friends and marriage, opinions please!

[papurdawl]

One of the major problems in my relationship with my fiancee is our opinion on the relationship with eachother and friends.

My opinion is that when your daiting it is perfectly normal to have seperate lives and seperate friends and then when you want to spend time you go out on dates with your prospective other. But i also feel that when a relationship is more serious and you are married that Your lives in away are not quite as seperate, i feel that it is normal that when you are married you still have friends but when you have get togethers with friends your wife and/or her friends should be involved. I see that in all the marriages i know, the husband will invite his friend to go somewhere with him and his wife and everyone gets together and has a good time, infact alot of married people have friends that are in the same position.When you get married its to share your life with that person.i understand that people need thier space to hang out and chill with the guys everyonce in awhile, but thats not the issue, im completely understanding and fine with that issue But...

My fiancee feels that no mater the stage of the relationship you always have seperate lives and seperate friends and they do not intertwine with your relationship or marriage in anyway. He says its "DR. recomended" that we have completely seperate lives. to the point that i never see or speak to his friends.

I want to know your opinions on whats normal and healthy for a married relationship.

[open to ideas]

Well I think that it is kind of over kill for you never to meet his friends but your friends and his do not need to be friends. Just that your friends include him and his you. But he has reasons why he wants his friends never to see you or you to never see them. You could find out why that is and maybe understand his thoughts better.

[Luvs2plzU]

I've read your postings....I would seriously suggest a trip to a marriage counsellor or couples therapist first off...BEFORE you get married, so the two of you can get some common ground rules on the sheet...and most important...both be able to TOTALLY understand each others expectations!!...do this ASAP.....here's a little tip from a guy who "never had time...because I was so busy building my business's"....he'll give you the old I don't have time right now...let me tell you....YOU WILL MAKE TIME WHEN IT IS TOO DAMN LATE!!.....so he or you can pretend you don't have time in your schedule at this moment...but trust me,,if you get married and it doesn't work out...you'll be making LOTS of time to fix it or get out of it...and somehow you find time to deal with the crisis...so do some advanced therapy instead of crisis management therapy!!..

[dancingdoc2]

> He says its "DR. recomended" that we have completely seperate lives...that i never see or speak to his friends.**

My question to myself is "what is he trying to hide?" Please do not be so niave. The boy is trying to snooker you.

Not too many decades ago in times when women were stay at home moms and dads were the sole provider, or a family worked the farm together, it was not unusual for women to loose their identity and to think of themselves not only as Mrs. John Q. Smith, but to be a part of him and not really a separate individual. In those times when a husband died, so too did a big part of the wife because she had lost her individuality and separateness. In recent times this has changed and wives are more autonomous.

Over the years I have observed several younger married men off doing their thing, hanging with the guys to the exclusion of their wife, child(ren), and family life/obligations. It is not hard to observe a young wife with child home alone or sitting on the front stoop while her man socializes without her direct involvement for hours. Now that many families live in apartments and have no yard to keep up or home repairs to make, there is more time to devote to self or family. In at least one reply during the past couple of days i related that in part a successful relationship is built upon the efforts of two autonomous individuals to decide to join forces for the common good, or words to that effect.

It should be the couple's priority that family comes first be you a laborer, office worker, or workalcoholic professional, whatever. I realize that it is more often than not today's norm to have two incomes in order to provide for the family, yet I also find it grossly wrong to have children raised by paid strangers--babysitters whose wage or care cost is sometimes most of what the spouse earns.

> My fiancee feels that no mater the stage of the relationship you always have seperate lives and seperate friends and they do not intertwine with your relationship or marriage in anyway.

This is wrong on so many levels.

It is a healthy thing for a husband and a wife to have friends and activities specific to each. That "never the twain shall meet" is suspect. A couple should have individual friends and relationships as well as joint friends with whom you do things with as a couple. These joint relationships may involve one or more of their individual friends and spouses, or not. It is not unusual for family friends to be comprised of one or more of each other's as well a group of friends cultivated jointly.

Here is the hierachy according to me:
1. Best friends (one male and one female)
2. Close friends
3. Friends in general
4. Acquaintences

Each of you should know those people in the other's first three categories. Whether or not you interact with any of them is not what matters.

> My opinion is that when your daiting it is perfectly normal to have seperate lives and seperate friends and then when you want to spend time you go out on dates with your prospective other. But i also feel that when a relationship is more serious and you are married that Your lives in away are not quite as seperate

I agree and just want to add that as a couple's relationship becomes more unified, we tend to draw some of our friends into it to be somewhat apart of it to one degree or another. Unless you plan to be married before a Justice of the Peace with a court clerk as witness, where does your fiance believe Bride's Maids, Maids of Honor, Best Man, Groom'smen all come from?

**If he believes the two of you should live separate lives then what is the point of being married?

I will give you one answer: So HE can have a warm place to stretch out, have his meals made for him, his laundry done, and, possibly to get some whoopie once in a while.

I agree with you and your observations. There is a real RED FLAG here that you should take very very seriously. Nuf said except to say L2P is spot on.

[papurdawl]

in response to open to ideas, its not that our friends get along its that i get along with his friends and he get along with mine and as a couple involve ourselves with our friends as a group in that way.
I completely agree with dancingdoc2, and those are all the points i've tried to make to him, but he wants none of it. He sticks with his belief that our lives should be seperate and so should our friends, especially our friends. I think its normal for married people to involve their wives/husbands in activities with friends, the more the merrier. obviously there are times when couples should spend time alone together. It seems like he wants the type of girlfriend/friend relationship that you have in the begining to be carried into our marriage. I dont want to stay at home and wait for him while hes not with friends and could have very well invited me. and its certainly not an issue with his friends, they love me , i'm like one of the guys. i just dont get it, and i dont know how to break it to him that his views on married relationships are wrong in this aspect. He views his relationship with one particular friend as strong as the relationship between him and i, to the point that i feel like hes in love with this guy and he just met him.... Sometimes i feel like he would leave me for this guy. Its deffinetly an uncomfortable feeling. the funny thing is this guy is married and like i said invites my fiancee and i over to spend time with him AND his wife.

[Jaysey]

Originally Posted by papurdawl

and those are all the points i've tried to make to him, but he wants none of it.

Bad sign! If he's not willing to compromise, that's not good.

[Luvs2plzU]

"they love me , i'm like one of the guys. i just dont get it, and i dont know how to break it to him that his views on married relationships are wrong in this aspect. He views his relationship with one particular friend as strong as the relationship between him and i, to the point that i feel like hes in love with this guy and he just met him.... Sometimes i feel like he would leave me for this guy. Its deffinetly an uncomfortable feeling. the funny thing is this guy is married and like i said invites my fiancee and i over to spend time with him AND his wife."
ever seen the movie Brokeback Mountain??....a disappointing movie...but do you see where YOU and HIM are going??...the difference between really good good buddies and a wife/girlfriend...is one of the above is getting you laid...pick which one it is??..and how important is that relationship??

[WallyLlama]

I'll pick up on what luvs is suggesting, I think...

The debate/discussion about relationships within (or around) your future marriage is mildly interesting, but there might be a more fundamental question worth asking.

What do you both want/expect from the marriage relationship? (This is different from what you are going to do or not do when you are married.)

Your discussing what goes on around the marriage, what happens in it? It is interesting that we often build relationships around what we WON'T do. So we end up with two people who (for example) decide not to cheat, but don't know or agree on what "being faithful" really means. It doesn't take much of that to get the focus on the rules and off the relationship.

Why do you both want to marry each other? Don't settle for "because I love you." If you can figure out the answer to that question, it gets a bit easier to make everything else fall into place.

This controversy is suggesting that your value and belief systems are fundamentally different... that shouldn't necessarily keep you from being in love and marrying each other, but you are going to need to figure out how you live with those differences.

[papurdawl]

I'm not really concerend about a sexual relationship wit him and other men, i know thats not an issue. I understand men need friends and the whole male bonding thing, but his views on male friendship and companionship seem odd. Like i said he wants a seperate friend and seperate life with that friend, thats not to say he doesnt want to spend some of his time with me. But as a married couple or soon to be married couple, what i see in other relationships and what i see as healthy is that you invite friends to hang out with you AND your wife, not for you to invite your wife to hang out with you and your friends, what im really saying is that theres a time and a place for your friends to be there and theres a time and a place for your friends to be there when your with your wife. I dont know how to make him see these points, its scarry and he gets really sensitive about it. It seems he needs an emotional or personal relationship with a man the same as you would if you were with a woman. His views are even to the point that now after three years of knowing his friends we are all pretty close, he has distanced himself from them because of my relationship with them, we dont talk about him behind his back so theres no issue there. He was relocated and met this guy derick, who by the way is his boss. He constantly talks about how great he is and how close they got so soon as if hes talking to someone about this awsome girl hey met. The guy is married and now that his wife has relocated with him doesnt spend as much time with doug, in reality the guy is using doug and hung out with him to pass the time. My fiancee doesnt get it. I want him to have friends but his view of male friends is a little strange. I just want to get advice on whats normal for married couples, opinions and also advice on how to talk to my fiancee about this.