My wife and I are happily married for almost a year now. We both also maintain several freindships, some lifelong, from our single lives.<P>I've always known that a certain subset of her friends are not happily married or are in similarly unhappy relationships (in and out would be more accurate). This group loves to get together, drink, and bad-mouth their men non-stop. Some of this is in front of the kids.<P>My wife doesn't participate in any of this, and is usually the one to change the topic (or try to) when it gets too much. She says she just is very forgiving about her friends and sees the good in them over anything else.<P>I love that she is noble and loyal, but I find unpleasant that her friends continually try to drag her into their chaos. I am not friends with any of their husbands/boyfriends.<P>Am I reasonable in asking her to reconsider the time spent with them? I'd never ask her to do anything specific...I just want her to think about it from a different perspective. What about when we have kids (soon)?<P>I know these women aren't bad people; I just find their habits unpleasant and ultimately destructive. Thoughts?

It is never unreasonable to talk with your W about something that is troubling you. Just make sure you don't make demands. If you haven't already done so read about the Policy of Joint Agreement (POJA) on this web site. This policy if agreed to can be the basis for what you, both together, decide to do about this situation.<P>I would make sure that in your discussion you keep the "main thing" the "main thing". By that I mean an open and honest relationship. You want to be able to talk through things that are of concern. If something bothers your W, that fact alone should make it bother you and visa versa. Talk about how you would want her to tell you if she thought you had a friend that was an unhealthy influence.<P>I had the diffucult task of having to ask my wife to quite a part time job because of the unhealthy atmosphere and realtionships involved. Now mind you we agreed to the job when she took it. But it became clear to me after about a year that the job and all that went with it were hurting our marriage and family relationships. There were many complicating issues involved too.<P>1.) the person she worked for was a neighbor<BR>2.) the person she worked for was a friend<BR>3.) the person she worked for's husband was my friend<P>The problems in the work realtionships were:<BR>1.) Lack of honesty<BR>2.) Unethical business practices that actually stole money from my W cut of the profits.<BR>3.) W was blamed if anything went wrong<BR>4.) Lack of dependability of the boss.<P>Now my W knew she needed to get out of the realtionship/job before I brought it up. I just helped her come up with the words to use to quite without pointing fingers and doing all we could to be sure the company would be solvent after her departure. (My w waived her right to about $10,000 in profits. The process of seeing the problem and actually getting out of it gracefully took nearly six months. My W is now grateful that I pressed the issue. She is a much happier person and no amount of money is worth what it was doing to our family.<P>I recite all this to simply point out that your w probably already knows these relationships are unhealthy she may just need some help easing herself out of them. <P>Possible Options might be:<P>1.) Bring you along to these gatherings.<BR>(that should to put a chill in the husband/boy friend bashing)<BR>2.) Gradually have your W attend fewer and fewer of these little parties.<BR>3.) Help your W develop responses for when the tone turns ugly the next time. (My W favorite is "I like my husband". Huband bashers hate a happy wife!)<BR>4.) Come to an agreement now that you will not expose your children to this kind of behavior.<P>Hope some of this helps!<P>

Friendships are hard. We each want to be first in our mate's life...and really the spouse should always be first...even before children.<P>Unfortunately most people are in relationships that are not very healthy or happy. Most of my F's guy friends are down on women and some are in relationships with women they don't even love "just for the sex." He lived like that once too...but not any more. So it can intimidate me at times. I know how you feel. They roll their eyes and bad mouth their partners engaging in generalizations about "men" or "women."<P>F and I live together and truly enjoy one another's company (sounds like you and your W) and so he is with me mostly but I hear a lot of the friend's talk....They make fun of him for being "whiped." He has said they are just jealous that he won't join in their moaning and talk about how bad I am. Ironically these men were my friends before we met...I was the little sister until I became the F of their friend and they were left single.<P>I don't know if this will help you....it helped us:<P>1.) we agreed that we will always be honest about our friendships and if our mate is uncomfortable we will try to find middle ground that works for us both.<P>2.) we will NEVER bemoan our relationship or one another to our friends. If we need help fising something we go to a pastor or a counselor not to friends who can/will miscontrue that for total unhappiness or use it as an opportunity to begin man or woman bashing.<P>3.) we will neither one take part in man or woman bashing and will be the voice of reason and consideration with our friends.<P>4.) we will never ever bad mouth one another or give away secrets or disparage our partner in any way.<P>Yes...we really made all of this up in response to just the kind of situations you are talking about. I know I have kept my word and he has kept his and we have both kept our friends. As for the kids...that is another matter and I wouldn't want mine hearing that trash talk either....that will require more thought and some adaptation.<P>Good luck<BR>

Thanks, all.<P>I'm grateful we really don't even have a problem with this...or much else, really...but I am grateful to hear you both talk about how you've discussed this with mates before it becomes a problem.<P>I guess since I've always known the destructive side of this dynamic, I think I would just like my wife to consider that aspect as well. At the same time, I have learned from her how nice it is to be loyal and forgiving to friends...<P>I guess we both win.<P>peace