Greetings,<BR>I am having a problem with my mate. Before we were together, I had very strong bonds with my friends. We met weekly for coffee and occaisionaly for a bbq or other group get-togther. They were fulfilling my emotional needs for recreational companionship. <BR>Now, my wife says she doesnt want me to spend any time with them. She resents that I want to see them at all, saying that "if you loved me, you would want to spend all your time with me". I do want to spend time with her, and I want to include her whan I see my friends (most of whom she has thus-far refused to even meet). <BR>I need to know if it is a rational expectation on her part that I abandon all my friends (many of whom I have known for over 20 years), or if it is healthy that a person in a relationship maintain friendships and contact outside the marriage?<P>This has really got me down and she gets very upset when I try to express my concern and my own growing resentment.. please help!<BR>

Tread this one carefully.<P>Remember that your mate is supposed to fill your emotional needs, not your friends. You should spend at least 15 hours of quality time with your mate each week. QUALITY is the key here. As one who has learned the hard way, these concepts on the web site do work if you follow them and start early enough. I am glad to see that you are here before this seems to have really escalated much in your relationship. I'm not saying you are wrong with wanting to have relationships with your friends as well, it is important, more so for some people than others.<P>Try to figure out why your mate doesnt want to spend time with you and your friends. Do this gently and avoid arguing. Remember you can't engage in disrespectful judgements. Does she have relationships with friends. Is she a vey independant person? DIfferent people need that friendship in different amounts and in different ways. There is not a right and wrong here, but hopefully you can find a balance over time that you can both live with.<P>Matt

Sorry to butt in on your thread, Ghost, but I would like to hear more about what Matt has to say about friends. We may have a similar situation.<P>I have many friends outside of my marriage, and some of them are closer to me than my blood relations. My H cannot stand any of these people, and has run all but one of them off with his rude behaviour. He found ways to isolate me from my friends. I at one time believed that I shouldn't have friends that my husband couldn't stand, but I am beginning to wonder if it isn't a different situation when the problem is with ALL friends, not just one or two?

Thanks for the reply, Matt (and Meghann, you aren't butting in - Welcome!)<P>I understand that my W should be the fulfiller of my needs, and for the most part, she is. While she has never read Dr. Harley's book (I have) His Needs, Her Needs, we do discuss emotional needs fairly frequently. <P>As for the root of her feelings, I believe it may be due to her previous husband leaving her o ntheir wedding night to go spend the night with his friends. I can only imagine how painful that must have been. She denies that this is a factor, however. She has no close friends, and at times she has said she wished she had made some effort to make and keep good friendships, but that she believes that friends are more work and trouble than they are worth. I take a opposite view.. these friends of mine have been my friends for over 20 years.. we maintained contact through all those years of all of us being deployed around the globe in the military, and now we're all back home again safely and still as close as ever we were.. except that I have not participated in any activities with these men in 5 weeks now at my mate's request/insistence. I love her and want to work on this, but I am beginning to lose hope.. and I feel like a part of me is dieing inside. If I am forced to choose between them and her, I wil choose her, but I am terrified at the resentment I know this will cause to form in me.<P>We're still discussing it infrequently, and I am trying to stick by Dr. Harley's advice and hope for the best.<P>Meghann, I wish you the best of luck in your situation, and I encourage you to do whatever you have to do to keep the love alive with your H, even if it means losing your friends. Hopefully, for both of us, it won't come to that.<BR>

To here anyone suggest that friends are more time and trouble than they are worth is a sad and potentially troubling things- all relationships require giving of time, and they can involve some trouble, but then, when we need help or support ourselves, if we don't have friends and family that we've "invested" in, where are we left?<BR> I have strong feelings personally about friends because my blood family was small, and by any reasonable standards pretty dysfunctional. I have friends of 20 years+ that essentially are part of my extended family; even my daughter looks at them that way. <BR> Matt is right in that negotiating issues like this will be most successful if you can use Dr. Harley's principles; avoid lovebusters, adhere to the policy of joint agreement, etc. Maybe there's a way you can show your spouse that she can benefit from your friendships, also. Perhaps she was attracted to you because of your personality and values which encourage friendship. Possibly there's a way you can explore her feelings and past experiences about friendships, in a non-threatening way, that would get her to open up about her feelings, and give you more insight- and possibly herself as well. Good luck.