Hello, MJ...I so love when someone writes such extensive comments. It makes me feel like we're having a conversation, that the topic is one that warrants more careful consideration. I wish you and I could grab coffee at a shop and girl talk. Your comments definitely made me clarify my own perspective, because in writing responses to you, I more clearly flesh out my own beliefs, you know?

I was thinking about what you wrote, that you thought that "having secrets" is "what you were trying to have here". It made me wish I had written more clearly to show what my friendship with my male best friend was like. A main thing I valued about my friendship was his wise counsel. Even when we were in college, he was just that friend who helped me see more clearly the solutions to various problems. In my mind, 'what I was trying to do' was to have access to a friend's very helpful guidance. It was especially helpful for me to get a 'masculine' perspective since I later worked in career fields (law enforcement, military), so having a male friend help me get insights was very needed at times. Sometimes I discussed sensitive topics about other people with my friend. It wasn't just 'my private personal info' that I didn't want my friend's wife to know; it was also other people's private personal info. I think it would be very upsetting for those people to know that my friend's wife had learned their private information (as I was). I think of it as 'need to know' info. I needed my friend to know the info in order to help me devise solutions. My friend's wife didn't need to know. It wasn't info that directly affected her in any way. So I didn't see it as 'keeping secrets'. I saw it as helping maintain people's privacy. If I had wanted to 'keep secret' info that affected her in anyway, that would definitely be wrong of me.

I get what you mean about letting some friendships with men 'wind down'. Before I got married, I went through a process where I double-checked to make sure any friendship I had with a man was truly a friendship, not a situation where the guy is being friends in hopes that we eventually become more. I think you've read some of my other pieces (thank you!) so know how strongly I feel about not having friendships with males if there's any sort of undercurrent of attraction or interest. The male friends I have are true friends. In many cases they're former colleagues--we went through a lot together, life-and-death kind of stuff, so we're not just going to not be friends because we're men and women, but I also won't be friends with a guy if there's a spark of interest within me or suspected to be within them. In my marriage/relationships, my husbands/boyfriends came to know these men--including my best friend--and very much understood the nature of these friendships, without having to be jealous or concerned, and understanding the mutual support we all provide to each other.

I can see how when male-female friendships aren’t handled well, that could definitely cause a lot of trouble in a marriage and then, as you said, not be “worth it”! If any girlfriend/wife of a male friend of mine expressed discomfort about his friendship with me, a woman, then I believe he needs to ditch his friendship with me. I’ve actually done that before—a male friend’s new girlfriend made it clear that she didn’t like that he had me as a friend, so I’m the one who said for us to stop being friends because he needed to prioritize his relationship. I do not ever want another woman to have to be worried about me in that regard. In my friendships with men, I make extra effort to get to know their womenfolk, and let them get to know me. They inevitably come to the conclusion, “Lee is not the kind of woman to be worried about in that regard.” They all end up approving and ‘blessing’ the friendship between their menfolk and me, just as my best friend’s wife did in this piece.

I hear what you're saying, that, to you, it seems "not fair to even ask a spouse not to tell their spouse something". I fully agree. I don’t believe I should ask a married person to not tell their spouse something, and I didn’t do that. But I did need to find out whether he intended to tell his wife stuff I told him, so I would know what I did and didn’t feel comfortable telling him. It was on me to not tell him stuff, not on him to not tell his wife stuff. It sounds like, in your marriage, that you and your husband believe that anything anyone tells you is not private, that if you don’t tell each other what friends said, that’s considered ‘keeping secrets’. If your husband’s friends know that, then they know to not tell him things if they don’t want you to know; your friends know to not tell you things if they don’t want your husband to know. In my marriage, we preferred for our friends to feel they could have a ‘safe place’ to vent, with the expectation of privacy. The agreement was that we absolutely told each other anything that could possibly affect each other, but that didn’t mean we ‘had’ to release all details of other people’s private confidences. If male friends want to tell me about highly sensitive problems they’re having about, say, impotence, I don’t think they’d feel comfortable if they knew another dude (my husband or boyfriend) found out. They probably wouldn’t tell me and then I couldn’t help them learn important psychological factors affecting impotence. So...maybe I’d tell my husband, “Yeah, I had a long talk with Roger today. He’s really struggling with some stuff” but I don’t have to risk Roger’s embarrassment of knowing my husband knew he was impotent, you know?

You asked an interesting question—whether or not I had evidence that his wife told other people the info she heard from her husband. I don’t. This is where I think my writing was possibly unclear about why this bothered me. I’m trying to think of some way to explain it, so forgive me for the lame analogy: If a person is known to shoot guns erratically, then I’m bothered when I know someone has given that person a loaded gun. I don’t need to see whether they do or don’t go shooting it; I’m bothered that they were given a loaded gun in the first place.

Your last comment made me quite sad that my writing led you to think that I didn’t like my best friend’s wife because I wished to have my best friend for myself. It reminds me how careful a thing writing is because we can accidentally lead readers to incorrect interpretations. I think…the only reason our friendship lasted 20 years was because we had zero interest in each other. We were friends before they became a couple. I guess ‘friend zoning’ is a thing, where someone likes someone but the person they like only wants to be friends, so then they are stuck in the friend zone but keep secretly hoping the friend will one day realize they’re meant to be. I wasn’t friend zoned in that situation, and I don’t let myself be friend zoned in general either. If I liked someone that doesn’t like me back, I am all about dignity. I would stop being around that person rather than torment myself by being around something I can’t have. I hope my writing conveyed how respectful of my friend's wife I was. I didn’t talk negatively about his wife to him. I didn't tell him that, though I trusted his discretion, I didn't trust hers. I didn't tell him of her reputation in our hometown as the gossip. When he figured out she was a very gossipy woman, he found out because he was with her. I was supportive of his relationship for 20 years. I hold them as a role model in the sense that they’re one of the few couples I knew who I truly believe will never get divorced, and I very much respect that. I was thankful that she was supportive of our friendship. I sometimes went on girl nights with her, making sure I simply supported their relationship, as a good village member does. His wife knew me since I was a girl, and knew that I am a straight arrow, that I have the kind of nature that won't let me be sleazy in any fashion. When I wrote a comment to another reader about wondering if she was jealous of me, it wasn’t jealous in the sense of jealous that I would take her man. It’s more jealousy about how I lived my life, accomplishments kind of stuff.

Anyway, your comments made me clarify my perspective even more, something that I think will help me in my friendships and future relationships, so thank you!