Dear Demetria: My Married Friends Invite Their Husbands When We Hang Out

Dear Demetria:

"I'm single. A lot of my friends are married. I'll suggest getting together, and they'll say yes, only to hit me at the last minute with, "Hubby will be with me; is that all right?" Is it unrealistic of me to expect to still see my girls without their men tagging along?" —Anonymous

Your married friends are tripping and should know better. I mean, they weren't born married, and they've been in your shoes. So, no, you're not being unrealistic.

Single or married (now), this has happened to most of us. We're looking forward to a good kiki with the girls, and one of them shows up with her man. Even if he's the coolest partner ever, an unexpected husband (or beau) can be a mood killer for a ladies event. It's like, why is he here? The game ain't on? He doesn't have any friends? And real talk: We don't always converse the same when men are present.

It's bad if he just sits there looking like bored lump, and even worse if he wants to jump into the conversation, requiring a long-winded backstory to bring him up to speed or offering unsolicited advice about how to fix your issue, when all you wanted was your girlfriend to listen. Even worse than that is what happened to you. You showed up for one-on-one time with your girl, and ended up as the “plus one” on a date with your girl and your husband! That is not OK.

Some married couples take that "we are one" thing way too far. Yes, you're one family, and you're supposed to think in terms of what's best for "us, not me" and proceed as a unit, but that doesn't mean the couple has to be attached at the hip for every occasion. This may be how your friends operate, but this is not a universal outlook (by far).

That said, your friends are not entirely to blame here. Yes, they need better social skills, but you need better communication skills. When your friends have called last minute and asked to bring their spouses, you haven't been honest with how you feel. You've said yes and pretended that everything was cool when it is not. You're encouraging their behavior by pretending that it doesn't bother you.

Before you bail on your girls for asking you to be the third wheel, have a grown-up chat with each of them about what's bothering you. Admit that you haven't been completely honest about your feelings when it comes to hanging out with your friends and their husbands. Individually, remind your friends that you like their husbands and support their marriages. Say this first so that no one thinks what's coming next is a passive-aggressive way to diss their husbands. Then add that you miss having girl time, and sometimes you just want to hang out with your friends one-on-one.

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Ask Demetria: "My Bestie Slept With My FWB!"

Dear Demetria:

"My best friend of seven years slept with my “friend with benefits.” Yes, I have no claim to the man, but I let them both know prior to this incident—after they made out in front of me while drunk—that it made me uncomfortable. They both agreed to respect how I felt.

"Fast-forward two weeks: We all go out and have a couple drinks. Everyone crashes at my place. We wake up the next morning and she tells me they had sex in my house, on my couch, while I, other friends and my younger brother were sleeping not 50 feet away. I'm disgusted with both of them. How do I go about dealing with them? I feel like they both, mostly her, completely took advantage of my trust."

—Anonymous

Um ... what?

There is so much—so, so much—going on here that I don’t understand. It really seems as if you’re leaving out some critical details about lifestyle choices or sexuality that would make this story more cohesive.

Beating around the bush isn’t my strong suit, so let me just ask: Did you and your bestie of seven years ever have a threesome with your “friend with benefits,” or perhaps with other men prior to him? That is the only way this story even sort of makes sense.

If you and your friend are used to having threesomes or sharing guys in some fashion—just FYI, you wouldn’t be the first person to write in about it—then there would be a somewhat logical explanation for why she would make out with a guy you’re dating—or just having sex with—right in front of you. Her thought process would be something like, “We always share! So this is perfectly fine!”

Maybe she was warming him up for you and didn’t think she was out of line. That still wouldn’t explain why she had sex with him when you were sleeping just a few feet away and after you asked them not to, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

This, or something along these lines, has to be what’s at play. Because anybody else would have gone full HAM if she found her best friend and a guy she was having sex with making out. The general rule is that a best friend shouldn’t be kissing (or flirting with)—much less sleeping with—a man you’re dating unless she has permission. (Hey, some people get down like that.) It doesn’t matter if you don’t have a committed relationship with the guy and you’re both single.

I mean, it’s bold to go after your best friend’s sex buddy, period. But it’s huevos almighty to do it right up in front of your face, like, “Oh, I see you sitting there and I will pretend I don’t.”

Then you see this profound disrespect and you just say, “Hey, guys, don’t do that anymore”? I’m not saying you should have flipped tables. I am saying that no one would blame you if you did. I’m also saying that at the very moment you saw them making out, you should have ended your friendship and your sexual relationship, on the spot. That’s what most people would have done.

You chose not to, for whatever reason 99 percent of people will not understand. And 100 percent of people will never understand why you maintained both relationships and chose to go out drinking with them and then invited them home with you and didn’t sit up all night watching them. I’m extremely baffled by a lot in this story, but this part baffles me the most.

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Ask Demetria: My BFF Was Inappropriate with My Husband

Dear Demetria:

My best friend and I grew up with my now-husband of five years. Their relationship, as far as I know, has never been substantial. It’s the hi-and-bye type.

The first two years of our marriage, she lived with us. An incident occurred during that first year when he was showering and she went in for her morning rituals. (There was another bathroom in the house.) I told her I wasn’t comfortable with that scene; we talked about it and resolved it then.

Circle back to a few days ago (four years later): She tells me she called my husband for advice on a new phone (I knew this), and he didn’t seem to want to get off the phone with her. She says that they could have been great friends if I wasn’t insecure, and that she thinks I am insecure because she is smaller than I am. (My weight has increasingly gone up.) She also explains that she never saw him in a sexual way before.

I can understand that I may have handled the situation poorly, as far as making them uncomfortable or on guard with each other, and for that I do feel bad. But in my defense, she was never close to any of my boyfriends before, none of them had ever moved in with me or anything of the sort, and it never occurred to me that she wanted to develop a more substantial relationship with him. Their friendship had always been how it is now, touch and go. But now I’m partly confused and hurt as to why, four years later, she would basically hit me where it hurts about something that shouldn’t matter. Should it? —Anonymous

You’re a good friend. Or a really naive one. I can’t figure out which just yet. Maybe both.

Something about this story reminds me of Jill Scott’s character in Why Did I Get Married?—specifically the part about the best friend and the husband creeping. I’m not saying that your husband is up to something. I am directly, blatantly, saying that your friend is, and chick gotta go. You (and your husband) may have grown up with her, but she ain’t living right, boo. What does she mean, she never saw your husband “in a sexual way before”? Before? Does she see him that way now? I need answers. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Your bestie probably shouldn’t have been your bestie anymore after she entered the bathroom when your husband was showering. Anybody with basic common sense knows you don’t go around someone else’s husband when he’s naked. This is 2 + 2, not algebra. At best, you should have had a conversation about inappropriateness and suggested she find another place to live, because clearly the current situation isn’t working out too well. But really, the friendship should have received the ax and she should have been kicked out. That episode was no mistake. I mean, there was another bathroom in the house. Her actions were intentional and sloppy.

If you want to feel bad about how you handled it, feel bad that you were too tolerant. Most women in your position would have unceremoniously asked her to leave the house.

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Ask Demetria: My Friend Introduced Me to a Guy She Slept With (but Didn’t Tell Me)

 

Dear Demetria:

I’m dating a guy I met through a friend. She introduced him as a friend only but admitted that she used to find him attractive. When he approached me about spending time, I asked her if it was cool and she said, “Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?!” He later tells me they had sex once, but she never told me. Do I ask her about it? —Anonymous

Ooh. Just so you know, this is about to get so messy. You may need to let this fish go back to the pond if you want to keep your friendship.

It seems that your friend was more than just a friend to the guy she introduced you to. If what he said is true and they did have sex, I wonder why she just didn’t say that or at least tell you, “We hooked up once,” which implies a range of possibilities, when you asked about him. It’s something that most women would want to know about someone they’re dating.

Of course, there are some women who can have sex with someone with no feelings attached. It’s just sex. Those women also tend to be the type who would say, “Yeah, we had sex, but that’s all” if you inquired about dating someone they knew, and they would say it as matter-of-factly as they would an observation about water being wet. Your friend who breezed right over that interesting information is not that woman.

She liked him. She found him attractive. It didn’t work out, for whatever reason. That doesn’t make her a bad person. It does sound as if she’s trying to be that cool friend who’s pretending to be OK with her friend dating someone she slept with. I respect that. And she will be, too, until the guy takes a real interest in you—a direction he’s already moving in.

The guy you’re dating told you that he slept with your friend because it became apparent that you didn’t know. He knew that if you found out on the back end, you might bail on him. He wanted to be transparent, which your actual friend should have been.

You can ask her about it if you want. I don’t know what you hope to gain by doing so, however, other than possible confirmation or a fall deeper into the rabbit hole of this soon-to-be-crazier situation. The solution here boil down to this: Stop dating the guy and keep your friend, or keep dating him and watch things get messy. Those are your only two real choices.

I’ve been through this before. Many, many years ago my friend casually introduced a man to me by saying, “We’re just friends.” As he walked off, she snickered that he was her “former jump-off.”

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