Man's Wife Wants Him To End All Contact With His Female Best Friend Because Of The Birthday Gift She Gave Him
Can men and women really just be friends?
wavebreakmedia | Shutterstock Friendships between men and women can be tricky. There are plenty who argue that opposite-sex friends are no big deal, and just as many who say that one person will always catch feelings. But what happens when one person in the friendship is married, and their spouse is not easygoing about the adage, "We're just friends?"
An anonymous man posted to Reddit’s “Am I Wrong?” forum with this exact dilemma. He was looking to get some advice after his wife told him it was time to cut off his “girl best friend.”
A man was left wondering if he was in the wrong after he refused to end all contact with his female best friend at his wife’s request.
“My wife and I have been married for five years and together for 10,” he began. “Growing up, I was really close friends with my best friend Emma, as she was my next-door neighbor. We did a lot of things together and we were pretty much like adopted siblings.”
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“We maintained our friendship through adulthood, and Emma was even best woman at my wedding,” he continued. “My wife and Emma are also friends; they’re not super close but they get along well.”
Recently, the man’s mother unearthed a photo from his childhood that seemed perfectly innocent and acceptable at first.
“A few months ago, my mom showed me a pic from childhood she took of me and Emma,” he said. “Emma and I were kids in the pic, but that was honestly the cutest pic I have ever seen, because in the pic I was showing Emma the stars in the sky at night and pointing towards it, and Emma was just laying on the ground and smiling and looking at me.” He added, “I showed both my wife and Emma the pic and they both thought it was really cute too.”
The photo served as nothing more than a nice memory until the man’s birthday.“My birthday was yesterday, and we had a small party where we invited some friends from our friend group,” he stated. “When I unwrapped Emma’s gift, it was a framed pic of that childhood photo of me and her. Emma told me she made a framed pic for herself too and she hung it on her wall.”
“Everyone thought it was a really cool gift,” he insisted. “However, when I spoke to my wife later that night, she told me to cut off contact with Emma because she thought it was a really inappropriate gift.”
The man didn’t understand why his wife felt that way. “I was shocked and asked my wife why, because this was a pic of two kids playing on the grass, two kids who are like siblings,” he said. “I told my wife I wasn’t going to cut off contact with Emma, and that maybe she was just drunk and needed to cool it off.”
Is it possible for men and women to simply be friends?
This man certainly believes he and Emma are just friends, but it seems like his wife thinks there is more to the story. A study published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships addressed this very topic. Scientific American summarized the findings by saying that men were more attracted to female friends than the reverse, and they believed that their female friends were equally attracted to them even though they were not.
It seems, based on what the researchers discovered, that it is actually incredibly hard for men and women to just be friends and nothing more.
Relationship expert Esther Perel disagrees, however. She took to X to argue that "with good communication, boundaries, expectations and an open mind," there's no reason why opposite-sex friendships can't flourish.
Commenters believed the wife was right to put her foot down about her husband's childhood friend.
Other Redditors had a difficult time wrapping their minds around Emma’s gift, and most concluded it really wasn’t appropriate. One commenter asked if the man had ever had any kind of romantic relationship with Emma. He had an interesting answer.
Luiz Woellner Fotografia | Pexels
“We were physically close in the sense that we used to cuddle, give back rubs, fall asleep together, etc, but that was all before I met my wife,” he replied. That certainly seems like a more than friendly picture.
While it may be possible for some men and women to just be friends, it doesn’t seem like that’s the case for Emma and this man. Perhaps cutting her out completely isn't the answer, but clear boundaries do need to be set so everyone is comfortable, especially his wife.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.