Is Your Spouse Spending Too Much Time with a Friend of the Opposite Sex?
Are you worried that your spouse is spending too much time with an inappropriate friendship? For example, is your wife really close to the neighbor guy but says they’re just friends or his your husband really close to a co-worker, but he’s says there’s nothing going on?
Do you feel like your spouse is getting closer and closer to this friend and drifting farther and farther away from you? You’re right to be worried about it. What can start as a friendship can grow into what’s called an “emotional affair,” where the spouse gets more and more involved and invested in this outside relationship even though there’s no physical intimacy.
Did you know that 95% of affairs happen because emotional needs are not being met in the relationship? (even for men!)
When a spouse gets a significant portion of their emotional needs outside of the relationship, it can put the marriage in extreme jeopardy. The bottom line is that when you are married you should never be close friends with someone of the opposite sex who is not just as close to your spouse.
If you find you’re in this situation, and you’re not comfortable talking about the issue directly, here’s another approach that can help.
To the best of your ability, involve yourself in as many portions of your spouse’s life as you can and get to know your spouse’s friends. Have a barbeque for their co-workers and get to know them. Prioritize your work schedule so that you can attend functions at your kid’s school and meet your spouse's friends. And even if you have no interest in joining his activities, become involved by cheering him on. And last but not least, simply talk to each other. “How was your day?” “How's that project going at work?” “Who won the soccer game?” By doing this, you ensure that you are involved in the major parts of your partner's life and decrease the chances of someone else winning their attention.
Stay Connected By Being Involved In Each Other’s Lives
This is not meant to give permission for one partner to hover over the other. I simply mean for the two of you to happily become involved in each other’s' lives.
To make sure you’re meeting each other’s needs and protecting your marriage from inappropriate friendships, invest in your marriage and learn the skills
The Bible does not forbid close friendships between men and women. As Christians, however, there are some principles that we would be wise to heed. Married people especially need to be wary of friendships with members of the opposite sex because temptations are more likely to arise when there are marital problems. If a man’s best friend is a woman who is not his wife, he is likely to share these problems with her, which can lead to an unhealthy emotional attachment. The same holds true for a woman who has as a best friend a man who is not her husband.
Most married men (or women) who have affairs don’t purposely go out to find a romantic interest outside of their marriage. Many people say, “I didn’t mean for it to happen; it just happened.” But these things “just happen” when we “play with fire” and put ourselves in situations that are difficult to control. When we feel a spouse is not attentive to our needs, we can easily feel that we have “fallen in love” with someone else who does give us the attention we crave. When we feel ignored or under-appreciated by a spouse, we should communicate our struggles with the spouse and avoid the danger of seeking comfort elsewhere.
Even a marriage that is built on a foundation of faith in Christ and has relatively few problems is not immune to extra-marital temptations. This is why the Bible does not tell us to stick around and try to fight temptation, but to flee from it like we do from all "youthful lusts" (2 Timothy 2:22). Trying to fight temptation seems to become especially difficult when it comes to matters of the heart or the lusts of the flesh. First Corinthians 6:18 tells us that we need to run away from sexual sin, because it is much easier to run away from temptation than to stay and fight it.
Married men and women should carefully avoid putting themselves in compromising situations when it comes to the opposite sex. If they are seen together in public, it will give the wrong impression. If they are alone on the phone or in person, they will subject themselves to the temptation of an emotional or physical affair. The Bible tells us that everything we do should be for the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31), so the wise thing would be to stick to visiting as couples or "double dating" with other married couples, as opposed to risking the complications associated with close friendships with the opposite sex.
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