<p>Wow, I could add personal anecdotes here. From experience, I’m perfectly OK with friendships, but I want to meet the “friend” at least once. Meeting them at a work party, a restaurant, anything is fine with me. Hearing about the friends’ comments on our relationship, knowing she helped buy presents for me, calling his cell phone, seeking advice for all sorts of matters (like car or computer buying), is crossing the line. Need I add–always treating her to meals?</p>
<p>I’ve “borrowed” a husband on occasion (when something breaks on a weekend), but I’m already a close friend with the couple.</p>
<p>Maybe I live in a different world. I have spent a long legal career taking business trips with men- many of them car trips to remote places. You get to really know someone. I have spent long days working on very tragic cases with these same men, and you really form a close bond. I have had workplace relationships in the past (I wasn’t married) and while they aren’t a great idea, I can certainly see how they happen. This is where you spend most of your time- you are (supposedly) on your best behavior and you look relatively good.<br>
I like sports. I’m a competitive athlete myself (when I’m not on crutches). I like to talk about basketball, cars and business. I don’t cook and I don’t sew. I am a parent, as are most of my male friends. What is so difficult about these friendships just because they have p&nises?</p>
<p>jym, I set myself up for that one. I am truly envious of the knowledge of engineers.</p>
<p>MOWC–Did you keep these men private from your spouse? If they called you on the cellphone, would you say “I cannot talk now?” Did you make excuses to leave the house (mail a letter, get a cup of coffee, for example).</p>
<p>I worked closely with men, but never refused to include them with spouse. “Private” friends at work, the golf course, tennis, whatever, gives me the same queasiness as online friends.</p>
<p>I guess maybe I’m at a similar vantage point MoWC. I worked for years in public accounting at firms dominated by males…and because I was an auditor also found myself on the road and in pretty close quarters with my male co-workers. If I couldn’t make these men see me as a smart CPA, good friend, trustworthy confidante and hard worker BEFORE they saw me as a cute female, then what chance did I have at a successful career with potential for advancement on my terms? </p>
<p>Furthermore, because my husband trusts my judgment completely, he has never had an issue with my friendships with male co-workers. And the feeling is mutual on my part.</p>
<p>My male friends can call me on my cellphone, email me, go out to lunch with me (they never pay unless we go back and forth on the paying). I never hide them from my husband. If they have a computer or bicycle issue, they talk to him.
In fact, the co-worker in question has been to the house a couple of times for dinner and came over with oldest D for my husband to set up her new bike for her.<br>
Throughout the years, I have had male running friends and we would meet to run together. Sometimes it was a group, sometimes not. Never an issue. Never a secret. I DID have one boyfriend who was very jealous. I had to tell him one of my male friends was gay. The guy didn’t appreciate it!</p>
<p>I don’t think we are disagreeing. Everyone agrees its fine to have friends of any sex. I was 1 of 2 females in my major, so have often had male friends (& gay friends).</p>
<p>Having been personally burned by a man with mystery friends, (“mystery” in that I could not meet or talk to them, but they knew everything about me), I think its a kiss of death for trust in a relationship.</p>
<p>I tend to agree with your perspective on this one. You’re not talking about having friends/coworkers of the opposite gender, you’re talking about confiding in them regarding relationship issues. I don’t think confiding at this level with the opposite gender is a good idea and I agree that some red flags would be raised whether always valid or not.</p>
<p>"Maybe I live in a different world. I have spent a long legal career taking business trips with men- many of them car trips to remote places. You get to really know someone. "</p>
<p>Virtually all of myjobs have been in places in which I was one of only a few women. This included my serving in the Navy in which I was one of only 10 women out of 100 people who had the kind of job that I had. I have gone on business trips with males including out of the country, and including trips in which a male co-worker and I traveled alone together. I have worked overnight shifts with them in which only a man and I were the only people in the building. I have shared an office with a male coworker. There have been times in which I spent more waking hours with individual male coworkers than with my husband. </p>
<p>Still, I have not gotten into conversations with men in which they discussed their marital problems or I discussed my marital concerns with them. Such discussions would be IMO a betrayal of my and their marital relationship. I also don’t want to have intimate knowledge of co-workers’ marriages, etc. whether or not those co-workers are male or female. I don’t feel that such info is my business. I do feel that knowing such info would interfere with my business relationship with coworkers.</p>
<p>I didn’t hear anything about marital problems from this friend until the divorce was being filed. Then, yes, there was quite a bit of discussion because he was upset and hurting- and there were kids involved.
I am glad he was able to talk to me. I don’t think many men have the kind of relationship with each other that leads to such conversation. This has worked just fine for us. To each his or her own.</p>
<p>jym626 said:
“I have to agree with zoosermom who gave examples of alterior motives. I can hear it now: “Oh gee, I couldn’t possibly send our poor, fragile, vulnerable 10 yr old child to visit his/her dad several states away to stay in such deplorable, disgusting, filthy conditions”. Look at these photos of this disgusting environment” – Sounds like an impending battle for change of visitation, child support or something."</p>
<p>Bingo, exactly what I was thinking</p>
<p>idmom said:
"zoosermom - I can see where the photos you describe might be pertinent. My understanding was in MoWC’s friend’s case, the stepmom entered the daughters’ bedrooms and took photos of their teenage housekeeping skills. </p>
<p>lol…that’s something that’s never gonna go over well…"</p>
<p>I personally think these photos were an incredible invasion of privacy of this man’s grown (in college) daughter’s privacy. I too wonder why the daughter didn’t just hit the delete button…</p>
<p>She DID hit the delete button! The pictures are gone. That’s when the older girl jumped in and said she would have destroyed the whole card- or the camera. I, personally, can understand that kind of anger, especially in this situation (mom on the way out the door, packing up the furniture, etc). Maybe others have more self-restraint…</p>
<p>I understand it too MoWC. It clearly was a very emotional time for this family…a time when care should have been taken by all parties not to punch each others’ buttons. The stepmom fired the first round when she committed the very petty and immature act of photographing the girls’ rooms. (And no, I don’t buy the theory she was ‘documenting assets’.)</p>
<p>I burst out laughing as I was driving to work this morning at the thought of inappropriate relationships developing between the 50 somethings in my company who share tales of woe about kids, houses, cars- yes, and spouses. We are hard-working, frequently tired folks with broken bones, elder-care issues and health problems ourselves. We cherish our friendships with each other and it makes coming to work a pleasure.<br>
The characterizations by some on this thread of what these friendships could lead to are way off base. Maybe if we were all 20!!</p>
<p>I was thinking about this too, as it seems we all come from different perspectives. As I mentioned above, I was glad to be a suport for a colleague whe needed to “unload” one day about some issues he was struggling with in his first marriage. Never, ever, did it lead to any conversation or even thought of anything that was inappropriate or out of bounds. That said, I do have to say that I can’t think of a time I have discussed any personal marital issues with a male friend. It just never came up, and never occurred to me. I have also been a support system for a male colleague (physician) whose wife was dying of cancer. I spent a lot of time with her and with them in the hospital, and he certainly needed emotional support. Once again, never, ever, was any crossing of emotional or physical boundaries ever even a fleeting thought.</p>
<p>It sounds like the OP’s conversations with her friend/coworker were predominantly about adult child issues/behaviors vis a vis the soon departing ex spouse, not a discussion of marital issues. I think, in general, if one is secure in a healthy, trusting marriage, these are non issues. I would not have a problem with my h talking to a female friend (though I like the ideas mentioned above that I would want to know who she is) and he is fine with my talking to male friends. Now, the guy I dated in grad school was , shall we say, not the most trustworthy individual (he was a !@@##$$$% lawyer!! LOL) and yes, I would have had concerns with him… with good reason. He was not one who earned, or deserved trust, and I wisely got out of that relationship. Do I think I was cautious about trust issues after that bad experience? You becha. But now, many many years later, having had a good, healthy, trusting, stable marriage, it is not an issue.</p>
<p>Why is it assumed that the stepmom had “bad intentions” when she took pictures of the rooms? Did she ever say why she took the pictures? Were there pictures of other rooms on the camera? Look at it this way–if the rooms were clean, the pictures would have been of “clean rooms.” Would the daughters have been so upset in that case? IMO they were embarrassed and ashamed to see the mess they made–and instead of going and cleaning up that mess, they threw a fit, swore at and blamed the person who took the pictures–and deleted them from her camera which they shouldn’t have been touching anyway! </p>
<p>Taking pictures in one’s own home is a “morally neutral” action.
Adult children leaving a mess --that they’ve apparently been told to clean up many times-- is the problem. When adults are living (rent-free, I assume) in their parent’s home, their “right to privacy” is only what the owners of the home will grant them. If stepmom wants to take pictures of the rooms she is letting them use, (including the mess in those rooms) or any other rooms, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. </p>
<p>I have moved many times and before I moved I would go around my house and take pictures of the rooms–just so I could remember the place.
Is it possible that the stepmother was taking pictures throughout the house so that she and her daughter could remember the home they lived in for many years–or to help her daughter remain familiar with the place where she may be visiting her dad?</p>
<p>“I give the father points for the fact that he is trying to teach his daughters that what they did was inappropriate and that they should have respect for others and their property. That he is doing so even in the middle of a tough and stressful situation is to his credit.”</p>
<p>The father understands that a cordial relationship with his former wife is key to his relationship with their daughter. Trying to get those close to him to see it, and treat the exwife with the same courtesy one would show anyone is tough, especially if they feel the exwife has done things to earn their disdain. He sees the long term picture, that as long as he and his older daughters want the younger one in their lives, they need to deal respectfully with that daughters mother, and I applaud him for doing his best.</p>
<p>Having a friend/co-worker attempting to fan the fire can’t be making things easier on him. I hope Momofwildchild is venting to us and not to him.</p>
<p>^Wow that seems really harsh.^ I think HE is the one doing the venting…</p>
<p>Does anyone else add up the circumstances here and see that the stepmom looks to be gathering evidence to prove the adult half sisters should be kept away from their sister. The comment that stepmom didn’t want any part of the vacation home because if something happened to dad the older sister might gain ownership spoke volumes to me. Stepmom is clearly driving a wedge in the sister relationships here…</p>
<p>Good observation, Collegemom. That is true. The oldest girl was not allowed to take the youngest one anywhere unsupervised (even while she was at West Point) unless it was convenient for stepmom that she do so.
I suspect the pictures were to show her family and friends back home what pigs the girls were and how much she had to deal with. The girls were only home about 4 weeks of this summer, by the way. Only about 1 of these weeks overlapped with stepmom. The older girl hardly ever came home once she went away to college. Dad is pretty tough about the rooms, too, but he decided (partly at my suggestion) to give it a break while the family was in transition.</p>
