Isn’t it platonic? Don’t you think?

Hey, jealousy can be a red flag — or at least a yellow light

In a Washington Post column, a reader describes how her husband’s longtime female friend is now in a troubled marriage and is spending lots more time with the reader’s husband, often seeing each other at night instead of their usual lunches. The reader can theoretically go out with them, but she has to stay home with the children most of the time.

She feels threatened and jealous, and columnist Carolyn Hax echoes those alarm bells, even if the friendship doesn’t twist into a tryst.

“The campaign against jealousy has been so effective that you will have to account for it when you talk to your husband,” Hax writes. “Your letter already proves this: You’re both framing the issue in ‘nothing will ever happen!!!’ terms when a perfectly legitimate unwanted thing has already happened. You’re at home feeling like they’re the couple and you’re the sitter! It’s normal not to want that.”

To me, it seems like a good platonic relationship — assuming one or both of you has a spouse — needs to pass the smell test, the chemistry test and the lifestyle test, and this is flunking two of the three. More on that in a minute.

Lots of couples aren’t great at navigating platonic relationships, and movies and television don’t exactly give us role models. When you exclude ex-lovers, co-workers and those with generation gaps, this is about the only high-profile non-coupled couple I could think of.

(Verbiage disclaimer: I’m using “platonic” as shorthand for a nonsexual relationship with someone you might have sex with under other circumstances, and “spouse” as a partner in any monogamous relationship.)

The smell test

If an entrepreneur spends $15,000 on office equipment and deducts it as a business expense, the IRS might not raise a stink. But a $20,000 trip to Paris for “research” could lead to a whole lot of sniffin’ going on.

Suppose your faithful spouse takes a coffee break with a colleague named Pat. Smells fine, right? What about lunch? A happy hour with colleagues? Drinks alone together after work? Dinner and drinks on the weekend? Going to Pat’s place to drink Tequila and watch porn? A $20,000 trip to Paris for “research”?

All those things could be perfectly innocent, but you probably started sniffing as that paragraph went on. You can trust your spouse and trust your spidey sense, too.

That’s what led the wife to write to Hax. Obviously we’re smelling the scene through her nose and don’t know how often hubby is going out with the friend, but it sounds frequent. And it’s not exactly rare for a friendship to turn into a romance.

The chemistry test

Friends have chemistry, even if it’s not sexual. Your spouse may be your best friend, but it’s still great to have others who share your interests, appreciate your quirks, offer different points of view and maybe even call you on your bullshit. And if you’re single, savor those relationships. They’re not way stations on the path to Mx. Right — they’re destinations in themselves.

Take Arthur and Iris from “The Holiday.” They have chemistry, and if their age gap were, say five years instead of 60, you could see them as lovers. But at this stage of their respective lives, their platonic love is what they need most.

Their age gap is a strength, not a weakness, because they give each other a fresh perspective.

One of life’s purposes is helping a friend who’s struggling, as Arthur and Iris do for each other. That’s why it’s so hard to judge the husband of Hax’s letter writer. He has a friend who’s going through a brutal time, maybe feeling lonely and doubting herself, struggling to bounce back.

He wants to help. That’s what friends do. But an awful lot of that could happen at lunch rather than cutting into family time, which makes you wonder if he’s following his heart or some other part of his anatomy. Has his sense of smell stopped working — or is he ignoring it?

The lifestyle test

Assuming that Hax’s letter writer is a reliable narrator, the husband is letting the friendship hamper not only his marriage, but his family life. Even if he spent those hours watching sports with male friends, the wife could rightfully be frustrated if he’s ditching his fatherly and household responsibilities. She might even be jealous.

I don’t think this applies to them, but there’s a potential pitfall in all this: A possessive or paranoid spouse can overplay the lifestyle card, vetoing friendships with all sexes because they reduce family time, which can make the marriage feel stifling.

Sometimes even a spouse’s request can fail the smell test. One or both of you might need counseling, but you’re too close to the situation to realize it.

That’s what friends are for.

Murphy Slaw

Something old: Here’s a song from 2010 that might be taking on a new meaning these days.

Something new: They just don’t write lyrics like they used to. Sorry. I’m just being mean.

Something borrowed: Don’t know much about geography …

Something blue: This week, the county that I live in (San Mateo) became the first in the nation to declare loneliness as a public health emergency. The U.S. surgeon general last year called loneliness and isolation an “epidemic.”