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Are my future husband's female friendships appropriate?

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7.1K views 30 replies 12 participants last post by  Locard  
#1 ·
We are a couple in our 20's, have known each other 4-5 years, and been a couple for about 2 years. We are best friends, super compatible, and happy together. We've known we wanted to be married since the beginning of our relationship. But issues keep coming up about his female friends that cause me a lot of pain and put strain on our relationship, and I'm very confused. Are these friendships appropriate in our case? Should we be doing something differently?

This is my first relationship, so a lot of my feelings are new and confusing. However, I have come to a few firm conclusions about myself. I am not an insecure, jealous, or controlling person. I also trust completely that he would never cheat or intend anything unfaithful. I want him to be able to have female friends if that's possible. I want to add to his life, not take away from it. I would feel bad if he had to give up any friendships, especially his old high school friendships from before we met.

Here is what I have come up with.


Pros for him having female friends:

-He grew up among sisters, and has always maintained friendships with females because he feels more comfortable with it.
-He prefers female friends because he's found that they make better friends. Male friends seem to care more about his entertainment value than anything deeper.
-He doesn't consider it a friendship unless there is considerable depth to the relationship. Anything else is just acquaintanceship, which doesn't interest him.
-He's not in it for his ego (to be flattered by female attention), he just seeks meaningful platonic friendships, which are easier for him to find in females.
-The first thing he tells new female friends when he meets them is that he is in a happy relationship, he is looking for a platonic friend only, and if that is not her intention too, they can't be friends.


Cons for him having female friends:

-He doesn't have a good sense of appropriate boundaries, or why they should exist. He treats and is treated by his female friends exactly the same as a romantic partner, except that there is no holding hands/kissing/sex. There are no other physical or emotional boundaries.
-We have tried to put some boundaries in place to see if it helps, with little success. They feel so unnatural to him, he forgets how to act, and why he should act that way. He simply doesn't pick up on all the subtleties (even the UNsubtleties) that should prompt boundaries.
-He is very caring and generous by nature, which is wonderful, but often causes female friends to become too dependent on him. He discusses deep personal topics with female friends, offers a lot of advice, helps them with their problems, and serves as a shoulder to cry on. He says that women often confide and vent to him about their personal problems, especially their current relationships or exes. He is also often asked to help them move, fix their belongings, escort them or pick them up from dangerous areas. These things have no deeper meaning to him than just being nice. So he often finds himself in female friendships where he is much more important to her than she is to him.
-He's really innocent. He is oblivious to flirtation and other signs of sexual or romantic interest unless they are very, and I mean VERY, overt. He does not catch hints. He does not read between lines. He does not pick up clues. He doesn't realize a woman is interested or developing interest unless she makes it very obvious, usually an actual verbal confession. Two separate times as a teenager, two different girls have "broken up" with him while he had no idea they were even a couple. He is utterly clueless, and knows this about himself.
-He has female friends from before we met, but also new female friends from after the start of our relationship. None of these female friends have made any attempt to befriend me, even after he continually suggests that they befriend me. I have also tried to make opportunities for them to talk to me. I would like to be friends with them. Our only mutual female friends are ones I knew first, or ones we both met before we were in a relationship.
-He has been actively, and independently, seeking new female friends throughout our relationship. He doesn't try to keep me from these friends or hide them in any way, but it is nearly impossible for me to physically go hang out with them or bring them to our place, for reasons beyond our control right now.
-I am positive that at least some of his female friends have feelings for him. He rarely believes me when I try to warn him that his "friend" doesn't fit the proper role of a friend anymore, even though my suspicions have been dramatically revealed correct before, which makes me feel like my input is being invalidated and unfairly dismissed.
-I am hurt by this perpetual situation. The lack of boundaries does bother me a great deal. It doesn't seem proper. The physical closeness and contact just seems wrong to me. He has successfully toned that down a great deal with his newer friends because he recognized that it gives female friends the wrong idea. But he reverts right back to his old ways when he sees his old friends, out of habit and their reinforcement. The emotional intimacy also seems very inappropriate. And the exclusivity especially bothers me. I feel like our relationship is not being honored and respected, by both him and his female friends.
-I am worried for the female friends, because if they do have feelings for him, the closeness of their friendship will continue to give the friends false hope that they have a chance together. He is unintentionally leading them on, wasting their time, and even breaking their hearts. He is naive to believe he can prevent someone from falling for him just by stating a "happily engaged" disclaimer the first time they ever speak.

There is much more to say, but I would talk forever if I didn't pace myself. Any opinions so far would be much appreciated.
 
H
#2 ·
If you want this in your life, marry it. He is showing you who he is. Trying to change him or talk him out of who he is will not work. My view is intimate freindships with the opposite sex have no place in marriage.
 
#4 ·
How so? He hasn't done anything wrong.

To the OP... you pretty much described me, with the difference being that i do see when a woman is flirting, those i keep at a distance. But i have a bunch of gal pals, who use me as a shoulder to cry on. My wife knows about these women, some have friended her. The biggest concern i have hear is that these women don't seem interested in you. To me, that's a huge RED FLAG. I've had gal pals go out of their way to befriend my wife, just showing that nothing is being kept in secret, and they are not mysterious.

But on your future hubby's part, until he actual does something that violates your trust, i don't see this being a big issue. Yes, boundaries should be present in a marriage, but these connections were already made prior to your marriage, and as logn as they aren't inappropriate in the grand scheme of things, i don't see it as an issue. Tread carefully on how you approach this one. You will come of as jealous and insecure if you botch the way you handle this.
 
C
#5 ·
She said he is innocent and essentially doesn't see that some I'd these women have feelings for him. So imo one day something will start out innocently enough, say she is distraught over something, hugging leads to kissing, kissing leads to sex.

Why a man would put himself in harms way and risk his marriage I will never know. Everyone thinks they are incapable of cheating until it just happens.
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S
#6 ·
Bitter much?
 
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#8 ·
Thank you for your responses so far. Please do explain why you have these opinions, if you haven't, because it would help. I will also show this thread to future hubby when we're done, and it helps him to see as many viewpoints and ways of explaining as possible. He wants to make his own thread as well from his own point of view. We are both committed to working on this.

Yes, I agree that there are huge red flags here. I should have noted, I have had plenty of conversations with him about ALL of this, and more, throughout our whole relationship. I must say that he is wonderful. Our conversations are always about understanding the other, and not about defending a side. He never gets defensive, but he does fail to understand at times. Every time I bring up all of these things, he simply asks me, "What should I do?" I just didn't know what to tell him. He is willing to give up female friendships. He puts up no argument. I'm most important to him. He says he has never thought of his friendships this way before, and if what I'm saying is really how it is, it makes him not want to have female friends. It really freaks him out!

But I have felt bad about perhaps asking him to give up female friendships, because I feel like it would be punishing him when he did nothing wrong. His last relationship was with a very insecure, jealous, controlling woman. He was used to hearing these things from her and assumed it was because she was messed up. But now that he's hearing it from me, someone who is the polar opposite of his last relationship, and also reading it from other sources I've been sharing with him lately, he is understanding it differently.

I was also unsure of why I had a problem with these friendships, and didn't want to take action until I understood my own feelings. We both came into this relationship being very naive about relationships. We both thought that as long as there is no physical affair, nothing else one does could possibly be wrong (and now I am a little ahead of him in learning differently). But that's why I was very confused as to why I was having hurt feelings over these relationships if I wasn't, in fact, insecure. In which case I shouldn't be controlling him to ease my own insecurities. However, I have finally come to the conclusion that it's not about jealousy or distrust, it is more about honoring the exclusive commitment we have made to each other as partners, upholding decorum, and not unintentionally hurting these female friends who are getting wrong ideas. And I agree that no one is immune from cheating, so it is also about protecting our future from unanticipated threats. I'm just not feeling threatened right now because, from what I've heard of these women, they are no competition at all. I am a pretty awesome girlfriend if I do say so. But it's true, we are at risk if this keep going on.

Please send more opinions, you are all being very helpful.
 
#14 ·
Ahiru said:
However, I have finally come to the conclusion that it's not about jealousy or distrust, it is more about honoring the exclusive commitment we have made to each other as partners, upholding decorum, and not unintentionally hurting these female friends who are getting wrong ideas.Exactly, I'm glad you understand all that. And I agree that no one is immune from cheating, so it is also about protecting our future from unanticipated threats. Good, I'm glad you realize that, granted some people are a lot more immune than others, but I think the best you can get is 99% immuneI'm just not feeling threatened right now because, from what I've heard of these women, they are no competition at all. I am a pretty awesome girlfriend if I do say so.Don't get to smug and comfortable, have you seen the woman Arnold cheated on Maria with?? I'm just saying. . . .
and what do you mean by "what I've heard of these women"? What have you heard about them and from who? But it's true, we are at risk if this keep going on.

Please send more opinions, you are all being very helpful.
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#12 · (Edited)
Ahiru said:
We are a couple in our 20's, have known each other 4-5 years, and been a couple for about 2 years. We are best friends, super compatible, and happy together. We've known we wanted to be married since the beginning of our relationship. But issues keep coming up about his female friends that cause me a lot of pain and put strain on our relationship, and I'm very confused. Are these friendships appropriate in our case? Should we be doing something differently?

This is my first relationship, so a lot of my feelings are new and confusing. However, I have come to a few firm conclusions about myself. I am not an insecure, jealous, or controlling person. I also trust completely that he would never cheat or intend anything unfaithful. I want him to be able to have female friends if that's possible. I want to add to his life, not take away from it. I would feel bad if he had to give up any friendships, especially his old high school friendships from before we met.

Here is what I have come up with.


Pros for him having female friends:

-He grew up among sisters, and has always maintained friendships with females because he feels more comfortable with it.
-He prefers female friends because he's found that they make better friends. Male friends seem to care more about his entertainment value than anything deeper.I don't think this is necessarily the case, I'm a female with a male best friend. He has always been there for me, I get long better with males for the most part because I have found that females can be to self centered and petty.
-He doesn't consider it a friendship unless there is considerable depth to the relationship. Anything else is just acquaintanceship, which doesn't interest him.
-He's not in it for his ego (to be flattered by female attention), he just seeks meaningful platonic friendships, which are easier for him to find in females.
-The first thing he tells new female friends when he meets them is that he is in a happy relationship, he is looking for a platonic friend only, and if that is not her intention too, they can't be friends.


Cons for him having female friends:

-He doesn't have a good sense of appropriate boundaries, or why they should exist. Really, most adults are able to grasp the concept that appropriate boundaries exist to prevent misunderstands and to avoid giving out the wrong signals.He treats and is treated by his female friends exactly the same as a romantic partner, except that there is no holding hands/kissing/sex. There are no other physical or emotional boundaries.Well if they are treating him like a romantic partner then it is not just a friendship. What exactly do you mean by being treated as a romantic partner?
-We have tried to put some boundaries in place to see if it helps, with little success. They feel so unnatural to him, he forgets how to act, and why he should act that way. He simply doesn't pick up on all the subtleties (even the UNsubtleties) that should prompt boundaries.So what boundaries have you put into place that he seems to have trouble with?
-He is very caring and generous by nature, which is wonderful, but often causes female friends to become too dependent on him. He discusses deep personal topics with female friends, offers a lot of advice, helps them with their problems, and serves as a shoulder to cry on. He says that women often confide and vent to him about their personal problems, especially their current relationships or exes. He is also often asked to help them move, fix their belongings, escort them or pick them up from dangerous areas.
Does he seem to really need the ego boost of being everyone's savior? Because this sounds like a red flag to me. Once you are married how are you doing to lead a normal married life if he is always off 'saving' another woman? These things have no deeper meaning to him than just being nice. So he often finds himself in female friendships where he is much more important to her than she is to him.
-He's really innocent. He is oblivious to flirtation and other signs of sexual or romantic interest unless they are very, and I mean VERY, overt. He does not catch hints. He does not read between lines. He does not pick up clues. He doesn't realize a woman is interested or developing interest unless she makes it very obvious, usually an actual verbal confession. Two separate times as a teenager, two different girls have "broken up" with him while he had no idea they were even a couple. He is utterly clueless, and knows this about himself.I have a really hard time believing that an adult doesn't know when they are being flirted with. How did you get him to ask you out? Did you have to flirt a little or a lot?
-He has female friends from before we met, but also new female friends from after the start of our relationship. None of these female friends have made any attempt to befriend me, even after he continually suggests that they befriend me.Major redflag that these women may see you as a competitor I have also tried to make opportunities for them to talk to me. I would like to be friends with them. Our only mutual female friends are ones I knew first, or ones we both met before we were in a relationship.
-He has been actively, and independently, seeking new female friends throughout our relationship.It concerns me that he actively seeks female friends, it is one thing to become friends with someone at work or he sees on a regular basis but to go out looking for female friends is another. Just how many female friends does he have? He doesn't try to keep me from these friends or hide them in any way, but it is nearly impossible for me to physically go hang out with them or bring them to our place, for reasons beyond our control right now.
-I am positive that at least some of his female friends have feelings for him. He rarely believes me when I try to warn him that his "friend" doesn't fit the proper role of a friend anymore, even though my suspicions have been dramatically revealed correct before, which makes me feel like my input is being invalidated and unfairly dismissed.So when you alert him to a potential problem he ignores you? that is a redflag.
-I am hurt by this perpetual situation. The lack of boundaries does bother me a great deal. It doesn't seem proper.Because it's not proper The physical closeness and contact just seems wrong to me.That is because it IS wrong, he is in a relationship with you, you are the only female he should have physical closeness with He has successfully toned that down a great deal with his newer friends because he recognized that it gives female friends the wrong idea. But he reverts right back to his old ways when he sees his old friends, out of habit and their reinforcement. The emotional intimacy also seems very inappropriate. And the exclusivity especially bothers me. I feel like our relationship is not being honored and respected, by both him and his female friends.So you have told him you are not comfortable with this and he continues to do it? When you tell your partner that something makes you uncomfortable or is an issue for you and they don't correct the situation then to me that is a red flag.
-I am worried for the female friends, because if they do have feelings for him, the closeness of their friendship will continue to give the friends false hope that they have a chance together. He is unintentionally leading them on, wasting their time, and even breaking their hearts. He is naive to believe he can prevent someone from falling for him just by stating a "happily engaged" disclaimer the first time they ever speak.

There is much more to say, but I would talk forever if I didn't pace myself. Any opinions so far would be much appreciated.
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If you were talking about one or maybe two close long time female friends it might be a different issue, but your post makes it seem as if your boyfriend collects female friends the way most men collect power tools or baseball cards.

Does your boyfriend have any male friends, or is it only female?

Have you ever sat home alone while he was out with one or more of the female friends?
 
#18 ·
SadieBrown said:
I don't think this is necessarily the case, I'm a female with a male best friend. He has always been there for me, I get long better with males for the most part because I have found that females can be to self centered and petty. Yes, you're right, it is certainly possible to have a meaningful male friendship. He has one now, and his best friend growing up was male. My point was just that he has simply had little luck with males, and much more luck with females, so he figures it's easier just to look for females.

Really, most adults are able to grasp the concept that appropriate boundaries exist to prevent misunderstands and to avoid giving out the wrong signals. Yes, he's clearly not "most adults." :rolleyes: He's only realizing this now. Maybe it had to do with a previous controlling relationship, which misled him to believe that only insecure people demand boundaries. And if I had to guess as to why he never had them before that, it was probably because of his female friends. They didn't have boundaries either. Maybe they all had feelings for him and enjoyed the lack of normal boundaries, which got him believing it was normal. Not to mention it was high school. High school is all ABOUT pushing boundaries.

Well if they are treating him like a romantic partner then it is not just a friendship. What exactly do you mean by being treated as a romantic partner? As for how he treats people, what I mean is that the only difference between the way he treats me and them is that with them, he doesn't cross into physical affection such as holding hands/kissing/sex. So, he has deep emotional discussions with them. And though he is not really physical with the new friends, with his old friends, there is embracing, horseplay/roughhousing, other shows of affection (like, he pretends to bite people), and being generally very close. The old friends live across the country, so he hardly sees them in person. Only twice since he moved, and I was unable to go with him. Of his old friends, he has a lot that he hardly talks to anymore, if at all, and some that are casual friends he speaks to more frequently, but only small talk, so I don't think those ones are an issue. But there are two women in particular that he considers close friends. One of them seems pretty respectful, has talked to me once at my initiation, and says she can't wait to meet me. She doesn't strike me as a red flag thus far. The other however, is the biggest red flag I have ever witnessed. She has behaved way, WAY out of line. He has never dated her, but I have seen pictures from high school of her climbing all over him, cuddling him, even her head in his lap. He is kissing her forehead in one. They look like a couple. And I don't know how much of that is happening during his visits (I don't believe he would kiss her though). She calls him her best friend, calls him "hers" and once sent me a message with hostile undertones. He says she calls other people her best friend and "hers" too, and he didn't think she meant any harm in her message, that it was just her personality. I admit I don't know her, but come on, wow. Unlikely.

So what boundaries have you put into place that he seems to have trouble with? I wrote him an entire essay about boundaries. I explained to him many of the possible sings a woman is up to something un-friendlike. I told him what boundaries I think we should have, and why, and what it looks like to a female friend if he doesn't have those boundaries. I had sections on being clear and consistent with boundaries, ways to maintain physical and emotional distance, and how to assert our relationship to female friends while I am present or not present. It's much too long to put here. And I think that was the problem. He cannot take in, understand, and implement that much new information all at once. He is essentially being asked to completely reconstruct his communication style with friends. I don't know if that's even possible for him, or anyone. So the only solution that ends in us staying together might really be for him to give up female friendships, as much as I didn't want to resort to that. What we might try is cutting off female friends for a while, work on learning these skills, and ease back into making friendships with the boundaries in place.

Does he seem to really need the ego boost of being everyone's savior? Because this sounds like a red flag to me. Once you are married how are you doing to lead a normal married life if he is always off 'saving' another woman? Though it does make him feel good to help others (I'm guilty of that too), I honestly don't think it's about ego. I have asked him why he is off helping other women when I am at home with plenty of things for him to do around here. We've been going through very rough times financially and I do need his full support on the home front. And he admitted he shouldn't be doing that, but that sometimes he just feels like it's so much easier to fix someone else's problems than fix his own, and that it's a fault he has. So it seems to stem from feeling overwhelmed. It's certainly still a problem, and one that needs to be solved, but I don't think it stems from him getting a kick out of being needed.

I have a really hard time believing that an adult doesn't know when they are being flirted with. How did you get him to ask you out? Did you have to flirt a little or a lot? Haha, but it's true! ;) There are people out there who really are that oblivious, and I wouldn't have known it either if I hadn't witnessed it. He didn't ask me out. We both had feelings for each other, big time, and I flirted with him, big time. Everybody around us saw our feelings. It was painfully obvious. But I had never been with someone before and was so shy to say my feelings, I just kind of hoped he would say it first. But he is shy too, and had NO IDEA I liked him. He thought I wasn't interested whatsoever, and eventually went on a date with another girl he had just met because he thought he had no chance with me. When I found that out, I went and confessed my feelings right away, and he was so happy, but so surprised!

It concerns me that he actively seeks female friends, it is one thing to become friends with someone at work or he sees on a regular basis but to go out looking for female friends is another. Just how many female friends does he have? The reason he goes out looking for female friends is because he wants friends. We used to have several mutual friends around, who all moved away. I think he just misses friends. I guess I made it sound like he has a ton of them, but really, he just makes tons of acquaintances really easily that usually don't lead to friendships. So the friends come and go, and the amount fluctuates. Right now, he probably has 2 or 3 steady female friends on this side of the country that I can recall (his old friends are on the other side). So not that many, but surely enough to potentially cause problems. And I suppose the problem is more that the issue keeps coming up no matter how many friends he goes through, not the amount of friends he has at a time.

So when you alert him to a potential problem he ignores you? that is a redflag. When I alert him to a potential problem, yes, he often disagrees with my suspicions. I think if I demanded he stop seeing someone, he would comply. I just haven't been willing to make that demand. I'm trying to figure out if I should.

So you have told him you are not comfortable with this and he continues to do it? When you tell your partner that something makes you uncomfortable or is an issue for you and they don't correct the situation then to me that is a red flag. He always asks me how he should correct the situation, I just don't know what to tell him. I'm trying to figure that out.


If you were talking about one or maybe two close long time female friends it might be a different issue, but your post makes it seem as if your boyfriend collects female friends the way most men collect power tools or baseball cards.

Does your boyfriend have any male friends, or is it only female?

Have you ever sat home alone while he was out with one or more of the female friends?
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I've been left home for him to have a purely social visit with another woman once or twice at the beginning of our relationship. But that has stopped happening. Other times he's been away from me with other women was when he went back home twice to visit his family across the country (where his old friends also live), and when he actually has non-social reasons to be at the place where the female friends are, which has been the case for some time. For example, he would do odd jobs to help us with money, and some of these female friends came from things like that. He once agreed to give flute lessons to a little girl at her home, and made friends with her single mom. He told me they had several things in common, and they would have talks. She was one of the women I was particularly sure had feelings for him. I remember telling him so, and teasing him that she just wanted a daddy for her kids. He didn't take me seriously, but she apparently ended up making a drunken phone call to him out of the blue one day, sobbing that he was cheating on her "friend-love" towards him, that all she ever wanted from him was honesty, and more frightening nonsense. He told her to never contact him again and hung up. So yes, it is just a little exasperating to me that things have to get THAT bad before he catches on. And I do wish he would believe me, but how can you make someone see something that they just don't see?

To your other post, I didn't mean it as smugness, just thought I'd throw in some silliness. ;) You are right, it is a risk, and complacence is dangerous. I hear about these women from him, and from whatever I see them post on his facebook if they're on it. I've met one of them a few times. A couple of them have spoken to me over the internet. It's quite true that I know little about them and there's a lot I could be wrong about. But apparently I pick up enough to predict things like that single mom.
 
S
#13 ·
I would not marry someone who was not mature enough to make the boundaries clear.

You will end up hurt, and even if he never has a PA it sounds like he has very intimate relationships with these women and shares things that I believe should be only shared between a husband and a wife.
 
H
#15 ·
You have a problem with these relationships because you are normal. You have to admit to yourself that if your boyfriend was truly committed to you he would drop friendships with other women, no questions asked. He would not only be willing but happy to do this for you, if he were committed to you. Please consider this.
 
#20 ·
I just asked him about whether he would be happy to do it. He said he would be sad to lose a friend, but happy to do it for me to better our relationship. And added that friends like that come and go throughout life anyhow, so it's not even so much of a loss.
 
#16 ·
Rob774 and ClipClop make excellent opposing points. If the woman's actions don't phase him, it won't lead to sex. If he's not feeling anything, he's not going to do anything. However, maybe he is fooling himself. He has told me before that he could never have an affair because if he feels himself starting to have feelings, he knows how to turn those feelings off. I believe he thinks that's true, but I don't believe it's actually true. I don't think people can decide what feelings they have. They instead need to avoid situations that could cause those feelings. If that's the case, then what he's doing is very dangerous.

To those saying don't marry him: Is that the only option? I think there is far too much good about this relationship not to at least work on solving this problem before calling it quits. If I am only just now figuring some of these things out, why can't he? We are both willing to learn, and are mature in other important ways. I'm not convinced we can't resolve this.

I know he is willing to give up the friendships, no questions asked. I assume he is also happy to do it for me, though I will need to ask to confirm. But keep in mind it has been me telling him NOT to end the friendships all this time, because I wasn't sure it was the solution. Do you guys think it is the solution then?
 
#19 ·
Ahiru said:
To those saying don't marry him: Is that the only option?
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Absoltely not. It's just that, me personally, I wouldn't marry a man who, as you stated, treats his female friends the same way he treats his romantic partner.

That is a huge red flag to me.

The bottom line is that his friendships with these females are inappropriate to you therefore taht is what ou need to figure out the resolution to. If you have talked with him about it and nothing changes, you need to decide what you want to do.

Whichever way you decide, I wish you luck.



 
#17 ·
Those bad friendship apples are not gender specific. Male or female you must pick out those with ulterior motives who do not need to be in your life. I have many more male friends and some I “must” trust with my life. I have a few female friends which I could confidently state I would trust in those same circumstances. Many others would probably panic and run the other way.
 
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#29 ·
You seem like a very intelligent, thoughtful, nice person. I think you already know that this relationship has future heartache written all over it.

Your boyfriend has a knight in shining armor complex and a complete lack of appropriate relationship boundaries. He is like the poster child for the guy who will end up having multiple emotional affairs without ever "meaning" for them to happen.

Marriage can be hard sometimes. When your future husband has such lax boundaries and multiple extremely close female friends who he can easily turn to to complain about his wife - that's incredibly dangerous. One little problem in your marriage and he will end up feeling closer to one of the other women than he does to you.

Be very careful about moving forward with this guy. I wouldn't.

My husband shares your boyfriends boundary issues and, despite what I thought was a relatively happy marriage, ended up having an emotional affair that he didn't even RECOGNIZE as an emotional affair until it was almost too late. And by the time he realized that he had let things get out of hand it was REALLY out of hand, lots of strong feelings. It's almost worse when they "don't mean it" or are "innocent". Because then it "just happened" and there is no accountability and no way to prevent it from happening again. It's awful, trust me on this.
 
#30 · (Edited)
I appreciate and agree with your comments. I was coming to the same conclusions, but wanted some second opinions to confirm I was on the right track - and for him to read as well, because it has been helping him understand better by hearing this from more and more people.

He has definitely been realizing over the course of the last few months that these close relationships are inappropriate, and understanding why, and we continue to talk about it and take advantage of other resources. We had a long discussion about it last night, and I found out that he's not close with any of his female friends right now. He hasn't seen any of them or spoken more than a few sentences of small talk in weeks and weeks, and looking back, there are no signs he's not being honest. Plus he's never lied or hid things from me before, ever.

When I posted here, I realize I spoke as if nothing had let up, and these friendships were in full force with no sign of pulling back, but it turns out that's not accurate. So I think my guy deserves more credit for taking initiative. :p I just wanted to portray the situation how it was at its worst, because if it's been established that it's possible to get that bad, I think it's important to consider future worst case scenarios that could arise from this precedent.

As of now, he is going to immediately sever his friendships with two of the women that I am sure have feelings for him, and he says he believes me. He agrees with me that these women are not even his friends anyway, because if they develop feelings for him, they cease to be friends. He doesn't want that in his life, or needlessly complicating our life together. He's already drifted apart from any other of the new female friends he had on this side of the country. The only reason those two women weren't completely out of his life is because they kept initiating contact while he was all but ignoring them. So he's going to make things clear to them.

He is not going to make any more new female friends. If we should be successful in implementing proper boundaries, then at that point, we will both start making new friends together. He's not going to look for them independently anymore.

As for his old female friends, I think the emotional boundaries are proper and I'm not concerned. The one friend who I mentioned was crossing way over the line: emotional boundaries are stable, he has untagged himself from any of her facebook photos with her that are improper to display, and we will be working on the physical boundaries for use the next time he happens to see her (she is moving to a different state nowhere near us or his family, so I can't foresee them coming across each other for any reason any time soon). We discussed her behavior last night. I don't know her, so at worst, she has feelings and doesn't want us together, and at best, she's very immature. She's the only one of his old friends that has never been engaged or married; apparently she's had bad luck in love. So I think she has a maturity issue, and could be why she doesn't have or respect boundaries. She just doesn't understand why they're there. She's still acting like she did in high school, not realizing that this behavior has no place in adulthood among people in committed relationships. We are in agreement that even if the best case scenario is true, and she is simply immature, if her behavior is causing strain on our relationship, she is not a good friend and should not be in our lives until she can respect us to our satisfaction.

We will continue to learn together (we are not planning a wedding any time soon, in case people were concerned that I was going to jump into marriage without resolving these things). And we both feel much better now that we've come to some solid conclusions and taken action. We feel closer and I am even feeling extra affection from him. :)

I have great hope that this issue will be fully resolved and I believe I will not regret moving forward with him. As much as I have written about the negatives in our relationship, I could write 100 times more about all of the positives. I honestly feel very lucky to have a relationship this wonderful. And the reason I believe we have a really good chance and these issues aren't going to ruin us is because he is making the changes because he wants to, not because I told him to. He wants these changes for himself, as well as for us. He believes this is an issue of his maturity, and sees this as not only bettering our relationship, but as a long overdue opportunity for personal growth. He thinks he should've learned these things a long time ago, if not for some unique circumstances in his past that enforced different ideas of what was acceptable. He is getting it now.

Thank you all for your honesty and thoroughness, you have been very helpful. I hope this conversation helps someone else going through something similar.
 
L
#31 ·
As a general rule of thumb, someone who can only manage to get along with members of the opposite sex is someone I would not gamble a relationship with.

I'm pretty sure that there must be plenty of exceptions to this, somewhere, I just wouldn't be the one to test the hypothesis.
 
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