Healthy Boundaries

For a long time I thought that it was totally fine if my wife had friends who were guys and I had friends who were girls separate from each other. I now think that that shouldn't be the case. I couldn’t figure out why, but it felt off to think it was all good and fine but now I think I understand why. I think it is because the idea of spending time alone with another woman friend other than my wife without her there feels distancing. The feelings that I would be attaching to that other woman subconsciously, and not even necessarily with intent to be unfaithful to my spouse, would make bounds with that woman friend that can’t be shared between a sexually intimate marriage and a theoretically platonic relationship.

I refer to the relationship with the other woman as a theoretically platonic relationship because I don’t know that we can help feeling sexually attracted within a friendship if the two are spending time together apart from others. I believe that it doesn’t take long to love people. I can love people pretty easily already, so the idea that falling in love with a woman doesn’t take super long. People here in Rexburg get married super fast. Like some couples won’t even date for a month before they know that they love each other. Falling in love is just that fast.

So if I am married, I would hope that I felt connected to my wife in all the aspects necessary for a healthy relationship. Now if I incorporate another female into the mix and I start spending time with her like we are friends away from my wife, eventually the connections between my wife and I are going to get weaker and weaker as those bonds with the other female get stronger and stronger. I am not so worried about infidelity. I think, though it may sound prideful, that I am in very good control of myself. I am more worried about the relationship that I hope to have with my future wife. 

Recently I have been thinking a lot about what I need to do to get ready to be married. And one of the things I found I need to do is go around and date a lot until I feel ready to put all other women behind me and choose just one. This is not to say that I will never have a desire to make friends with other females, but when I say ready I mean that I will feel capable and comfortable setting the boundaries with other females to where I am able to distance myself enough from them to keep my amazing relationship with my wife. I also talk about feeling ready because more recently I haven’t felt ready and it has made me realize that those feelings are not meant to be in a committed relationship. 

The feeling itself, the difference between friendly and a little too friendly, is something I currently cannot explain. But I think I am able to tell the difference when I am honest with myself in my thoughts and feelings. So I will know when I know that I am ready to be in a committed relationship when I am able to take the attraction I feel , the sensibility of being in the relationship, and that arbitrary feeling of readiness to set further boundaries with all other woman and feel them all at the same time towards one singular woman who I will want to pursue. 

So the point is to set boundaries when you honestly feel ready to set them and keep to them, understand the implications of committed relationships, and even understand the human subconscious that can feel distant from those we love.