Should this be happening in a dating relationship?

[chevalier]

At the risk of appearing to ‘protest too much’ (argue a bit too forcefully for good taste), what’s perhaps a little more difficult to see at first glance (because of adopting one party’s perspective as opposed to an impartial bystander’s) the ultimatum goes both ways:

A says: You gotta pick between your friend and me, you can’t have both.
B says: You gotta pick between me + my friend, or no me at all.

Effectively each party is expecting to get his or her way and holding the other party hostage.

Emotional blackmail and lack of willingness to co-operate, adapt and compromise can be present on both sides, hence things aren’t as simple as ultimatums / telling what to do = taboo.

Naturally, one could always use cotton-wrap politically correct language such ‘I am concerned but I respect your decision, which is yours only to make’ etc., but artificial communication is not really a solution to communication issues and especially flattery achieves nothing, including lip service to secular cult of glorified individualism that turns into egoism, which is not really compatible with Christian morality anyway.

But I’m not even arguing about the balance of collectivism vs individualism here, only that the ultimatum-giving is present on both sides of any such dispute.

 

[Kay_Cee]

A few years after I married, I started having trouble with my husband’s best friend.

Whenever this guy would call on the phone, my husband would drop everything to talk to him for an hour or more. Dinners went cold. Television shows got paused, then turned off to watch later. Whatever my husband and I (or our children) were doing at the moment got shoved aside in favor of this guy.

I wouldn’t have minded so much except that this “friend” was spreading a lot of lies about me, lies so toxic they cost me friendships. I found out about the lies when he tried to convince my own sister of them (she, fortunately, knew me better).

I asked my husband to speak to his friend and set him straight, but he refused, saying, “That’s just his way.”

I never asked my husband to give up his friend. Instead, I bit my tongue and prayed for the guy.

Then one day we came home from a vacation to a message on our answering machine that the friend had died–in his home out in the desert, all alone. The body wasn’t even found for days. My husband was devastated. It was one of the few times I’ve seen him cry.

I’m glad I didn’t insist on him giving up his friend, regardless of what it cost me and is still costing me (I have never recovered those friendships that were stolen from me). Instead, it allowed me to take the pain the guy caused me and offer it up for the sake of his soul. And that is far more precious than anything I’ve lost.

 

[ToeInTheWater]

I’m fairly sure one of my male friends cut back a lot on the level of friendship, because of concerns his wife had; though I think much of it was just inevitable because of differences we already had regarding politics and other beliefs and having less in common as our lives have gone on.

It seems that in some marriages it’s a given that all friends have to be “friends of the couple” and there has to be some kind of mutual agreement to screen all friends for appropriateness. Not all marriages are that way, though. Indeed, it seems that traditionally the idea of a married couple being “best friends” was not a thing, and people were expected to have same-sex friends to relate to them in ways a spouse just couldn’t – but that was when men and women were expected to have very “separate spheres” in society.

On the other hand, a marriage relationship is much different than a dating relationship. I guess it depends on how serious such a relationship is, and how valid the objection to a particular friend is. “I don’t want you to hang out with Bill because he drinks and drives” is different from “I don’t want you to hang out with Bob because he has long hair”.

 

[EasterJoy]

Well, if you’re dating someone who cannot resist sleeping around with their friends, they aren’t in a position for a good Catholic marriage.

Then there’s the other side where people are paranoid jealous which isn’t good either.

But I have made it clear there is behavior I will not tolerate and allow it exist under the guise of “friendship”.

My point is that if you’re dating someone who cannot resist sleeping around with their friends, you don’t say, “them or me.” You say, “we are not a good match.” You are of course going to have to negotiate differences in what is and is not agreeable to each of you, but you don’t treat someone like a “fixer-upper.” That is not just inappropriate. It is futile.

You can say, “I’m not a big fan of John. He’s crude, and when you spend time with him you get more crude, too.” You don’t say “John or me. Decide.”

 

[LaughingBoy1503]

should a boyfriend or girlfriend tell the person that they are dating who they are allowed to have as friends?

I’m not in a relationship, but out of the people that I know who are, this sort of thing is quite common. if the boyfriend or girlfriend doen’st like a friend of thei person they are dating, then they give a “pick me or them” type of scenario.

does it matter if the points they bring up are valid? like maybe the person is a bad influence? I don’t really think I would like to be told who I could or couldn’t have as friend. I mean my parents have done that, but that’s a different story

what do you guys think?

It is surprising to me how many couples (Or one person in the couple) actually operate like this. In my humble opinion it does not even matter if someone I am dating were to want me to choose between them or a friend if that friend is not really doing anything wrong. I would be worried that someone wants to have that much control over me and I would wonder how else are they going to try to force their will upon me. Is this person a control freak? Possessive? Just does not get along with anyone? I would be asking those questions.

 

[EasterJoy]

I’m fairly sure one of my male friends cut back a lot on the level of friendship, because of concerns his wife had; though I think much of it was just inevitable because of differences we already had regarding politics and other beliefs and having less in common as our lives have gone on.

It seems that in some marriages it’s a given that all friends have to be “friends of the couple” and there has to be some kind of mutual agreement to screen all friends for appropriateness. Not all marriages are that way, though. Indeed, it seems that traditionally the idea of a married couple being “best friends” was not a thing, and people were expected to have same-sex friends to relate to them in ways a spouse just couldn’t – but that was when men and women were expected to have very “separate spheres” in society.

On the other hand, a marriage relationship is much different than a dating relationship. I guess it depends on how serious such a relationship is, and how valid the objection to a particular friend is. “I don’t want you to hang out with Bill because he drinks and drives” is different from “I don’t want you to hang out with Bob because he has long hair”.

Marital social lives also seem to be so much more time-limited that there is barely enough time for the friends the couple agrees on, let alone those that one of the two doesn’t enjoy that much.