Married opposite sex friends?

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CCC 2347 The virtue of chastity blossoms in friendship. It shows the disciple how to follow and imitate him who has chosen us as his friends, who has given himself totally to us and allows us to participate in his divine estate. Chastity is a promise of immortality.
Chastity is expressed notably in friendship with one’s neighbor. Whether it develops between persons of the same or** opposite** sex, friendship represents a great good for all. It leads to spiritual communion.

The catechism seems to say that friendships with men or women are a great good. It doesn’t seem to matter whether the friends are married or not.
If each person has a good marriage and is not neglecting their duties to their spouse and family:

  1. *] How close of friends can married folks be with members of the opposite sex?
    *]Can they be as close as if they were not married or perhaps even closer?
    *]Is there a limit on the amount of affection/feelings they can have for each other?

    Thanks,
 
My husband is my best friend. I love him with my entire heart and soul. He will always be my favorite person and the one whom I trust above all else here on earth!

That said, I have one especially close male friend. He and I speak on the phone almost daily, and we have a very jokey friendship that is a great deal of fun. He lives back in my hometown, so we only see each other when either I come home to visit my family and friends, or he chooses to fly out here. He is also good friends with my husband. He has a very strong faith background. We have never, ever experienced any sort of boundary problems whatsoever. My husband has never felt threatened by my friendship with this person. We aren’t affectionate toward each other, although we do hug upon seeing one another or when the other is leaving to fly home. He is not yet married, but definitely seeking out a future wife. I am often a sounding board for the many women that enter into his life. We have often talked about how we have a very brotherly-sisterly type of relationship. We argue, laugh, console and encourage. But he could NEVER replace my relationship with my husband–that is different altogether. My friend knows a great deal about me, my faith and my personal life. But I do not desire to know him as intimately as I know my husband. They are just two very different friendships!
 
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Konig:

  1. *] How close of friends can married folks be with members of the opposite sex?
    *]Can they be as close as if they were not married or perhaps even closer?
    *]Is there a limit on the amount of affection/feelings they can have for each other?

    Thanks,
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  1. I hope I can answer this to your satisfaction. I have been married for over 30 years, to my best friend. There are a handful of people, about a dozen, who I truly love. A love that, I would if required, give my life for. As a veteran of sunny south-east Asia, that is not just rhetoric, I would truly die for. Four are women, the other 8 are men. I love them as truly and purely as I pray God intends. I wish I loved more people this dearly, but, I fail God’s call miserably. My love for these people is completely appropriate. There is no sexuality or lust involved, it is truly love.
    To question #1, close enough to give your life for, that’s how close.
    To question #2, Why would you bring up marriage? We’re talking about love here, not sexual relations. The only difference between being married to one you love is that you may participate in the life giving gift with your spouse. You should of course love your spouse second only to God.
    To question #3, What do you mean by “affection/feelings”? if you’re referring to being “intimate” in a sexual context, the ONLY person you are permitted to even think about in that respect is your spouse.
    Don’t confuse love with sex.
 
Other than my wife, I have no close female friends, nor do I have any desire to make any. My close friends are all men, and I don’t feel as if I’m missing a thing.

YMMV.

🙂

– Mark L. Chance.
 
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Tom:
To question #2, Why would you bring up marriage? We’re talking about love here, not sexual relations. The only difference between being married to one you love is that you may participate in the life giving gift with your spouse. You should of course love your spouse second only to God.
To question #3, What do you mean by “affection/feelings”? if you’re referring to being “intimate” in a sexual context, the ONLY person you are permitted to even think about in that respect is your spouse.
Don’t confuse love with sex.
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RE marriage. I brought it up b/c since this friend and I are both married there is not a natural progression from friendship to marriage possible. I think it is easier to be better friends b/c the possibility of marriage is not there. IOW, we are just very good, close friends and no one is trying out to be be the other’s spouse.

RE affection feelings–Not sexual. FEELINGS. Affection. How much you can like or love someone. Not anything to do w/ sex.

Thank you for your reply!
 
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mlchance:
Other than my wife, I have no close female friends, nor do I have any desire to make any. My close friends are all men, and I don’t feel as if I’m missing a thing.
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To be honest, I didn’t search out female friends either. I did search for male friends but was not very successful. When I stopped looking for friends, I was blessed to make a few good friendships.

RE not missing a thing w/ female friends. Perhaps so for you. The friends that were most helpful in time of need here were predominantly female ones.
 
Don’t play with fire, unless you are willing to get burned! I have found that friendships between members of the opposite sex often lead to sexual intimacy (the source of the question), or the scandal of its appearance, or the jealousy of another, even if well hidden. The latter two you simply cannot avoid, and are a danger no matter how chaste and loving your intentions. Why would you rist hurting your spouse? Even if you are chaste, how can you know the thoughts of your friend? When you find out, it will be during a time of weakness, and it will be too late. Please ask for Jesus’ guidance in this. If it were me, and it is sometimes, I must restrict my interactions with this friend to public places and functions, and try always to have my spouse present, and number one in my esteem and confidence.

This might be an example of false equality. There is a great danger in our society of seeing members of the opposite sex as the same, to be treated the same. Feminism safeguards this notion zealously. It is false, and thank God for that.
 
I think a close friendship like this is one of life’s sweetest gifts. A love that is agape is worth striving for. It is a taste of heaven on earth. Certainly there are times that you must deal with eros. When you are cultivating God’s garden of spiritual love, sometimes you will need to pull weeds. The beauty and delight of the garden can be breathtaking, well worth the effort and sacrifice. I think God appreciates our efforts and delights in the beauty with us. I think it is in such a friendship that you can feel the awe of God’s love He shares with us so abundantly.
 
If it causes scandal, jealousy problems with the mate of the married one, or if their marriage is troubled, then the relationship should be dropped. It is necessary to take care. Generally, the chaste frinedship is healthy.
I must restrict my interactions with this friend to public places and functions
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Good advice. Those social controls can prevent things from getting out-of control.
 
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Konig:
CCC 2347 The virtue of chastity blossoms in friendship. It shows the disciple how to follow and imitate him who has chosen us as his friends, who has given himself totally to us and allows us to participate in his divine estate. Chastity is a promise of immortality.
Chastity is expressed notably in friendship with one’s neighbor. Whether it develops between persons of the same or** opposite** sex, friendship represents a great good for all. It leads to spiritual communion.

The catechism seems to say that friendships with men or women are a great good. It doesn’t seem to matter whether the friends are married or not.
If each person has a good marriage and is not neglecting their duties to their spouse and family:

  1. *]How close of friends can married folks be with members of the opposite sex?
    *]Can they be as close as if they were not married or perhaps even closer?
    *]Is there a limit on the amount of affection/feelings they can have for each other?

    Thanks,
Click to expand...

  1. If you’re asking “how close” and “is there a limit,” you’ve already gone beyond the definition of friendship. A true friendship includes the desire that the other reach Heaven. Any scenario which could compromise that goal would be precluded under the term “friendship.”
 
My first love and I are just platonic friends. We just email though, she is in OK and I’m in MD.
 
My husband made a friend of the opposite sex at work. While he is certain it is completely platonic, I have noticed that they behave in ways that he would never think of with his male friends. And that makes sense, because he is used to treating woman a certain way and men another. But the way he is used to treating women is a bit too much like dating. No matter how platonic they are sure they are, I was not comfortable with the type of time they spent together. He couldn’t understand my discomfort or why I felt threatened by the relationship, until I pointed out that he related to this woman in very different ways than he related to his men friends.

All of a sudden he saw my point. I told him I was not comfortable with him having any more or different contact with this woman, than he would with any of his other friends from work. They could have lunch together, e-mail and gossip about office situations, all that good stuff. But no dinners, no trips, nothing that looked an awful lot to me, my kids and folks at church like “dating”.

Things are much better now. Eventually he admitted that her husband was not really comfortable with the level of their friendship either.

Many of us first knew our spouses as friends. No matter how good we plan to be, when a man and woman really enjoy one another…feel genuine affection, it can be really hard to keep feelings from getting the better of us.

Please give thought to your spouses feelings and comfort level, and your children’s as well. My kids were starting to ask what was up with dad and that woman as well.

cheddar
 
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soccerDad:
Don’t play with fire, unless you are willing to get burned! I have found that friendships between members of the opposite sex often lead to sexual intimacy (the source of the question), or the scandal of its appearance, or the jealousy of another, even if well hidden. The latter two you simply cannot avoid, and are a danger no matter how chaste and loving your intentions. Why would you rist hurting your spouse? Even if you are chaste, how can you know the thoughts of your friend? When you find out, it will be during a time of weakness, and it will be too late. Please ask for Jesus’ guidance in this. If it were me, and it is sometimes, I must restrict my interactions with this friend to public places and functions, and try always to have my spouse present, and number one in my esteem and confidence.

This might be an example of false equality. There is a great danger in our society of seeing members of the opposite sex as the same, to be treated the same. Feminism safeguards this notion zealously. It is false, and thank God for that.
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I agree with ya 👍
 
I believe that it sets a good example to our child, he is comfortable having both boys and girls as friends, and does not think that every girl in his life must be a romantic interest. This is because he has seen mom and dad have good, real, platonic friendships with the opposite sex.
 
Maybe it depends on the person. I know me. Pretty well. There is no way I could ever have a deep, close friendship with a woman and not have it be dangerous.

Women are just plain different than men. Men react to women differently than they do to men.

I will go so far as to say that I believe that there are very few men out there who could be close friends with a woman and NOT have sexual tensions arise. I also would say that there are a LOT of men who would SAY that they are the exception to the above simply so they can continue to ENJOY that sexual tension (consciously or not).
 
It’s funny, my four year old son had a girl that he really enjoyed playing with. They got along very well, until she started talking about wanting to marry him. He got so stressed about it, he never wanted to play with her after that again. Kind of sweet and sad at the same time.

Cheddar, I think you did the right thing with your husband. Not forbidding him to talk to this woman who is a special friend, but putting some guidelines in place to keep things where they belong. This keeps you comfortable and keeps things out in the open, not forced underground.
 
From all the previous posts it is obvious that there is no pat answer. It depends, I think, first of all on what sort of a person you are. Not only in a moral sense, because it seems obvious that you are a moral person, but in a personality sort of way.

How do you look at members of the opposite sex in general? Is the most common first assessment that of their availability as a romantic interest? Does the thought of perhaps romance (not necessarily sex) a common reaction to the opposite sex? Are you attracted to many different individuals? Then I would say not to play with fire.

If you think of nearly everyone you meet as “just one of the guys” and rarely meet someone that would interest you romantically, then friendships are possible…if your friend is also like you.

Being a tomboy from day one, lots of my friends were/are guys. It takes a certain kind of man (and I don’t meet that type often) for me to be romantically attracted to him…and I realize that these are fire, so I remain at a distance if romance/marriage is not a possibility. Some of my guy friends are married. Their wives are my friends as much as they are. I realize that family has first priority over friendships, and so I make sure that time spent with friends does not take away from family time. That the wife is comfortable with the relationship is obvious when the wife asks me to go someplace with her husband because she either can’t make it or it is an activity that she doesn’t enjoy…like horseback riding. Has happened many times.

Use your head…avoid the occasion of sin. If you are unsure of the situation, that in itself should tell you that there is a problem.
 
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