Can Men and Women Be Platonic Friends?

amother

Sun, Jun 09 2013, 4:54 pm

Keeping a relationship platonic takes a tremendous amount of work.

I have one male friend.

a. My dh knows about him

b. I tell my dh when we speak

c. We are both careful to limit our discussions to neutral topics, basically work and gardening

d. I do not share any intimate details of my private life with him

e. I only meet him in person with my dh by my side

f. I only talk to him because I have tremendous anxiety. I basically am using him as a therapist, and he shares his work anxieties with me. If I don't feel the need to talk to him, then I try to avoid speaking to him.

Even so,

g. I try to limit our conversations to ten minutes a day or less.

That being said, I don't recommend it.

amother

Sun, Jun 09 2013, 5:08 pm

amother wrote:

One more thing, the only time our conversation exceeds 10 minutes a day and goes into the 13 minute range is if I have had a really bad day, like I said something very stupid because of my ADHD and got into trouble and I'm too scared to tell my dh about it. My dh loves me, but if he knew how often I say stupid things he might be too embarrassed to be with me anymore.

So my relationship is my crutch to be able to face my dh and go on having a smooth marriage and him not knowing what stupid things I did so he can still respect me.

But it still takes a tremendous amount of self-control to keep this platonic and I have been careful because I don't want to burn in hell.

anonymrs

Sun, Jun 09 2013, 6:10 pm

amother wrote:

Sweetheart, I'm glad you realize that not everything needs to be repeated to our dhs and I'm glad that you are working on keeping your marriage happy and healthy. It sounds from your post that you do have some sort of feelings for this male friend of yours which you are working on keeping in check. Maybe you can speak with a female friend and/or therapist to discuss these type of things? I know you have the best of intentions with this friendship though I'm afraid that it really doesn't sound healthy. Best of luck!

amother

Sun, Jun 09 2013, 6:51 pm

anonymrs wrote:

I am now limiting our chats to 3 times a week. It is platonic, and it takes work to keep it that way.

I have paid $150 per session to see two different therapists. You can only speak to the therapist at the time you are there, and not any time an "emergency" happens. Because of my anxiety and my unpredictable ADHD, I never know when an emergency will come up. Also, I didn't find the therapists recommendations helpful. It's a very nice thing to say "see a therapist" but it didn't work for me.

I have posted some of my problems on imamother. As wonderful as this site is, there will always be one judgmental person to knock you down, if not several. But those are the risks of posting your problems for everyone to see.