SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I've never been the type of woman to forbid a partner to have friends of the opposite sex. I believe that men and women can be friends without there being any type of sexual attraction. I've never been insecure or threatened by another woman who was friends with my husband. Until Now.

My fWH had a 3 year long affair with our mutual female friend. She and her BH have been friends with us for years and years, I never thought this would have happened. We are no longer friends.

I've felt like a crazy woman recently (2 months out from Dday). Any woman my WH has to interact with I am threatened by. His coworkers, friends he's had for years. I hate feeling like this.

A female friend of his invited him out for coffee to catch up. He didn't tell me about it, didn't ask for permission, didn't think she was a threat and therefore didn't feel the need to mention it. Well he didn't know I saw the invite on his phone. I have access to it and he knows I can look any time. So he wasn't hiding anything purposely, just didn't see this as a big red flag in my eyes.

We've since talked about this, how other women make me feel, how I'm not comfortable with him having these friendships anymore, but for right now we've only bandaged the wound. He's going to make an excuse to get out of this meetup with her. But she's going to keep trying to reach out to him because they are friends. So what is he supposed to do?

I know he should come clean. "I cheated on my wife. I'm not the person you thought I was. I know that you did nothing wrong to ruin this friendship, I've messed up a lot of relationships and this is another consequence I have to pay." But will I ever be in a place where I won't be suspicious of every female friend he has? Can he have these relationships again? And is it fair of me to still have male friends although I have proven myself loyal to him and my vows?

I hope that as time moves forward and my self esteem returns I can be secure with these friendships without blindly trusting.

Comments from BS and WS are appreciated.

Hi there, I have the same story (different time frame but the OW and her BH were close friends of ours for years and years).

What you are feeling is 100% normal. What you have discovered is that your H has terrible boundaries with friends of the opposite sex. It is perfectly reasonable for him to forego hanging out with friends of the opposite sex alone until he builds those boundaries up properly.

If his female friend wants to get together, he could invite her over for dinner and the three of you could hang out together.

He doesn't have to give all the details (if you want the affair to remain more private) and he doesn't have to dramatically end the friendship. He could tell his friend honestly, "I am working very hard on my marriage and I feel like we need to be together as much as possible right now. Would you like to come to our place to hang out instead?"

For me, it is impractical to limit people as friends based on their gender. It doesn't sit well with me (I know others have different opinions - whatever works for them is a-okay with me). The only friends that are cut off are people who are not friends of the marriage. You can tell pretty quickly if someone is a friend of the marriage - because they won't mind at all if YOU are around when they hang out.

Decide what boundaries you are comfortable with and let him know those boundaries and how you will react if he crosses them.

Examples of some potential boundaries:

1- No private one on one meetings with women

2- No texting with women

3- He has to tell you whenever he has contact of any kind with another woman for any reason and show you any emails or texts between them

4- No female friends

There are a lot of possibilities and boundaries can change and shift as we grow.

I am so sorry you are going through this. It is a double pile of shit you did nothing to deserve. Take care of yourself. Rough waters are ahead. Feel free to shoot me a message anytime.

I'm a WS. I don't have any close friends that are males that are not couples friends of both of us. Not because my husband "forbade" it but because it's a boundary of my own that I think is better for our relationship. I'm a much more social and talkative person than is my H, and it would be far too easy for me to (even innocently i.e. non-sexually) get my emotional needs met with someone else. I spend a lot of time conversing and texting with two very close female friends and I get my need for companionship and conversation met that way. He doesn't share that need and it's something I've learned to accept, sort of, but I don't need to make it more difficult by getting close with other men.

[This message edited by Darkness Falls at 8:36 AM, August 17th (Thursday)]

I guess, I am the opposite of both of you. I believe that if you are to have friends of the opposite sex, they need to be included in the marriage, not friendships that take place separately (as in meeting for coffee, etc). My husband had quite a few "girl friends" that didn't seem to want to include me in, well anything. TO me that is a red flag, and those friendships all disappeared.

My husband also thought it was ok to go out with the guys and randomly converse with other women, but drinks as long as it didn't cross a line.

BUT the question for me is, the line is different for a lot of people. And that makes it very scary.

I agree though, if this is a good friend of your husband, whom you honestly trust, I would suggest that for a while, you all three do things together, and maybe tell her. THere is some type of relief in when people know.

I know this is kind of a rant, but it's ok to not trust him with anyone for a LONG time. Set your boundaries, and he will have to realize that what he did means that he might have to give up certain friendships for awhile, if not ever. You need to do what is going to help you heal. Maybe in two years, you will be fine with this friend and him getting coffee, maybe you won't. And either way, it's ok.

BUT i would tell him he has to be 100% transparent, he should have told you about this coffee date even if it's a friend that doesn't really concern you. It's how he will rebuild trust.

I've never been the type of woman to forbid a partner to have friends of the opposite sex. I believe that men and women can be friends without there being any type of sexual attraction. I've never been insecure or threatened by another woman who was friends with my husband. Until Now...... I've felt like a crazy woman recently (2 months out from Dday). Any woman my WH has to interact with I am threatened by. His coworkers, friends he's had for years. I hate feeling like this.

Me, too. I could've typed that exactly. While he's never been one to "go out" with female friends, he did work at a small business as the only man in an all-female office. I didn't worry, for two reasons. 1) I trusted him blindly. 2) None of them were pretty. Well, one of them turned into a "friends with benefits" for a few years. Since finding that out, I'm now on high alert about ALL women, regardless of what they look like, since I learned that he never cared what ANY of the OW looked like, the only thing that mattered was that they showed interest in him. In some way, that made me even more terrified. Now I didn't need to just be weary of hot chicks. I even needed to be weary of the ugly ones! Ugh. I even get weird when he talks to my own friends sometimes, fearful that his boundaries aren't 100% strong yet. He has plenty of women clients and while I don't have a panicked feeling anymore, I do still have some worry that someone might pull him back down that slippery slope during a moment of weakness. He does have "rules" now, dealing with women clients. His office door stays open. He doesn't have "friendly chats" with them anymore, strictly business. He doesn't meet with them anywhere other than his office or our home (with me present, of course) anymore.

We've since talked about this, how other women make me feel, how I'm not comfortable with him having these friendships anymore, but for right now we've only bandaged the wound. He's going to make an excuse to get out of this meetup with her. But she's going to keep trying to reach out to him because they are friends. So what is he supposed to do? I know he should come clean. "I cheated on my wife. I'm not the person you thought I was. I know that you did nothing wrong to ruin this friendship, I've messed up a lot of relationships and this is another consequence I have to pay." But will I ever be in a place where I won't be suspicious of every female friend he has? Can he have these relationships again? And is it fair of me to still have male friends although I have proven myself loyal to him and my vows?

I agree that he should fess up to this friend and say exactly what you suggested above. Or as Strugglebus suggested:

If his female friend wants to get together, he could invite her over for dinner and the three of you could hang out together.

He doesn't have to give all the details (if you want the affair to remain more private) and he doesn't have to dramatically end the friendship. He could tell his friend honestly, "I am working very hard on my marriage and I feel like we need to be together as much as possible right now. Would you like to come to our place to hang out instead?"

That's a great suggestion! If you need him to cut contact with women until you're feeling better, I say go for it. I needed that, too. Maybe someday I'll be convinced that his new boundaries are 100% strong (big change and hard for me to believe sometimes, since it turns out that he never had ANY boundaries and I was clueless, full of blind trust due to the length of our relationship and my general naivety) and can relax a little bit. But I don't see that happening anytime in the near future. It's going to take a while before I feel like the boundaries and morals have become a true part of him and that he's not just "forcing it" to appease me.

I believe that if you are to have friends of the opposite sex, they need to be included in the marriage, not friendships that take place separately (as in meeting for coffee, etc).

I completely agree, OneTimeisEnough!

[This message edited by Phoenix94 at 8:56 AM, August 17th (Thursday)]

If his female friend wants to get together, he could invite her over for dinner and the three of you could hang out together.

He doesn't have to give all the details (if you want the affair to remain more private) and he doesn't have to dramatically end the friendship. He could tell his friend honestly, "I am working very hard on my marriage and I feel like we need to be together as much as possible right now. Would you like to come to our place to hang out instead?"

I totally agree. I have a male friend (also a BS) who has supported me through my separation and reconciliation. We occasionally get together to catch up and his girlfriend will come also (found out later she was also betrayed by a long term boyfriend). I love having her join us. Just go to coffee with him and this friend. If she is trustworthy, she'll have no problem with it.

I felt the same way you do.

My WH had female friends who shared the same interest in a sport. I knew them and their spouses well. They were never alone together, but they would communicate regularly discussing mostly sports-related things.

Since my D-Day 12 years ago, he has ended ties with all females.

As a matter of fact, one of my boundaries was no socializing on the job when women are involved, and he has kept to that boundary. Never flinched.

His female co-workers are also kept at a distance, professional discussions only, and he is never alone with a female colleague. Ever. If he has phone meetings with a female, he always includes a male in the meeting. I know this bc I have access to his work emails.

Your WH has to do what makes YOU feel safe. It is going to take a very, very long time to trust again. Make your boundaries clear.

My WH found his AP's in the bar. They weren't "friends." Even so, after Dday, a whole new era of boundaries was ushered in.

I used to be okay with him having female friends. He'd include me in the friendships. Sometimes we'd all go for lunch or whatever, and sometimes if I couldn't go (was always invited), he would just go with whichever friends were available. And sometimes that was just a girl or two. I was ok with it as long as they weren't kept apart from me intentionally.

Having said that he had one female friend who was much younger. Very pretty, outgoing party girl who he considered his best friend. She was early 30's and he's late 50's. I think he got a lot of ego kibbles from this younger woman thinking he was fun and hip and she often invited us to parties where he'd get annoyingly drunk. Not my fave memories. There was nothing inappropriate per se with their relationship, but it still *felt inappropriate to me. I didn't like that when we fought, he'd ignore me and start texting her - anything to avoid conflict and feel happy instead. I didn't like him texting her when we were on a romantic trip away. I didn't like it when he was more worried about upsetting her than me. Things like that.

Our first MC told him that friendship had to change. No more female buddies. Any conversation was to go through me. No direct communication between him and females. No getting together with them, without me.

This friend, K, was the only one we really had to "notify" of the new boundaries. And we told her exactly why we needed them. K violated that boundary a month later. A day after we all got together for lunch she just had to message him through WhatsApp. She even told him she knew she wasn't supposed to.

As of that day, K was dead to us. Unsafe and not a friend of the marriage. THAT black and white. Felt DAMN good, let me tell you.

Now FWH texts mutual female friends and always screen shots the texts to me. Even now 2 and a half years later. And the boundaries are still in place. Heck, I'll take those boundaries for myself - there's no harm in having them. And if they keep my marriage safe, I'm all for them.

No harm in the boundaries - forever.

[This message edited by findingjoy at 11:12 AM, August 17th (Thursday)]

I have also stayed away from female friendships as a boundary. It isn't something I ever really even thought about. The only female friends I have ever had were MUCH older than me and we never hang out together, ever.

My wife on the other hand prefers male friends. She says women are too much drama, so this has been a sensitive issue for me. I don't understand her reasoning, even though I TRY to respect it.

The book "Not Just Friends" was written for a reason, IMO.

I'm a unicorn in that my BFF is the opposite sex. I've known him for 44 years and I love his wife. I would never disrespect him or his marriage. (I'm no longer married).

BUT

That's a life history.

I do not believe in opposite sex friends if you are married. Especially, "new" ones. My story is different and exceptional. I think it's a very slippery slope.

IMO infidelity is defined by the people in any marriage. Some people are fine with porn and others are not. Some are fine with friends and some are not. If you love and respect your spouse, you will abide by their comfort boundaries. If that is beyond what you are comfortable with (understandably) then he should not have female friends. You should be able to state that as "now" condition without regard to how its been in the past.

I mean really, look how that turned out?

Your WH has to do what makes YOU feel safe.

Your H doesn't even need to be a WH for this statement to be true.

I have very few friends IRL... but one of them is a woman. My wife is convinced that this woman is romantically attracted to me -- I don't know if that's right but yet I don't disagree either. The woman has strongly suggested that I should divorce my wife for the last ~8 years (red flags of infidelity is her reason -- so the friend was right all along).

I know that my friend makes my wife uncomfortable. I have told my wife (prior to D-day) that I will end the friendship if and when she asks. I think that's appropriate.

Personally, I am comfortable with having this female friend. If my wife and I get divorced, there is no chance that I will end up in a romantic relationship with her.

Good friends, best friends, of the opposite sex are never a problem of turning sexual...until they do.

There are scores of men and women who went years as friends,who posed no threat to a marriage, and then the unthinkable happened. Does that mean everybody jumps? No. My H went from acquaintance to besties with OW, supposedly with no sexual ties. Of course I had no idea she was anything more than a professional acquaintance. Then, it was an EA. Next an EA with sexual banter and innuendo. Oops, they had slipped into phone sex. But heck, it took them 6 months to drop their pants and get in bed.

After the A was over she still wanted to be friends because she could not live without him in her life. She did not think having sex with him should ruin their friendship and keep them from their witty banter that she loved. Um, NO. Life is not a sitcom that moves on to the next episode without pain and consequences.

Does my H have female friends now? No, and it's his choice. If he had not decided to put that boundary in place as part of our R, I would have questioned his commitment going forward.

Um, no.

DH forfeited his right to female friendships when he crossed the line. He knows this. I've had lots of male friends because I worked with only men for most of my life. However, if he was a friend I wanted to socialize with, I got to know the wife and we went places together as couples. And usually if we want to get together I had my H contact the guy and set it up.

And my H had the balls to worry about ME cheating.

My boundaries have always been in place. His were non existant, apparently. They'd best be in place now.

People with strong boundaries have no issues being friends with genders they are attracted to. I have strong boundaries, plenty of male friends and have never cheated, I don't flirt, and if someone tries to flirt with me, I firmly shut it down. I have walls around my marriage, no doors or windows.

It is not the gender of the friends, it is the boundaries of the people involved. Not everyone was raised with firm boundaries. So they have to learn them as adults. Unfortunately, they usually take a huge dump in the middle of someone they love's bed before they figure this out.

Rember you can't control his behavior but you can set down personal boundaries that clearly let him know what you will and will not accept. Once you figure those out, he can get to work on proving to you that you are important to him.

Yep, I don't think it is appropriate for either a husband or a wife to spend time alone with a friend of the opposite sex. Call me old fashioned or whatever you choose but that's not going to happen in my marriage.

Hi five Gman, I agree! At least not time alone with said friend w/ out the other spouse there.

I never saw this as a problem until the A, reading through all the texts and stuff made me realize that my wife has never had good boundaries with anyone and will feel pressured to make coworkers and friends happy to the point she will cross boundaries. So yeah, male friends are gonna be off the table for an undetermined amount of time. As are going out with friends, staying late at work, going to lunch with male coworkers, etc. She is still free to do these things, as long as she realizes that I wont be married to her anymore... (just so it's clear that this isn't a control issue)

"Not Just Friends"

Recommended for a reason.

People with strong boundaries have no issues being friends with genders they are attracted to. I have strong boundaries

My opinion on this topic is simply: your mileage may vary.

There is no universally correct answer... it's simply a matter of your comfort level.

I have strong boundaries. I have had female friends for my entire life and I have never slept with any of them, meaning even when I was single.

I have issues with a couple of my husband's female friends, but not because of their gender. He was an unhealthy person, and so he became close to other unhealthy people. Even before d-day I said I didn't like hanging out with one woman because, although she is very nice, she chooses to 'live in her disfunction'. And there was another who I knew was trying to cheat on her husband (NOT with mine).

So last night my husband went out with a female friend of his while I stayed home with the kids (17 months post d-day and the first time he's gone anywhere without me). It didn't bother me at all because this woman does not set off my spidey senses. We haven't seen those others in over a year and I'm not sure we ever will again. As in all things, I say trust your gut. If it doesn't feel safe, don't try and force it.