Committed: The Ties that Bond
with Angella Dykstra
I'm a mom of three, a professional accountant, and an amateur photographer and writer. I am not a marriage expert. But my husband and I take "Til death do us part" seriously, and here I'll be sharing how we keep our marriage strong while we both do that insane work-life juggle.
Check out my Work It, Mom! profile and my blog, Dutch Blitz.
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My oldest child is in fourth grade, and this has been the year where he branched out from his usual posse of BOYS to have a posse that includes boys and … GIRLS. He’s asked a number of times if that was ‘weird’ or ‘okay’ and I assured him that having girl friends doesn’t mean that they are your girlfriends. I told him that I had/have a lot of guy friends and that Dad had/has a lot of girl friends.
Granted, most of my current guy friends are husbands of my girl friends, and it’s not like we go out to movies or hang out without our respective spouses all together. My husband works with a bunch of women and while they are friends and get along famously, it’s not like they call each other to just chat or go out for dinner or anything. While some people may have friends like that, we just think that steps too close to a line that could get you into trouble.
That said, this past weekend we had the pleasure of having a musician friend come to town, and he stayed with us for the night before heading back home to his wife and son in California. We reminisced over dinner about some of the stuff we used to do — before I had ever met my husband — and it was a lot of fun. We never dated, it was strictly platonic, and my husband now knows him as well and they get along famously. In fact, the three of us stayed up way past my bedtime chatting, because it was so great to catch up with a good friend.
How about you? Do you have good friends of the opposite sex?
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Yep. Definitely do. My friend Matt just came and stayed with us! Noah hadn’t met him before, but the guys got along famously. I also never dated him, and we had a strictly platonic relationship. I had a few really close, really awesome guy friends like that in high school. I still talk to them to this day and Noah doesn’t have a problem with it. On the (very) odd occasion I talk to one of them on the phone, Noah is always around. If I’m texting with them, I have no problem with Noah reading the texts (he doesn’t, because he doesn’t care, but, you know).
Noah also has girl friends (one is a former girlfriend, but she is RAD, married, and a missionary and I’ve never had a problem with her ever) and I’ve never really had a problem with any of them (since we’ve been married).
I’ve had this chat with Kaylie, too. One of her best friends is a boy and she gets teased about him being her boyfriend. I told her that when I was her age, I had lots of boy friends that I played street hockey and kick the can with, climbed trees and built tree forts with.
Having friends of the opposite sex? Completely okay. As long as, you know, you’re SMART about it and stuff.
And, uh, I’m writing post-sized comments tonight. Apparently.
Mrs. Wilson | June 15th, 2012 at 10:27 pm