female friends and my personal prob.

[Ladybug313]

Hi guys it's me Ladybug.

This might kind of go all over the map but it's sort of related so I'd like to

keep it in one thread.

 

First off, I am sure this has been covered and I did a search on it too but I'll ask again anyway. What do you guys think about having opposite sex friends when you're committed or married to someone?

I was never one to have many male friends (just my personality, no to tell you the truth I don't trust myself in maintaining a perfectly innocent platonic friendship so I don't start one) except those guys I met in school and would just say hi occasionally, not keep in touch on a regular basis.

 

But I don't project that onto my husband, ever, who could think completely differently than me and be able to maintain perfectly platonic friendships with other women, especially if they were friends prior to me entering his life.

That said, I don't have a problem with it. And his female friends have been more than nice to me and attempted to be my friends as well, which I thought was quite nice. And I know everything that goes on between my husband and them, cuz he tells me.

 

Now this gets to my problem.

 

One of his female friends, a younger student he met this semester (he's late in school, I have graduated) has not been very nice to me. Not only does she not even attempt to get to know me well, but she makes little comments about the way I dress and how unkept I look every time she comes over to do hw with my husband. Well I don't really have time to get all spiffy looking when he decides to do hw with her at the last minute and brings her home without telling me. And please it's not like I look like I didn't wash myself for a week, I am home with a very active 8 month old baby and a lot of housework on my hands and the last thing on my mind (when I am not expecting anyone!) is to whip out my little black dress and get all pretty. And when my husband is out of earshot she makes comments like "you know if I were you I would totally have made (my husband's name) do this and that, not eat this not do that etc" Well she isn't me and he's not her husband and I found her saying that stuff to me very inapproriate considering we haven't even entered the friend stage.

I have tried to be cordial to her, after all she's my husband's friend and he is making the effort to have her get to know me, but if this is the way she makes friends with other females and they're all getting along fine, I must be the abnormal one.

 

Now being the very honest person that I am, I bluntly told my husband that she makes me uncomfortable, she hurts my feelings, and she gives me advice as to how I should control my husband, as if she knows him more than I do. Jeez. He told me just to blow it off,she's very young and immature and blurts things out without thinking but she's actually nice and likes me a lot. I don't know, I still think she's being rude.

 

I just feel hurt cuz he doesn't seem to understand how much she hurts my feelings and I just don't think it's the way to treat your male friend's freaking wife no matter how unkept she looks!

 

And now he just tiptoes around me when anything occurs that has to do with her cuz he knows I don't like her. But he just brushes it off as her being a young immature girl but I would personally like him to not have anything to do with her, not because she's another woman, but she just doesn't seem like a very respectful person and if she hasn't learned to control her blurtings out at that age then will she ever? But to tell you the truth it IS worse cuz she is a woman, I kind of feel deep inside I would not be so ****ed off if it had just been another male buddy..Anyway, it's not like she's young as in 5 years old.

But then again I don't want to control him and decide who can be his friends and what not. That sucks too...

 

Ah I don't know. Just bummed out. I don't even understand what I am feeling...female instincts?????

[silentalways]

whoa! what's wrong with this guy. you are way more important. if u told me that i would ensure you never felt that way again by just not seeing that person. your partner comes first man.

[Trialbyfire]

Hmmm...she sounds catty. A woman who's taking care of a baby and the household isn't going to have time to get dolled up. If you want to meow right back at her, the next time she comes over, ask her is she feeling okay, everything okay with her? Because you've seen her looking much better... She's an underminer.

 

If you want to take the more mature but less satisfying way, lol, talk to your husband in a non-emotional tone and tell him she undermines your confidence with her catty remarks and that you'de prefer he not interact with her in your home, or anywhere else for that matter. This is your home and your husband. She's just a study partner and he needs to get his priorities straight.

[jmargel]

Ladybug,

 

Though I am married I have a number of female friends, that my wife knows about. They call & talk to me, mostly about their problems but I have always been upfront with my wife. That being said I told her & would always abide by this.. if she ever wanted me to stop talking to any of them due to making it uncomfortable for her, I would. And I have. The one that I would talk to got to be a little too much. Though it was my wife who got upset that I was talking to her & called her. When this friend answered 'Well, good morning!' in a particular type of way, the fur flew I guess. At that point I had make the action of ending my friendship with this girl. Nothing romantic/emotional was going on, just for some reason my wife didn't like this one chick.

 

I've even had one other friend (who is also close friends with my wife) make some unusual comments such as 'You & I would make a better couple'. I still told my wife about that, since I have nothing to hide.

 

I give you alot of credit for being so open & trusting. Maybe I'm a hypocrite but I wouldn't want my wife being that close of friends with another male, since my experience has been men will take it as far as they can.

 

You have been more than cordial to both this girl & your husband. He needs to stand up and decide what is more important. That is YOUR house as well, and to be not only disrespected in front of your husband but in your own house is beyond what anyone should take. I have a feeling you have problems with confrontation and are not willing to give the ultamatium. This is what I would say to him:

 

'I love you but I refuse to have this girl in our house anymore. If you want to continue to have a relationship with this girl, then I am leaving. Having female friends is fine with me, but not when I get the feeling that she has other motives by the way she treats me in our own house. You need to make this decision now'.

 

If he gets defensive about this, then becareful. Not saying it's happening but it could be a sign that something else is going on. He needs to put you #1 in his life.

[Krytellan]

First of all, the problem here doesn't seem to have anything at all to do with men having opposite sex friends. In fact, I think men and women should be free to have whomever they want as friends. If you cant trust your partner, then why are you there?

 

Your issue seems to stem from a man that really seems to be insensitive. If a female friend of mine ever said something like that to my girlfriend, let alone wife, I would not be cool with that at all. She would be out the door in a minute. I feel that he needs to realize that you were there first, and if this little premadona is coming around causing trouble, he needs to step up and make sure it stops... unless of course he just doesn't care. That is a possibility here you know. I don't know, just hearing what I have about him bugs me... sorry.

[Ripples]

Um, do you think he's just playing the 'nice' guy? I don't know, but it seems that some men just want an easy life, they don't like conflict and will take, what seems to them to be the path of least resistance. That could explain why he's not reacting very strongly about this situation. I'm not trying to excuse him, at all. But it could be why he seems to not be taking your feelings seriously enough.

 

As for the girl, hmmmm, what a cow.

[bab]

I am one of those people that don't mind my H having female friends, but most of them are friends with both of us, even if they are better friends with him.

 

I'd tell him that you've got a woman's intuition that this girl is after more than a study partner, and point out that he has other female friends that you do not have a problem with, but that you would like him to taper her out of your lives.

[IfWishesWereHorses]

Any friend of the opposite sex that isn't also friends with both of you presents potential for problems. We have a rule, if one of us truly has a problem then that friend goes. Because of this, if you truly value the friendship with that person then you keep the friendship to something that both of you are comfortable with in order to protect both it and your spouses comfort level. It's YOUR marriage, YOU have a say in what you are willing to live with or not. I would go with my gut instinct on this one.

[Ladybug313]

Hey I just want to say thank you to the seven people who so diligently replied to my post so quick. I just thought maybe you'd be interested in an update. If not, no need to read further

 

After I posted the original message, I gave it one more go at being nice to her, perhaps *trying* to be that girl's friend, since my husband said let it go, just see her as the immature girl that she is, a kid, it's ok.

 

Fortunately she hasn't been bitchy anymore the last few times we met after the post, but one time she came over on her own cuz she wanted to say hello to me and my baby. Husband was out.

 

Ok, she's wants to come meet me, let's do it I thought. So she comes over, and proceeds to analyze my husband AGAIN! Like "when I first met him, I thought this, but now wow, I think this. And you know, a lot of the girls in our class want to talk to him but he stays to himself, so they wonder how we got so close, and they're' kinda jealous...blah de blah..." AND she also managed to go on about what she thought were my husband's weaknesses.

--I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

Please, people, please tell me you would have been pretty insulted if someone talked about your husband that way to you. Please. Or if I am overreacting.

What the **** would the other girls be jealous about??? how DARE she talk about my husband's weaknesses to me? Who does she think she is.

jesus christ.

I was royally pissed. Here I thought she was coming over to focus on me and yet again goes on about my husband.

--By this time, my female instincts were wailing alarm bells ding ding ding.

Or of course, overreacting? (I speak with sarcasm here becuz of what I will write next.)

 

You guys will probably die of frustration when you read this, but I couldn't speak my mind at her. Instead I just told her I was getting a headache and wanted some quiet time, sorry to cut this short but can you go.

--She left, smiling, no idea, no CLUE she had pretty much whupped me mentally in the face.

 

I knew that if I confronted my husband as soon as he came home I'd be very very emotional, and I didn't want that, so I just went to sleep after putting the baby to bed.

 

Next day I missed him cuz he left early for school (the class he has with HER dum de dum) and I was calmly contemplating how I would bring up that I can't have her in our lives anymore, I am sorry, I can't. Even if it's perfectly innocent to you, I feel she's crossing the line (even if she is acting all out of innocence as well). Whatever the case, however wrong I am about the two of you, I am uncomfortable. Period the end, shoudln't that be enough for you to stop interacting with her.

 

He comes home from school and gives me this little note.."look, (girl's name) gave me a little Merry christmas card." Goodness, the heat started rising in me again. But I calmly took it from him and read it. It was all about the same stuff she told me, how she can't believe how close she and my husband had become, she thinks he's so cool to be so passionate about his schoolwork and keep up a family...and please send regards to your wife and daughter."

--You know guys. Normally a card from a female friend wouldn't have bothered me a bit, even if it was written in the same manner, I kid you not.

But from her, I wanted to tear up the little thing to shreds and scream at the top of my lungs. I don't know why. But every little she does bothers me so much and I just feel she is crossing the line.

I mean wouldn't it have been more approriate to address a christmas card to the both of us.

Every other female friend of my husband including one he's known for nearly 15 years, addresses letters and cards to both of us or only to me. No more single notes to my husband, they told me themselves they thought that would be inapproriate to me.

 

The fury was so bad, but I was trying to control it my face felt constricted.

My husband caught on though, right away and asked me what was wrong.

 

I tried starting calmly I really did. The letter is crossing the line. I can't deal with her anymore. I also told him about her visit, that I can't handle her blurt outs. He then goes, oh come on it's just a note, and why are you getting so worked up over some kid who probably is just shooting her mouth off withouth thinking? come on now, it's like reacting to a middle school kid who talks bad about me. Now would you get upset over that, no, you'd just laugh it off. I don't want us to quarrel over some kid in my class who doesn't mean even a little bit to our lives.

 

I lost it right there. I told him there was a huge f-ing difference between a middle school kid and a 20 year old. You may think she's young and a kid and immature and so that's cute and you can blow it off, but I can't ok?! I think she's rude says inapproriate things and this letter is just way too crossing the line for my moral standards. YOU may not think so but I do, and I feel really really hurt most of all, that no matter how irrational you may think I am being, I am your wife and the fact that I am so upset about this should be important enough for you to at least consider my damn feelings. And you said yourself, she's a young immature kid who doesn't mean even a little bit to our lives, then please stop using that as an excuse to excuse her behavior. Cuz I am not that nice and I won't excuse it, I was never that rude at 20 to someone else's wife, let alone I wasn't even comfortable being friends with someone else's husband. At that age, I still had those thoughts, why can't she? I won't tolerate this.

 

Then HE got mad and says fine, you want me to hide everything I do with another female from now on? You get along so well with my other girl friends, and you get so worked up about this little kid~I try to be open about every thing cuz I feel I am doing nothing wrong and you react like this!

 

I was so exasperated. I never had issues with the other girls cuz they never gave me reasons to have issues with them. It IS about her being female I know (hence the gut instincts that make me dislike her so much) that but at the same time it;s also about being a respectful person...and I was so frustratd cuz then he made it sound as if I was some jealous freak who went nuts every time he befriended a girl, which is so not the case.

 

And I told him I am sorry I am acting so emotional but every time I tried to have a calm conversation with you you blew off my feelings. And I am a person too, no matter how patient I am. It builds up and explodes sometimes...

 

But in the end, I think he realized how much he hurt me and how this had nothing to do with me hating any female he talked to in general, just the fact that this ONE girl set off alarm bells in my gut that I don't feel with every single female he meets.

He gave me lots of hugs and said he was sorry for hurting me so badly.

 

I would agree that i may have jealousy and mistrust issues if I felt hatred every time my husband befriended a girl but it;s this one girl and this one girl only and to hide everything from now on is not solving the problem or even getting to the point at all. I feel if I come across another person that bothers me, it's better to get it out front this way then hide it and lie to eachother jsut to keep peace in the house. I know I am not a jealous person who would react like this every single time.

 

But he's decided not to have anything to do with her anymore.

 

And that was my update, thanks.

[Trialbyfire]

Good for you. The girl has a crush on your husband. Best to nip it in the bud.

[Krytellan]

*applauds loudly* Oh, how wonderful... a girl with a pair of balls. Good for you. You had me nervous there and I was cursing your husband with his resposne to your outburst, but I'm glad he came around. Always remember that feeling are ALWAYS justified. It's how you handle them that matter.

[Ripples]

Oh that's really good news!

 

I'm just a little disappointed you didn't say something along the lines of "It's inappropriate to talk to and about my husband in the way you do" to her. I wanted to know what her reaction would be!

 

Ok, call me a gossip

[portableversion]

Does your H ever bring male students over to his house to help them study? I would venture that the answer is NO.

 

You H sounds like a sucker for female attention. If some bytch came into MY HOUSE and INSULTED ME, i'd tell her to get the ***kkk out or I'd call the cops. And i wouldn't give a SHYT what the H thought about it.

 

Get a backbone!

[whichwayisup]

She has a crush, and because she spends time with him at school and thinks he's great, she's only seeing one side of him and not seeing him in the light of being someone's husband or being a father. She has no clue about real adult relationships, let alone marriage...Though, he does and how he is acting around her is inappropriate. He knows this too which is why he's getting pissed off and huffy about it. He isn't stupid and he knows you're not either, but I do think he's enjoying the attention and knowing that she has a crush on him...

The problem is, girls get crushes and can fall hard. He definately needs to be careful and not let her get too attached to him.

 

I don't believe he's going to cheat on you with her. I could be wrong, but from what you've said so far, I think this is really about his ego and enjoying attention from a young lady.

 

Next time she says a word to you about your husband or makes comments to you that are rude, you MUST stand up to her and put an end to it. Just be firm and make sure by your tone that you won't put up with that bullcrap.

[scrybe74]

I think you handled that pretty well actually! As I was reading I started to say 'uh-oh' to myself. I'm a guy a handful of long term female friends that I've known for 15 years or more that's strictly platonic. They are respectful and keep their distance whenever I'm in a relationship and try and befriend anyone I'm dating longterm or when I was married. My last GF was a semi-psycho jealous hater and she went bananas about a lot of things but I think you were very patient and understanding of you husband. He was clearly being insensitive here and I'm glad that he's taking some action.

 

The girl's behavior was rude and even if he didn't think so it should have been clear to him that he should either reduce or eliminate contact for a very simple reason: She didn't appear to be a true long term close friend. Someone he met pretty recently right? Anyway...the girl needs lessons in manners. She maybe didn't mean to be rude but that's no excuse.

 

Best of luck to you!

[Ladybug313]

"Does your H ever bring male students over to his house to help them study? I would venture that the answer is NO."

--Actually he does. All the time More than girls.

 

The thing about my husband is, and at the same time very annoying, is that he's equally nice and friendly to both sexes. That earns him both male and female friends alike. Male friends, that's great! Female friends who are strictly platonic, that's great! But there comes at times (this occasion is the perfect example) that females can take a man's friendliness the wrong way and think 1) oh this guy's attracted to me or 2) oh man I am falling for this guy.

 

My gut instinct here leaned more toward number 2, cuz I honestly (no I am not deluding myself hehe) think my husband DOES think of this girl as nothing more than this younger girl classmate, but this younger girl classmate is like "wow, older guy in class being so nice to me, wow this is so cool" and developing a little crush (she doesn't seem very savvy in the bf department, she said so herself that guys don't really want to be boyfriends to her for some reason).

 

To put it short, I trust his feelings toward her are nothing but platonic, and he would act accordingly if HE felt she was crossing the line, but I do NOT trust HER and for me personally she already has crossed the line.

 

Sometimes he's just too damn nice to people. I am very polite but I am not overly friendly. It can cause some misunderstandings and problems, as this episode so shows.

 

Thanks again guys!!! Have a nice day.

[whichwayisup]

Then it's up to him to make sure she doesn't cross the lines anymore......

 

Don't feel threatened by her because at the end of the day I'm sure she isn't in his thoughts.....

[Mz. Pixie]

"The thing about my husband is, and at the same time very annoying, is that he's equally nice and friendly to both sexes. That earns him both male and female friends alike. Male friends, that's great! Female friends who are strictly platonic, that's great! But there comes at times (this occasion is the perfect example) that females can take a man's friendliness the wrong way and think 1) oh this guy's attracted to me or 2) oh man I am falling for this guy

 

My husband is the same way as yours, and has several good friends that are female from college but I would never tolerate the actions that you have put up with from this particular one. You're his wife and he should respect you first.

 

Sometimes he's just too damn nice to people. I am very polite but I am not overly friendly. It can cause some misunderstandings and problems, as this episode so shows.

 

Thanks again guys!!! Have a nice day.

 

I know exactly what you mean but when it comes down to it you are his wife and his loyalties should lie with you.

 

We just had dinner Sunday night with one of his college gf's that I'd never met. She was very very nice to me and even told my H what a catch he had and how he should never let me go. That is what a true friend would do, be supportive of your marriage. The fact that his hussy is not should make your H question being friends with her in the first place.