay, so nothing would ever happen between us. The other one is straight, but he was in a very serious relationship (and is now engaged) when we became friends. I met this friend about 10 months before I met my SO. Since my friend was in a serious relationship when we met, there was really no chance of anything ever happening between us. My friend is the type who has a lot of female platonic friends anyway, so his GF knew that she had no reason to feel threatened by our friendship. My SO has never been bothered by our friendship and doesn't mind me meeting my friend alone, because he knows that he can trust me 100 %. And I usually invite my SO whenever I make plans with my friend anyway. I love having a close male friend because he can always give me a male perspective on stuff, which helps me understand my SO better.
To be honest though, I would probably feel a bit uncomfortable if my SO suddenly got a new female best friend, simply because it would be so unlike him as all his close friends are guys.
I'm ok with him having friends that are girls. He works in a place that is mainly girls so it would be hard not to and he has college friends that are girls
What I do have a problem with is if the friend that's a girl acts weird towards me or gets too flirty with him. I trust him and he's good at stopping flirtation and making it clear he's not interested but I just think it doesn't show true friendship on the girls part to flirt with a married man and so I lose a lot of respect for her (and luckily he also doesn't want to be friends with people who don't respect me)
With both male and female friends we've decided what's best for our relationship is not use them to vent out anger at each other, if we have a problem we need to go to each other and fix it. Now I'm sure there are times when he's going to want advice but we're both fairly sexual people so mixing vulnerability and a relationship problem with someone of the opposite sex that is flirty, we both think is a bad idea so that would definately be crossing the line. Emotional cheating counts to some degree - no breaking up but most definately an issue that would need to be addressed. But luckily neither of us have put ourselves in that position.
I had a lot of guy friends growing up and all my relationships with them have changed. It really depends on what their SO is comfortable with and I'm fine with that.
@Arachna: same here. That's probably part of why jealousy over my friendships is a total dealbreaker.
the only female "friends" FI has are work friends and all of them are at least 15 years older than him. they love him, think he's adorable, and i think it's hilarious :)
on another note, he told me he just doesn't make friends with females (like hanging out with them or something) unless he wants to date them. aside from me, the only females he is close with is his sister in law and mother.
i do have several guy friends i hang with on occasion, but it's always in a group setting and he's met all of them.
Personally it was a problem and we talked about it, again and again and...sigh again. Looking back, it was never really an issue with him, but echoing what some of the other astute ladies have mentioned, it was the competition I was feeling. In the past two years or so, I've felt much less concerned with female friends, mainly because we got to a point in our relationship where I was comfortable (with myself and with "us") knowing I had no one to compete against.
He never did anything explicitly in our early relationship to make me doubt or feel competitive, but it was something I had to learn for myself based on prior bad relationship experiences.
My guy has plenty of female friends- their grad school system breaks down to being 70% female and 30% male, so it is just part of life. It doesn't bother me at all, I know who he has dated in the past- I just figure they all had their chance with him in school and missed out on a great guy. Win for me :)
Usually we will all go out together, but it wouldn't bother me in the slightest if they hung out together without me.
My SO has a gorgeous female best friend. I voted No rules or limits, b/c we have none, but we're honest with eachother. I have a good friend who is a guy, and I think both my SO and I were weary at the beginning, but it hardly crosses my mind anymore. I would be much more weary if he were to befriend, and become close with, a female now that we're together, but who am I to tell him he can't be friends with her
We don't have any rules about that stuff. We trust each other. Besides, what would rules accomplish?
It's a non-issue, as he's never had a close female friend. I wouldn't care if he did though. One of my very best friends in the world is a guy and FI is incredibly supportive of our friendship and actually befriended him as well. He might even be FI's best man! :)
We're kind of the opposite of how it usually seems to work - I'm the one who always had really close guy friends, and he never really had a ton of close female friends. However, all the guys I've been close to, he has too. For example, my best friend in high school (like, before Corey and I started dating) is now one of his best friends. Funny how that works out.
We don't really have any specific rules about it - actually Corey was fine with one of my guy friends coming to a bridal expo with me and my sister, haha! I think Corey's a lot more chill about my guy friends than I would be if he had female friends, though. I tend to get jealous. :)
Unfortunately, most of my friends are guys. He doesn't mind me hanging out with them,depending on what it is as long as he has met them and knows what Im doing.
For him, he doesn't have any female friends. Not because of me, but that's just how it is. Otherwise, I wouldnt really care if he did as long as I have met them all and know what they are doing as well.
All my best friends have been guys, so I could never put limits on who Joe is friends with. The only women he ever hangs out with are his friend's girlfriends when they go places with their SO's. So it's not really an issue.
my husband has female friends, but i don't mind. first of all, we'll usually all hang out together so it's not really an issue, but if he did want to hang out without me that would be fine too, i trust him. we actually did have this discussion recently b/c a friend of ours was mad at her hubby for going to a woman's house without her so my husband asked what i thought about it, and i said of course you can go. he was friends with them long before i entered his life and i don't want to change that for him.
FI has lots of close female friends and I really don't care. I know they're just friends to him and I know they won't try anything with him. They're more like brother/sister relationships. I have close male friends too, and though he's a bit jealous at times (it's totally senseless), we've never felt the need to set up any "rules". We can even hang out one-on-one with those friends and neither of us is concerned.
My SO's BFF is the most beautiful woman. Seriously beautiful with an awesome personality. She and I are getting to be friends, but we weren't when he and I first got together. I don't have an issue with it and SO has a lot of female friends. He makes me feel more than comfortable with it and any female friend who I've ever met has said to me "I've heard so much about you." To me, it all boils down to trust, really. If a guy is going to cheat, there's nothing you can do to stop him so why worry?
My FI's best girl friend is his ex-girlfriend and it's never really bothered me. He chose me for a reason and I'm pretty confident that reason is because I'm awesome.
@ sahsabahs - I seriously love that you just said that. I wish you could bottle up some of your outlook on life and send it to me!
no rules.
my bff is a man. he's been my bff for ten years. i also, admittedly, have way too many male friends, some of which are guys i dated (but not technically ex-bfs).
one of his closest female friends is his ex-gf. she comes over, about once a week, to hang out. she's very sweet to me and i have no worries.
he asked me to marry him because he loves me, i said yes because i love him - end of story. neither of us have time in our lives for jealousy.
I haven't ever really thought about putting limits on anything as I know he knows how to act and what's appropriate/inappropriate. He's never started a discussion with me about my guy friends either and I doubt he ever will. We just don't get jealous like that I guess.
he doesn't really have many close friends per say, but a lot of casual ones.
that was hard on me at the beginning, because he works at a childrens camp as one of the head staffers, and some of the counsellors (well actually a lot of them) have liked him longer than i've known him.
thankfully he's never been interested, and since dating me has sorta shyed away from them, or made sure that there's always one of our mutual girl friends around.
the bigger issue is my guy friends probably. i have a really close friend who i almost got together with like, 2 months before i met FI. they were actually really good friends too, so he's pretty okay with my history with this dude, but it's still awkward when i see him because i'm very aware of what could've happened, and i have those friends that like to awkwardly bring it up :P
My FI does have any close female friends... Im happy for that because otherwise i would be on his case like all the time for talking to them.. I know how those "female friends work" they never good for a guy in a relationship.
I dont have any male friends and he doesnt have any female friends and we are very happy!
I think we both maintain friendships with people of both genders from our past, but really don't poke into each others business. I don't do as much as he does - he uses sites like FB more formally than I do, and sends messages back and forth with people. I wouldn't like it as much if he were going out solo with female friends, though, but we really only seem to know couples where we live so that's a non-issue. He does spend more time solo with guy friends, though. Both of us seem to stick w/ our own gender for closer friendships.
He doesn't have any close female friends & I don't have any close male friends. He's only friends with my girlfriends & I'm friends with his guy friends, etc. Honestly, I don't see why, if he doesn't have any close female friends now, he'd want any. If out of no where he met a woman & they became close & started hanging out...yes, it would be an issue for me as well as an issue for him if I were hanging out with a male friend. It's never been an issue & never will be, so I really don't have anything to worry about.
I don’t have a lot of “deal-breakers” but jealousy over friendships or placing rules on friendships is one of them.
I have one great gf I love, but we don’t live close, so my bff is a guy (we’ve been bff for several years now), and growing up, my bff were generally always guys. My man-friend and I go to coffee after work once a week and go to brunch or lunch about once a month on weekends (without FH or man-friend's GF).
Conversely, FH’s best friend (for over 20 years now) is a woman. I was just as nervous about meeting/”impressing” her as I was to meet his mom! She calls FH almost every day and they talk for hours sometimes. If she lived closer, I’m sure they would hang out a ton.
Had FH balked at my man-friend, or had I balked at his lady-friend, the relationship would have ended. There’s no reason why men and women can’t be friends.
We both have opposite gender friends and have never felt the need to discuss it - we respect each other to a point where neither of us would ever cross a boundary.
@ LonnieBunny: As "one of those 'female friends'" out in the world, I'll just speak up for us ladies with close male friends and say I am entirely capable of having a male friend without doing anything innappropriate.
My FI doesn't really have many female friends. There are some females at work that he's friendly with, and he will occasionally (we're talking about a couple times a year) get together with some females AND males from his work for drinks, but it doesn't bother me at all. I trust him completely.
You must log in to post.
| Visit our sister sites | eHarmony Online Dating |
eHarmony Advice Dating Advice |
Project Wedding Wedding Songs |
JustMommies Pregnancy Calendar |
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
| User | Posts Today |
|---|---|
| Brielle | 44 |
| ndreighton | 32 |
 vorpalette |
29 |
| caseyleigh10 | 26 |
| les105 | 24 |
| ellisrobertson | 24 |
| mypinkshoes | 23 |
| fishbone | 23 |
| lionskitty | 22 |
| SouthernGirl | 21 |
| User | Posts Today |
|---|---|
| tibbets | 4 |
| ladyartichoke | 3 |
| RayKay | 3 |
| rubybride718 | 3 |
| Miss T-Rex | 3 |
| bestbuddies | 2 |
| j_jaye | 2 |
| hisgoosiegirl | 2 |
| Jupster | 2 |
| redheadem | 2 |
