An example of controlling spouse forbidding same-sex friendship:

Eventually he forbade me from seeing her unless our kids were present. I still would hang out with her alone as adults here and there; I’d just not tell him. I never told her my husband did not want me seeing her. Eventually, she found out and was furious. The next day, my husband looked her email up on the school contact list and sent a hate-filled email to her. He never told me and acted completely normal. She forwarded it to me and said we couldn’t be friends or even speak anymore.

Source: Help! My Husband Sabotaged My Best Friendship in Order to “Get Me Back.”

I was just editing my post on jealousy and marriage last night and glanced over the section on same-sex friendships.  And then today I read the above.  It’s yet another example showing that jealousy is about control more than keeping a spouse from falling in love with somebody else.  The above husband behaved as if his wife’s friendship with another woman somehow threatened their marriage.

I am against all sorts of jealousy and controlling the friendships of your spouse.  It doesn’t matter to me what sex the friend is–especially since, in some cases, you’re dealing with gay couples or bisexual spouses.  (Can they have no friends, then?)

I have been on both sides of this myself: I was the good friend that the spouse hated, until the spouse sent me a series of hate-filled e-mails.  I, too, said that we could no longer be friends, and that was that.  So I know what that’s like.

I’ve also been in the position of the letter-writer, with my ex.  This was in college; I had a whole group of friends which he objected to.  He kept trying to drive wedges between us, badmouthing them, getting mad at me for not “sticking up” for him even though I did not see any bad behavior on their part (or, in one case, they objected to his bad treatment of me).

When that didn’t work, he broke up with me, then his friend–a flying monkey–tried to scold me into breaking off these friendships.  These friendships were not just close and dear friends, but also my roommates!  They had seen me through other bad relationships, and stuck up for me.  How could I reject them?

It’s good to see advice columnists–such as Dear Prudence and Carolyn Hax–calling out such behavior for what it is.  Here, Prudence calls it “controlling, creepy, abusive, and cruel.”