Marriage Should Not Displace Friendship

That Genesis describes marriage as being a major solution to human solitude does not exclude friendships from performing the same function.  A person can live without marital relationship and still be relationally fulfilled thanks to nonromantic social bonds--including those present in platonic opposite gender friendships.  Nevertheless, it is easy to find people who are delusional enough to genuinely think that relational closeness with one member of the opposite gender limits or prevents closeness with another.

Nothing about sharing emotional and even physical intimacy with friends of the opposite gender detracts from or excludes having a marital relationship.  It is not as if individual men and women have only a limited amount of affection to bestow upon people of the opposite gender, nor is it true that a married person who enjoys deep emotional closeness with friends of the opposite gender has betrayed their spouse.  Neither type of relationship threatens the existence of the other; both are fully capable of flourishing simultaneously.

In the context of cultures that discourage non-romantic intimacy between men and women outside of family relationships, extramarital opposite gender friendships do not communicate marital weakness, but marital security.  It often takes intelligence, strength, and perhaps even courage to disregard cultural norms and endure the pathetic concerns of ignorant observers.  Consequently, that a married person has close opposite gender friends might signify a strong marriage.  Marriage does not and should not displace friendship.

Finding quality friendships is often difficult enough without the sexism of one spouse demanding that the other deprive himself or herself of cross-gender friendships, a decision that significantly restricts their pool of potential friends.  Anyone who is not satisfied with their romantic relationship unless their significant other does not have friendships with the other gender is not worthy of having a romantic relationship to begin with.  It is always amusing to see which arbitrary, controlling, petty measures some people will go to in order to feel artificially secure.

Instead of embracing basic rationality, many people, especially Christians, are egoistic enough to sincerely believe that their significant others owe them the totality of their emotional intimacy with the opposite gender (several family relationships being the usual exceptions).  Imagine if parents thought their children should not develop intimate relationships with people outside of their families!  Would the same people who oppose friendship with the other gender while in a romantic relationship approve of such idiocy?  The hypocrisy and arbitrariness of the average person's worldview are immense.  Stupidity is a common ailment, and there is no aspect of Western society that is safe from its ravages.