Do any of you have close friends who live far away?

[alex1960]

I met my wife when we were quite young and for many years she has been my universe. While I have a lot of professional contacts, I must admit I don't have many close friends, and I definitely don't have any close female friends. Essentially I don't really know how it feels like to be close friends with someone.

 

For the most part, my wife has been really good over the holidays. She was relaxed and caring like in the old days.

 

Here's the latest situation that came up. A guy she used to work with was in town and she wanted to catch up with him. However I also had a business meeting that evening and my wife had to stay home with our daughter.

 

My wife was really disappointed so she'll fly out to see him next week. This is not the same guy I described before. My wife says she has the right to have guy friends (I agree with that) and that her trip will be paid for by her company.

 

I guess my question for LS is the following: do you ever miss your friends that much? I don't want to judge or anything. Like I said, I don't know much about close friendships and would like your input on this situation.

[Feelin Frisky]

Well, I miss my friends. But there's no female friends I would consider close enough to travel for. Either they are Xs or persons I'm friendly with but they are not SOs. I have a couple of guy friends who I consider life-long confidants. We've grown apart as they are in relationships but we stay in touch every once in a while. I feel bad about one friend who I was really close with. He moved upstate NY when I lived on LI and I don't know why but after a while when I contacted him he was kinda less than luke-warm. He was fine on the phone but I sent him a CD of music which I know he values of stuff he didn't have and I got no nothing back--we exchanged e-mail addresses and I e-mailed him about the CD and nothing. I hate to think I have to close him out for ever as a friend but if he doesn't want to communicate with me, then I can't do anything about it. We didn't speak for 8 years before this so it surely wasn't a thing where I intruded on him. I'll always wonder I guess. But I don't think of it that much.

[Star Gazer]

I have a very dear friend who's a guy who lives in LA (I'm in NorCal). I do see him when I'm down in LA for other reasons, but other than his upcoming wedding, I don't make special trips just to visit him. We keep in enough contact via phone and email.

[Distant78]

I met my wife when we were quite young and for many years she has been my universe. While I have a lot of professional contacts, I must admit I don't have many close friends, and I definitely don't have any close female friends. Essentially I don't really know how it feels like to be close friends with someone.

 

For the most part, my wife has been really good over the holidays. She was relaxed and caring like in the old days.

 

Here's the latest situation that came up. A guy she used to work with was in town and she wanted to catch up with him. However I also had a business meeting that evening and my wife had to stay home with our daughter.

 

My wife was really disappointed so she'll fly out to see him next week. This is not the same guy I described before. My wife says she has the right to have guy friends (I agree with that) and that her trip will be paid for by her company.

 

I guess my question for LS is the following: do you ever miss your friends that much? I don't want to judge or anything. Like I said, I don't know much about close friendships and would like your input on this situation.

 

Dude, after you finding out your wife has been cheating a few months ago, she should be doing everything she can to earn your trust back, not going on trips to see males "to catch up," and disrespecting you by saying she has a right to "have guy friends." Seeing males is the last thing she should be doing right now.

[Stung]

She was just caught flying around the country to carry on an emotional affair, and now she wants to fly off to visit a different man, and is trying to guilt you into accepting it? Very bad form. I wouldn't trust her as far as I could throw her, with this kind of agenda, at this time in your relationship with everything so fragile.

 

To answer your question, yes, I have good friends who live far away, and I miss them very much. We email, Facebook, occasionally Skype--when they're in town, they visit me, and I have trips to fly to see them figured into our budgeting. However, we have young kids, and I can't just fly off to see people whenever I feel like it. I have taken the baby with me on short weekend trips a couple of times, and we are planning a longer overseas trip later this year as a family, where we will be visiting another friend for a week and then on to one of my husband's friends in a different country. Granted, nobody pays for these trips of ours, but I can't imagine just taking off and leaving my whole family behind for days to go visiting by myself, not while the children are young. I would never go on a trip that my husband didn't support, or go to visit a man who made my husband insecure about our relationship.

 

Question: if this guy was such a good friend, why couldn't he come visit and hang out with your daughter there? All of my friends hang out around my kids from time to time. This whole thing smells bad to me.

[alex1960]

Question: if this guy was such a good friend, why couldn't he come visit and hang out with your daughter there? All of my friends hang out around my kids from time to time. This whole thing smells bad to me.

 

Thanks for answering my question.

 

You make a good point however my wife and I always kept our separate friends. We do have some in common but on her side she has to network a lot and seems to have developped more friendships than I have.