Really don't want to post this question here but want the perspective of married men...
I(34M) have been seeing my(33F) GF/plate for a little over 4 months. She has potential to be what I perceive as a good wife/mom, eventually. She has a good career as a therapist. 1 kid from a previous marriage(she is a widow). She's good at communicating, mature, patient, hardly drinks and doesn't use any drugs. To me she has potential.
Here's the problem... She has quite a few male friends. I was ok with that at first. Until I found out one of her "best friends" was a guy she had a brief relationship with after her husband passed. The old shoulder to cry on...she said they dated for a few months and it didn't work out so they went back to being friends. Obviously I was not ok with that. I didn't give her an ultimatum, but I pretty much told her she can continue to be friends with him, and I'm sure she'll find someone that's ok with that situation, but it isn't me. It took probably about a month, but she ended up cutting ties with that friend.
Since then I haven't been sure how I should continue with her. She's already saying she loves me. She's always making plans to see me. We live an hour away from each other so we mostly see each other on the weekends, but she's been consistent. I kept my other plates because I'm not to the point where I'm ready to go all in. Especially when I see potential red flags already. I've discussed this with her already and she knows how I feel about this whole situation. I told her I'm not into putting blind trust into a situation like that, and it's just too extra, but I will try because she has potential. She's insisting that I can trust her, she's never had feelings for any of her other male friends, and she only wants me.
I know that relationships are hard, I know marriage is even harder. I do see the potential to have a relationship with her, but I keep thinking what's going to happen 5 years from now when we're used to each other. Why make the relationship harder by having male and female friends? The other thing is the fact she has shown she can't just be friends with men. She took a guy she knew for a long time out of the friend zone, and placed him back in, so who's to say it won't happen again. This has been a deal breaker for me in the past, and normally I wouldn't consider taking a woman with male friends serious, but I see potential in her. I'm not saying she can never talk to other men, but the idea of another man having access to my girlfriend whenever he wants through text, phone calls doesn't sit well with me. Normally it's pretty easy to tell when a female needs validation and attention from the opposite sex, but because I don't have social media I can't glance at her pages to see if that's what this is.
Edit: The question is how do you guys feel about your partners having guy friends.
[–]Ok-we_will_see 70 points71 points72 points (2 children) | Copy Link
[–]ughhhhwhocares 35 points36 points37 points (0 children) | Copy Link
[–]Praexology 19 points20 points21 points (0 children) | Copy Link
[–]Aubrey_D_Graham 34 points35 points36 points (1 child) | Copy Link
[–]jack_Me_hoffman 1 point2 points3 points (0 children) | Copy Link
[–]BoringAndSucks 26 points27 points28 points (0 children) | Copy Link
[–]businessstravel 24 points25 points26 points (0 children) | Copy Link
[–]2wo2wo3hree 16 points17 points18 points (1 child) | Copy Link
[–]businessstravel 9 points10 points11 points (0 children) | Copy Link
[–]404FoxNotFound 11 points12 points13 points (0 children) | Copy Link
[–]man_in_the_worldRed Beret 8 points9 points10 points (1 child) | Copy Link
[–]J-VV-R 2 points3 points4 points (0 children) | Copy Link
[–]Remington-Holmes 10 points11 points12 points (0 children) | Copy Link
[–]Praexology 8 points9 points10 points (2 children) | Copy Link
[–]businessstravel 2 points3 points4 points (1 child) | Copy Link
[–]Praexology 1 point2 points3 points (0 children) | Copy Link
[–]MoonLandingHoaxer 9 points10 points11 points (0 children) | Copy Link
[–]crystalballfog 6 points7 points8 points (0 children) | Copy Link
[–]Tyred_BiggumsDon't let these gypsy women fool you 7 points8 points9 points (0 children) | Copy Link
[–]james-the-professor 3 points4 points5 points (0 children) | Copy Link
[–]wkndatbernardus 3 points4 points5 points (0 children) | Copy Link
[–]jordom8 2 points3 points4 points (0 children) | Copy Link
[–]ughhhhwhocares -2 points-1 points0 points (0 children) | Copy Link
[–]steadfastkingdom 0 points1 point2 points (0 children) | Copy Link