It's perfectly normal for couples to have their own friends outside of their relationship. (And in many cases, it's a pretty positive thing.) But how close is too close? That was the question on one woman's mind when her fiancé began a new friendship with a woman — one that he's grown so close to, she's even asked him to be in the delivery room with her when she gives birth.
The couple has been together for 10 years, but their relationship is starting to feel the strain.
Until last year, their relationship was great, the wife recently shared on Reddit. But then issues such as finances, the loss of a family member, and "problems communicating [about] how to best raise our kids" started to bubble up. And pretty quickly, they became big issues.
About three years ago, the Reddit poster's fiancé became friends with another woman at work.
Although the woman couldn't find much to connect with when it came to her fiancé's new bestie, it seems her husband "can chat for hours" with the woman and never grow bored.
Hmmm …
"That's okay, I am completely for couples having different friends," the woman vented in her post. "However, I do feel a bit jealous that [my fiancé] and [his new friend] can joke around and have a fun conversation where lately it's just been all business between [my] fiancé and I whenever we talk."
Recently, her fiancé's friend has even been coming over without calling and leaning on her fiancé for emotional support.
Things reached a whole other level recently, when the new friend's partner unexpectedly died while she was pregnant. Two months before the baby was due, the friend started leaning even more on the Redditor's fiancé.
"When I got home from work tonight [my fiancé] tells me [that his friend] wants him to be with her when she gives birth," the woman shared.
Spoiler alert: The woman doesn't exactly love this plan. "I'm trying to be understanding, but I think it's very inappropriate and disrespectful," she wrote.
And besides, the woman thinks the friend has plenty of other people in her life who can be a support to her in the delivery room.
It isn't a stretch to say that giving birth is a pretty intimate experience. And we totally see where the Reddit poster was coming from when she wrote that she felt "uncomfortable with him being with someone else going through that."
Still, she wonders whether she's in the wrong for telling her fiance no.
A lot of people were quick to come to her defense, and let her know that it's her fiancé who is in the wrong.
"[S]omeone in grief does irrational things, but is your husband prepared to also father this baby?" one person wrote in the comments. "A little bit of help can easily turn into her depending on him and then if he tries to distance himself she could throw in 'how can you just abandon us, you were here when they were born". I think distance would be healthy for the both of them."
"It's ok for men and women to be friends and help each other out," a second commenter wrote. "But his relationship with this women doesn't feel like a normal friend relationship. I get each person has different dynamics with their friends but … I don't know. This just rubbed me the wrong way. It seems like he takes better emotional/supportive care of this friend than he does the mother of his children …"
"Their relationship is super inappropriate," another person chimed in. "If anything it's bordering on an emotional affair at least."
But other people thought the woman was actually being kind of selfish.
"It's amazing that you can single-handedly make a woman asking your husband to be in the delivery room after her partner dies all about you, but you've done it," one commenter snapped.
"If there’s nothing sexual between them, then you have nothing to worry about," someone else wrote. "Sure it’s intimate and makes YOU uncomfortable, but those are your insecurities to work through, and telling your fiancé he doesn’t get to be there for his close friend in her time of need is not okay."
"I'm not seeing the problem here?" another person said. "She'll be going through the most painful day of her life, and she'd like people there that she feels she can count on to keep her strong. Some people invite many others into the delivery room, some none at all or just their partner; how private and intimate it is for you doesn't mean it's the same level for everyone."
Ultimately, the woman decided that perhaps she needed to work on her relationship with her fiancé a bit more.
The Reddit poster admitted that it's been a tough year for her and her fiancé as a couple, but she's hoping that if they go into counseling, things will improve.
"I feel if [my] fiancé and I were in a better place he wouldn't ever consider being a birth support partner for anyone, which is what makes me worry it's bordering on an inappropriate emotional affair," she wrote. "I thought I was pretty chill, I want him to help her out as much as he can, he's been helping her move into a new place and taking calls at all hours and none of that bothered me — I'd be doing the same thing if it were a friend of mine."
But this request is a little different.
"It's just this delivery room situation," she explained.
Honestly, we can't say we blame her for being a little freaked.
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