Opposite Sex Friends

This myth is a popular today. Many people, Christians and non-Christians, flirt with danger by maintaining close friendships with the opposite sex after they get married. Even secular experts agree that intimate friendships with the opposite sex can be a breeding ground for emotional infidelity. Yet many people don't see the potential for harm. If you or a friend is struggling with this issue, consider the following guidelines:

• Think about how you would feel if the roles reversed. How comfortable would you feel if your husband had a close, intimate, female friend? Would you mind if he's sharing personal information with another woman? Spending time alone with her? Building dependence on her and meeting her needs? 
• Be realistic about your emotional needs. Some women unwittingly allow someone else to meet their emotional needs-even under the guise of friendship. Do you need someone to listen to you and understand you? If you're married, that someone needs to be your husband. 
• Invest in your marriage. If your marriage isn't all it should be and if your husband isn't meeting your needs, work on your marriage rather than looking outside your marriage to get your needs met. Find a couple whose marriage you admire, and ask them to mentor you. Or find a Christian marriage counselor with whom you both feel comfortable. 
• Build moral fences to protect yourself and you marriage. The dissolution of a marriage usually begins with small choices, mini-betrayals that multiply over time. And Satan is just waiting for you to show weakness (see 1 Peter 5:8). Many good Christians have had moral lapses that cost them their marriage. How can you protect yourself? Establish clear, strict boundaries that you and your husband will both abide by. For example, limit the amount of time you spend with someone of the opposite sex, and develop guidelines you both follow regarding being alone with someone of the opposite sex. 

At the end of the day, close male-female friendships after marriage do not work. That doesn't mean you can't have male friends. It does mean that your male friends shouldn't be your closest friends. 
-True Identity Bible 

{Matthew 18:7-9}
7 “What sorrow awaits the world, because it tempts people to sin. Temptations are inevitable, but what sorrow awaits the person who does the tempting. 
8 So if your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It’s better to enter eternal life with only one hand or one foot than to be thrown into eternal fire with both of your hands and feet. 9 And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It’s better to enter eternal life with only one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell. 

{Mark 10:7-9}
7 ‘This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, 
8 and the two are united into one.’ Since they are no longer two but one, 
9 let no one split apart what God has joined together.” 

{1 Corinthians 7:2-5}
2 But because there is so much sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman should have her own husband.

3 The husband should fulfill his wife’s sexual needs, and the wife should fulfill her husband’s needs.  

4 The wife gives authority over her body to her husband, and the husband gives authority over his body to his wife.

5 Do not deprive each other of sexual relations, unless you both agree to refrain from sexual intimacy for a limited time so you can give yourselves more completely to prayer. Afterward, you should come together again so that Satan won’t be able to tempt you because of your lack of self-control. 

{Ephesians 5:3}
Let there be no sexual immorality, impurity, or greed among you. Such sins have no place among God’s people.