I'm so glad you started sharing the back up columns on your blog, now that CL has dropped your column.

This advice is spot on.

I think the tricky part might be in determining if she's insecure or if she's got valid reasoning for not trusting her boyfriend. How do you know which one it is?

Insisting he doesn't have female friends is self-defeating. He will still have them, she just won't know about them. If I were her, I'd simply get to know his friends and keep my eyes open.

Nothing wrong with having single female friends, it's the context of what they are doing and where are they meeting up at.

Is he arranging to meet them when you are unavailable? Are they going to bars? Volunteering at the homeless shelter?
It depends why and what they are meeting for.

I wonder why she doesn't see this as an opportunity to make those single women friends of HERS, as well. If her boyfriend was interested in dating those women, presumably he already would be. But he is with the LW instead. When the guys in my little group of cycling buddies start dating women, I enjoy meeting them! It's a great way to meet new people.

@David M: "It depends why and what they are meeting for."

Spot on. LW, as long as he's keeping it above-board, you shouldn't have anything to worry about. So go ahead and let him have his friends. As Pirate Jo says, it gives you an opportunity to make new friends as well.

Emotion is a fleeting thing. Let your man (or woman) hang out with a "friend" for long enough, and you might find yourself losing your relationship to it.

Let? Let? snort. when I date I want to be my man's bedmate, partner, friend NOT a warden.

Let. hahahaha

Brian has a valid point. Friendships between men and women can get complicated, especially when you're spending a lot of time with someone you like and depending on them for emotional support. Sometimes friendships become more even when people don't intend for that to happen. But then, sometimes they don't. And you can't stop it from happening by putting your SO on a leash.

But Brian and Monica if someone does permit themselves to allow a friendship to develop into something else, then they werent really worth having a relationship with, eh?

Love and sex are choices. Infatuation, lust and using friends as ego-boosters happen, but acting on those whimzies is choice.

Cant bubblewrap and monitor people 24/7 if they choose soemthing else grieve, let it go and move on.

Cant bubblewrap and monitor people 24/7 if they choose soemthing else grieve, let it go and move on.

Of course not. That's why you have to take a chance that it will happen, because it might anyway. Just don't be stupid. If he and his bestest female friend are going to a bar alone after work and he comes home smelling like Sun-Ripened Raspberry body spray, it's not because she fell on top of him trying to protect him from crazy drunks.

Male/female friendships that go deeper than a lunch here and there can be complicated in ways same-gendered heterosexual friendships aren't. It's silly to ignore the possibilities.

Once you're in a relationship, and even more so when you're married, there are some activities that aren't appropriate anymore. Not saying one can't have single friends of the opposite sex anymore, but if one is frequently going out, just the two of them... even if there is nothing to be suspicious of, the spouse is gonna be suspicious.

Boyfriend of three years sounds bored and wants to stray. Why now, after 3 years does he all of a sudden want single, female friends?? If he really felt this way why hasn't he already go single female friends??

In a committed relationship, where each side has agreed to exclusivity?

Then, for guys, there are four types of women in the world: your SO, your daughter, your mom, and every other female. Treat them all well, but remember which category is which, and prioritize accordingly. If category 4 takes up your free time, category 1 will get a annoyed, and probably has a right to.

Same goes for gals. If you start to have guy "friends" (*cough* backup dude *cough*)you spend time with, don't be surprised if your SO decides to go find his own friends.

He probably didn't "suddenly" want single female friends. He's probably just tired of feeling like he has to report in who he hangs out with. He probably enjoys his female coworkers company, or fellow female hobbiests of whatever subject interests him.

Sure, if one or more of them are hot, he'll want to have sex with them. So what? Wanting & doing are two different things.

I don't tend to hang around female coworkers in my off time. We don't have much in common. But the girls who share some of my interests have overlapping social circles & activities, and I spend time with them, yes, without my wife.

She doesn't feel the need to "observe" or hang on to me. We share some social circles, but some we do not, no harm in that.

I disagree with Spartee, good catagorization, but not every minute of free time should belong to the significant other. Some of it is mine, some spent with other friends, some of them female. Yeah...category 1 should be annoyed if he gets off of work at 5 & doesn't come home until 9 or 10 day after day, and shoots off for weekends...always without her, but with friends of category 4. But seperate time is not only helpful, it is VITAL. Same for some differences in friendships & social circles.

This is where women smother men & drive them away. We NEED our "Mancaves" our private space, such as it were, we need to be able to have our own friends, our own time, our own spheres. The more you press yourselves into those things ladies, the less affectionate, appreciative, and the more resentful your mate will become.

Spartee, don't sisters, grandmas and aunts get a category?

Unless this letter is drastically edited, I'll say it *sounds* like he's trying to widen a gap between them; is feeling a bit cagey with the relationship perhaps. I wouldn't be surprised if the next thing she hears is: "I need some space."

He's warming her up the idea that he probably will want to start seeing other people soon and perhaps she should do the same.

"Boyfriend of three years sounds bored and wants to stray. Why now, after 3 years does he all of a sudden want single, female friends??"

Indeed; he's probably just getting tired of her being controlling and overbearing, and is testing the waters to see if a relationship with LW is still possible but with a bit more freedom. Likely she hasn't totally driven him away yet, as probably at this stage he still hopes the outcome can be positive, i.e. he probably still wants the relationship, just without that feeling that he's on a leash and under surveillance. Based on her letter, I don't think the reaction is going to be what he's hoping for. Men will usually put up with it for a little while but there's little you can do that's more of a turn-off to a man than saying things like "you are only allowed to see X with me 'as a couple'" (ugh) ... if you want to make yourself repulsive, you're doing the right thing. What makes women think they are allowed to control their SO like this? I've seen it so many times. Are there men who put up with it?

If he honestly can't be trusted, rather just dump him, because trying to control him won't work, it will have the opposite effect.

I put up with that type of behavior for a very long time, although not "see X ... couple" specifically. When I finally regained my senses, too much damage had been done. Funny thing is, she agrees she fucked up, but I'm sure I caused some of it too.

All couples are threesomes - s/he, (s)he and all the stuff between them.

"You have to teach people how to treat you."

Approach your relationship with the idea that you "let" or "don't let" your partner have certain friends, and anyone with self-respect (consequently, the kind of partner that's worth keeping) will walk right out of your life.

If you're "letting" or "not letting" your partner have certain friends, and he/she is okay with that, then they're not worth keeping anyway. You should hope he/she meets someone else. No self-respecting human being "lets" anyone else decide who he/she can and can't be friends with.

Funny, very nearly same thing happened to me back in 79 and the man in this incident is right behind me watching cage fights on tv as I type.
We'd just started dating, and he was honest, he said "um... er... I think since this thing is so new and we're both just out of relationships that we should see other people?"
"Ok with me" says I, and immediately called his best friend who was also a friend of mine and made plans to go drive our 4x4's waaaaay up in the woods alllll by ourselves so he could go on his date with this other girl who to this day I have no clue who it was, nor do I care.
How do you think that went over? He told me all the reasons I should NOT go up in the woods with his buddy to which I floored him by saying "hey, don't worry, we already had sex and we're just friends by mutual agreement. His mouth hit the floor and he shut up. He went to pick up his date and she stood him up because his angry ex girlfriend threatened to kick her butt. I went off with my guy friend and had a GREAT time. This type of dating was NEVER mentioned again.
LW, it's nice of him to so generously suggest that you can also have male friends. Trust me - it's easier for them to say it is ok than to watch it happen!
Three years in though, it sounds like he's looking to create some distance between you two so good luck with that! I would be using condoms when I had sex with him from now on if I was you, and I would definitely start calling his single friends and let them know that hey, it's all good, lets go out for buddy-beers while your (I use that term loosely) guy is out with his girl-friends!