Facts tho.
It’s always the dudes who are only friends with other dudes that have the most issues.
More of a cultural thing than anything, but it’s always good for dudes to have women as friends as well, women are just better at talking about some things. They don’t have the same social hangups as a lot of men.
Shits better than it was, but it’s still weird when people only have friends of their own gender.
Many women and men do not like their SO having friends of the opposite gender, especially if they are alone together. So that means having a female friend that you can privately confide in is not easy to have or maintain if either party is in a relationship.
The “safest” way to have an opposite gendered friend that you can talk to is one that you only talk to at work during work hours, which isn’t an option for male dominated fields(e.g. construction) and men in those environments are probably the most in need of a female friend to talk to.
The irony is that the people who don’t want their SO having an opposite gendered friend probably need an opposite gendered friend to talk to.
If there’s that much lack of trust, only having same gendered friends isn’t helping anything.
It’s just prolonging a bad relationship
Product of the times. It used to be that infidelity was uncommon, but it happens with around 35% of unmarrived couples and around 20% of married couples today, with twice as many being the mens’ fault, probably due to their own faults not being the men that women deserve.
Around 65% of romantic couples begin as platonic couples.
The best relationships are based on a foundation as best friends. If you can’t be best friends, then you can’t have a strong enough relationship to make marriage work. There are a lot of people who get married based on expectations and poor reasoning, but the relationships that last are between people who are best friends, can communicate effectively, and naturally meet each other’s needs last the longest. That is a narrow band of people per individual which can persist without outside pressure(culture, religion, kids, etc.).
We are so lonely and desperate to have someone to love and be loved by that we end up in relationships that are unsustainable. Meeting someone who actually completes you, or feels more compatible, ruins a workable relationship because it is not harder than the easiest day spent with another person who can only temporarily satisfy the needs left unfulfilled by a relationship with a viable partner.
The grass is always greener, but your grass can be just as green if you put in the work, and that takes effort that may not seem as cheap as hopping the fence. Put in the work and the hassle of switching pasture will be less than the upkeep, that is hard to understand.
If there is any given fact about the human condition, it is infidelity, this goes back as far as we have records of marriage being a thing. The modern change is how we see marriage and relationships.
And while I agree on the friends make good relationship partners, it is not the duty, or even the point, of the other person “completing” you. If you want a good relationship, you need to be “complete” on your own, because no one, not even a romantic partner, can do that for you.
PS:
with twice as many being the mens’ fault, probably due to their own faults not being the men that women deserve
you’re a “feminist” (bigot who hides behind the veil of equal rights for all sexes, note the massive quotes) aren’t you? I would recommend you do some introspection if you really believe yourself a feminist, and why you would victim blame anyone for “not being good enough” real “you made me hit you” vibes here
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think your spouse shouldn’t have an opposite gendered friend with whom they spend a lot of alone time. It’s not just about trusting your spouse, it’s also about trusting the friend. Couple friends and friends groups are great, not sure why my husband would need to spend a lot of time alone with another lady. There are plenty of women I trust him to be alone with, but they’re all also my friend, and usually their partner is a friend as well.
Last time my husband had a female friend who was not mutual she ended up sending pictures of herself drinking in the shower to him. She was also in a relationship at the time, so he thought she was just a platonic friend. I trust him, I don’t blindly trust people I don’t know.
How exactly do you think bisexual or pansexual people function? Do you think they just don’t have friends? If not, why is it different for heterosexual people? I genuinely don’t understand. I’m not trying to do a ‘gotcha’ or a win a silly internet argument or anything like that. I just genuinely have never understood it and I want to so I keep trying. My best guess so far is it’s just a mix of insecurities and weird gender norms and heteronormativity.
I really don’t understand heterosexual people that are like this. I’m a gay dude. I’m attracted to dudes, I have lots of gay dudes that are platonic friends. It’s possible to be friends with people without boning them lol.
I think the fear isn’t that everyone of the preferred gender wants to bone your partner, but that you have no way of knowing which ones do. The uncertainty is what I think gets to a lot of people.
Still, it’s silly. If one of the core values of your relationship is that you’re exclusive, it’s up to you and your partner to honor that, not up to every other person who comes along. If your partner won’t respect that if a friend offers, then they don’t respect the relationship to begin with and you’re better off finding out.
At least, that’s my take from listening to other people. I’m not a sociologist or anything.
I think that’s part of what’s beautiful about love. The healthiest relationships are those which accept they don’t have control over their partner loving them. It’s like the greatest expression of trust.
I was married for 35 years. In that whole time, my husband had many female friends. It never bothered me at all., because i wasn’t jealous like that. I was never able to have male friends, though. That was always some kind of threat.
I always got along better with guys than women, so I was always turning down outings and ghosting people in favour of my marriage. Now, since we divorced after 35 years., I have no friends at all. He kept his girlfriends from high school (even marrying one within a year of our divorce) and I’m completely alone.
Seems fair.
This is fairly common imo. My (now ex) wife would have a problem with my all my female friends and most my male friends (especially unmarried men).
My social circle decreased drastically after I got married. But it wasn’t just her, 75% of women I have been in relationships with became hinderances to my other relationships.
I get where you’re coming from but I’ve witness toxicity regarding masculinity from both men and women. Honestly, it’s definitely possible to have healthy relationships with other dudes. All of my best friends are guys and we aren’t afraid to talk about anything, like our feelings. So it’s really the company you keep that really matters, regardless of gender imo
Unfortunately, “my friends and family are all assholes, must be feminists fault” is extremely common and rarely shaken off.
There’s plenty of reasons people night not listen to your problems. Sometimes people just don’t have the space. Sometimes they’re just assholes.
The reasons I’ve seen the most frequently stem from the person trying to talk. They’re oversharing. They never reciprocate. They never take steps to actually address their problems. They’re using their problems to manipulate someone who isn’t falling for it.
But in 40 years of adulthood, I’ve never seen “I’m not going to listen to them solely because they’re a man”.
This. Part of learning to share emotions is learning to accept shared emotions and learning to not share emotions for all the other reasons. Most of my interactions in all women groups don’t really deal much with our feelings aside from bits at the beginning and end or with a “can I vent” warning/request at the beginning (and that’s a sometimes thing). And we take turns talking about what’s going on in our lives or deciding what the conversation is about, actively making space for others to chime in.
If you need to talk a lot about your feelings, especially the deep stuff, talk to a therapist. That’s not brushing you off, it’s what therapy is for.
But also learn to feel your feelings by yourself. Put on a sad movie and cry without shame. Go for a run or a walk or a bike and feel your heart out. That’s part of what women are expected to do as well. I think a lot of men have this idea that we all talk deep about our feelings or wear our hearts on our sleeves rather than learn to independently process our feelings, and provide mutual support where needed which is the healthy thing to do.
But also learn to feel your feelings by yourself.
I agree completely with this stance
If you need to talk a lot about your feelings, especially the deep stuff, talk to a therapist. That’s not brushing you off, it’s what therapy is for.
While I agree that therapy can help a lot in those situations, I don’t think these talks should be limited to a therapist. I try to be somebody you can come to and talk about deep stuff for my friends. With one friend of mine, I mostly talk about deep feelings. It is great to have somebody like her, it’s a different category than therapy. A therapist shouldn’t give you his opinion and rarely shares similar experiences. Sometimes it’s just nice to have someone to talk to in a more symmetric way. For me it’s almost never a burden to listen to the emotions of people I like. I want to hear the deep stuff.
Sure a friend is not a replacement for therapy, but therapy is also not a replacement for a friend with whom you talk about deep emotions.
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Same thing with other types of bigotry. The more people you know and/or have to interact with from different ethnicities or backgrounds, the harder it is to blindly hate them. You see this a lot in more diverse places like cities where they tend more progressive and tolerant. And you see the inverse in more remote or rural places that are often more homogenous.
Couldn’t agree more.
If there’s one thing I’ve observed over the years (mainly in professional environments) is that the whole “sausage fest” environment tends towards dick-wagging contests and other less that healthy macho group behaviours.
That said, one of the most toxic machist environments I’ve ever been in was a workplace were women were present, due to quotas, and management seemed to have chosen them on looks rather than competence.
I suspect that a healthy environment requires both genders present and without any perceived distinction in importance depending on gender. Specifically from my experience, women de jure or de facto present as a different kind of group member (such as being basically “eye candy”) isn’t going to do much to suppress unhealthy behaviours (it might hide some of the spoken stuff due to fear of legal/HR consequences but it won’t change people’s thinking and decisions anchored on that thinking).
I suspect the very same thing applies when genders are swapped - there seem to also be disfunctional group behaviours in all-women environments, just different from the male ones (less macho dickwagging, more intrigue and social cliques).
