Special Edition — Courtlin’s Counseling Corner

Every Thursday we highlight a problem from a listener. We give our advice and ask other listeners to offer advice. Welcome to the Counseling Corner.

We are having a non-traditional Counseling Corner this week, because I have a personal situation that I'd like to get your input on.

I've been friends with my friend Bob for several years now. I consider him to be one of my best friends and certainly my best male friend. Before we both moved away from Michigan for our morning show jobs, we spent a good amount of time together. At times, this would include his girlfriend Jami, who I have also grown close with. Sometimes we would all hangout together, sometimes I would hangout with both of them separately.

This weekend I'm having a birthday celebration here in Iowa, and I invited both of them to the event because they only live about 2.5 hours away. Unfortunately, Jami will be unable to come because of work, but she urged Bob to come on his own. He asked if he could stay the weekend at my house, and I of course agreed. I have a really comfy couch! I haven't seen him in a long time, so I'm pretty excited to show him around Cedar Rapids.

The issue is, when Bob told some of his coworkers that he was going to stay at my house this weekend, a single female friend, they were really shocked and uncomfortable with it. Neither of us think it's a big deal, as I also have other people coming this weekend, and I've stayed at his house before without Jami present. If she was uncomfortable with this in any way, he wouldn't be coming.

Additionally, Bob is also a morning show host, so he asked his listeners about this, and they totally ATTACKED him. He was called "disrespectful" and assumed to be a cheater, just because I'm a SINGLE girl, which kind of insinuates that I'm just naturally a home-wrecker because of my relationship status. He was also told that men and women can never JUST be friends. The fact that Jami is ok with this was assumed to be a lie. For the record, Bob and I have NEVER had a romantic relationship, we are very strictly JUST friends.

So my question is, is this weird? If you are in a relationship, would you ever do this, or allow your spouse to do this? Has anyone ever been in this situation before? Leave your input below!