Would it bother you if your S/O spent hours hanging out with someone else of the opposite sex?

I think it’s the mark of a mature relationship—it shouldn’t be an issue at all. Nearly all of my SO’s friends are men, and many of my friends are women.

If you can’t trust your SO, then you shouldn’t be with them.

The friend bears no responsibility for making sure that the couple isn’t keeping secrets. The friend’s responsibility is to be a friend—and not act inappropriately, obviously.

Umm, if a guy is hanging out with a chick until the wee hours of the morning, and spending crazy amounts of time with her – it’s not just “friends” or even “colleagues”. They are in an earnest relationship, even if they won’t admit it.

Nothing good ever happens in the night hours – the mind changes, perception changes, and the ability to hold back changes. This has been cited for all of the ages of human history.

I personally would not be comfortable with this and it has nothing to do trust. I wouldn’t assume that any cheating was going on, but it has to do with intimacy. I prefer in my relationships that I am my man’s confidante and partner. If my SO felt the need to spend “hours” hanging out with another woman, I would wonder what it was that he needed to discuss so constantly with her or what he found so enjoyable about her company that he prefers it to mine. That’s not the sort of relationship I want to have [and thankfully don’t have]. If they are work colleagues, they can talk at work or on their lunch hour. After all, if he sees her all day at work, why would he need to hang out with her for hours outside of work? Wouldn’t that mean he’s choosing to spend time with her that he could be spending with me? I prefer to be with a man who chooses me to be his confidante, friend, and partner, not to the exclusion of having female friends, but if he’s hanging out with her that much, he’s seeking something he feels I’m not providing him. I’d rather be with someone who thinks I do provide what they need.

@diavolobella Worded what I wanted to say, perfectly.

@squirbel @diavolobella That’s interesting. But what if your “work” is that you are a student? Or if not that, your work involves late night projects because there’s a deadline coming? And your coworker on the project happens to be this member of opposite sex?

For example, in our medical school, it is not uncommon for many of us to stay at school till 4–5 am studying. And many of us study with a study buddy or in groups. Additionally, when people go to grad school, their S/O’s don’t necessarily live in the same area anymore. So the relationship could be long distance, and thus it wouldn’t be like they’re choosing one person’s company over another.

I assume you two disagree with @prince‘s assessment of mature relationships being comfortable with each other’s friendships?

I mean, I wouldn’t care as long as he was being honest.

Is the assumption that spending all this time together necessarily means they have romantic feelings for each other? I don’t think that has to be true. Many of my best friends are of the opposite sex.

That said, monogamy is not really a big deal to me. If my boyfriend was romantically interested in another girl I wouldn’t love it, but if he was honest about it I’d just deal.

Medical school is different. All of my schoolmates except 3 and me went on to med school – I know it’s different.

Being a student brings the weight of different hours, so it’s just different.

And no, I agree that a mature trusting relationship should be comfortable with various friendships. But at the same time, in order to fulfill the trust side of that equation, each person in the relationship should give their s/o a brief rundown of each of their friends they are going out with.

The problem comes in when your s/o is spending more time with the other person than you; or a competitive amount of time.

@PnL I assumed this was a school setting—so the ‘wee hours of the morning’ didn’t bother me. I was going to say that I think that the fact both my SO and I work odd hours influences my attitude, but I’m still sticking to my guns.

I respect the fact that my SO has friends who are men, and chooses to hang out with them, but at the end of the night, I know she’s sweet on me, so it doesn’t bother me. I suppose it boils down to the fact that @squirbel talks about—I don’t feel like I’m being slighted by tthe amount of time she spends with me.

It would bother me if my husband spent hours away from home on a consistent basis for weeks or months with a guy or a girl. Either way he is not with me, not wanting to come home, not wanting to include me. It is an emotional betrayal whether he has found a new romantic interest or not. If it is work, like a specific project for a specific amount of time that has caused him to stay late for a while, I would accept the situation, and assume it was on the up and up, unless there were other indicators it wasn’t. I say this, but you should know I am not the jealous or posessive type. In fact my husband for many years travelled 25%-50% of the time with work, and at one point lived out of the country for 9 months.

@noelleptc if I were you I would find that unnacceptable behavior from my SO.

A flirt when you’re single, commited when taken. Trust is the first thing you need before a relationship, so if i have you, why would I need to pay attention to other people? I’m sure there is such a thing of having a mature friend of the opposite gender, I for one have one myself, be we DO NOT spend hours upon hours taking to one another. At one point in my life I did in fact like him, but I’ve moved on since then and remained as friends. It’s common to have crushes while you’re in a relationship or not, but it is your actions that determine whether you are faithful or not.

If was the “the friend”, I would ask if his wife or S/O is aware of our get togethers etc. If he was truly a friend of mine, I would respect his relationship before my own desires.

What if they were good friends and not just colleagues?
If they were good friends they should be able to do the proper thing in respecting the s/o who isn’t present, and limit their hours to more proper times.

Would you consider it emotional cheating?
If the s/o insists on spending that much time, and at night – I would call it emotional cheating. You know how at late night the topic always changes and turns toward more personal and secret things? How people are more willing to open their hearts at night, and tell something they normally wouldn’t? This type of thing is guaranteed to happen. Those are things only meant for the s/o’s ear, imo.

Why would this be any different than if they were hanging out with members of the same sex?
If they were heterosexual, yes, it would be different. It just is – because people treat each other differently than when someone is of a different sex.

Do we need to follow societal gender roles that dictate one should make you uncomfortable while the other is just fine?
This is the crux of your question, or it feels like it to me.

Are they societal gender roles, honestly? Then how come every society follows them? They are not “societal gender roles”, that’s a misnomer at best. We know what happens between men and women – that’s biological and that’s what bothers the s/o. They can’t help thinking or worrying that biology and psychology will get the better of their s/o, and cause them to cheat physically or emotionally. It has absolutely nothing to do with “gender roles”.

I could give two shits who my boyfriend spends a lot of time with…as long as he’s not choosing that person over me if I’m asking him to spend more time with me.

As to the friend’s role, I don’t think they have any duty at all. The only real way to ensure that the S/O knows is to ask the S/O. It also suggests that the friend would be worried about something more than friendship happening – and if that’s the case, that’s a whole other issue. Otherwise talking to the S/O would be a huge, unnecessary interference in the two people’s relationship.

It definitely depends on the situation. Something related to work/school is what it is. It’s not a personal choice. Hell, my husband is in the process of spending a whole year (minus the two weeks he got to come home for leave) away from home.

Hanging out with friends from time to time, no big deal, that’s what friends do. I wouldn’t automatically think he was up to no good just because he was out with his friends (male or female).

Choosing to be with a friend more than being home with your family would be a problem for me. My husband has his friends and I wouldn’t get in the way of his friendships (though all of his friends are also friends with me now, but I don’t have to be with him 24/7). If one of his friends started coming in between us and our relationship, I would talk to him about it and express my concerns. We would go from there.

No.

So, if I’m bisexual, that means I don’t get to have any close friends, ever? Are you fucking kidding me???

Nope. I trust my wife completely.

My husband has a number of friends he sails with a great deal. Many of them are women and sometimes he will sail with just one woman. One he has helpd a great deal with work on her boat. I have never had a problem with it.

If you trust them it shouldn’t matter. But beware, problems can arise from it if clear boundaries aren’t laid out. My recent X hung out with a guy a lot and though I don’t think it was the only reason… I think it helped catalyze her leaving me.. And low and behold it appears as though she will soon be dating him.

Trust until given a reason not to, but keep an eye out for feelings shifting from you to the other person.

Yes.

It would depend on the relationship between my SO and the male involved. If they were especially close i.e. had been friends for a few years then it would be fine. If it were a work colleague she had known for a couple of months but suddenly had an interest in spending extensive personal time with i’d be more wary and make her aware of this perhaps requesting to meet the man if I hadn’t previously. It wouldn’t be a matter of trusting her, just a matter of trusting him, but if he were to attain that trust it would be fine unless some significantly suspicious activity were to crop up later.

@diavolobella “I prefer to be with a man who chooses me to be his confidante, friend, and partner, not to the exclusion of having female friends, but if he’s hanging out with her that much, he’s seeking something he feels I’m not providing him. I’d rather be with someone who thinks I do provide what they need.”
– But surely if you provided everything that he needed socially he’d have no need for friends or family? No one person can provide everything another needs. I mean no disrespect but I would personally find it unreasonable for an SO to expect me to feel equally comfortable sharing everything with them as I do with any other person I know.

My wife and I each have friends of the opposite sex. Doesn’t bother either of us, but…we have one simple rule:

Your friends are my friends and vice versa.

If I’m with a female friend, my wife knows who I’m with and is welcome to join us if she wants.

There’s no, “Oh, I need alone time with Betty” – That might fly once or twice, but not consistently.

Thats just fucked, It’s worrisome if your partner wants to hang out with a ‘friend’ more than they want to hang out with you…. your partner is suppose to be your good friends and lover second…

@shoebox – Nothing suggests that the SO wants to hang out with this person more than the OP.

It really depends on the relationship, the person, and how much I trust them. My last girlfriend, I had a feeling she’d hook up with someone for an ego boost and to spite me, if she were pissed off enough and the opportunity presented itself. That wasn’t such a great relationship, obviously.

My best and healthiest relationship so far, I trusted her more than anyone else I dated. I knew who she was, I knew she loved me, and I had no worries at all because in my gut, I simply couldn’t imagine her cheating on me and knew it wasn’t a possibility. If this situation came up while I was with her, it wouldn’t bother me much, if at all, at least in terms of the cheating angle.

Long-term, I might worry a bit about her falling for the person after spending so much time with and getting to know them, but I would communicate that and hope we could be open about it. I might feel a bit envious and wish I could spend more time with my SO, but that can be helped by connecting via texts and such. Actually, a text or call during a break would be nice, to check in and to slap the idea that they’re getting it on in some dark corner of the stacks out of my head. I’m kidding… mostly.