Dh meeting female colleague for a drink

Hmm... I'd say a woman mingling with a whole bunch of male colleagues at a work do is one thing.
A male colleague arranging a lunch with a single female colleague is something altogether different.

Well, not really. The woman is her husband's work colleague - assuming OP doesn't work with him too, wanting to join the drinks would be, frankly, odd.

Funny how you call it a date when it’s clearly not.

im a bloke and I’ve met colleagues 1:1 outside of work for coffee, dinner, drinks, catch ups many times. Sometimes it’s been Stan the old bloke, sometimes an older woman, sometimes a young one. It matters not, they’re just colleagues and if my partner prevented me going I’d be reevaluating the relationship.

likewise she’s met colleagues for drinks or dinner. Occasionally they are young and attractive. She spends time with who she chooses.

Funny how it's never the older widow at work or Stan the Man from the ER these married guys want to take on a date. 😂

Group dos with coworkers, fine. But my boundary would be no to single dates. You can date when you're single and paying that child support, dude.

Eh i don't know. I'd like to think these things are platonic and innocent, but everytime I've had a male colleague make extra effort with me or plan 1:1 time I've always sensed an interest or they've made a move. One colleague I was friends with for 5 years, the minute he split with his fiancée, asked me out and said he'd wanted to do it for years but didn't want to betray his then partner. Well, he betrayed my friendship and his fiancé wasted years on someone who fancied another woman!! One colleague who was 20 years my senior would occasionally give me lifts to the station on site visits, talked about his wife and kids, no weird vibes, almost dad like - got drunk at Xmas party and tried to kiss me. There've been enough others to make me keep distance in the workplace. In hindsight none of these men made the effort or befriended the older women.

So I don't know really. As a rule I don't do 1:1 drinks with a single male colleague alone anymore. Groups are fine or grabbing lunch at work is fine but no alcohol alone. DH is the same. So we have friends of the opposite sex at work but have boundaries on how we spend time with them or how frequently we text. No 'work spouses' for either of us.

It could be entirely innocent but you know your DH best and I would trust your instinct. If you try and stop him he'll likely get annoyed and do it in spite anyway. What you can do it try and bring back the spice in your marriage, reconnect - because if he and you are happy together, he won't be tempted to stray. He prob likes the attention and the chance something could happen but if this woman is anything like me, she'll be grossed out by it and keep her distance. In the meantime spend time on yourself and be less available like he is - so he can't take you for granted.

Jeez thank God someone said it. I thought I was in a parallel universe for a minute!

Like every man who ever took a younger female colleague out for lunch was only ever doing it for completely innocent and gentlemanly reasons. 🙄 Like pp have said, it’s never nearly-retired Ruth from accounts or Big Bert from the Warehouse is it? Always a young woman…

@lionloaf the point was this :

" He’s never given you a reason to doubt him, so why start now?"

Ask the many women who have been married for 20 plus years then it happens. Time is no guarantee.

OP says things have been rocky recently, and that he's friends with another female colleague but doesn't go to lunch drinks with her. So I can see why suddenly wanting to meet this new female colleague/friend has given OP pause.
OP I hope it is just a friendly drink, and that your counselling and hrt help you.

Some really odd responses here. Your dh wants to take a single woman out for a drink? Er..no thanks. I’d be saying wtf are you thinking and absolutely not if he values his relationship. I’d also be questioning wtf he is thinking and be extremely pissed off.

Ignore all the weird ‘cool’ responses here. You know it’s not right

Oh god, definitely not my thinking at all!
It's hard to explain, it's how I have seen him around certain men that has made me wonder, nothing to do with how he is around me (am not remotely attractive anyway, I already said that)

No it implied nothing of the sort. However its no more likely than in any other setting so unless you are planning to propose sex segregated workplaces, leisure places and just about everywhere else then the workplace setting is irrelevant. A man or woman (it takes two) looking to play away will do it.

Networking and maintaining links with colleagues is a fundamental part of many jobs - restricting women from networking and building links with colleagues is simple sexism because the restriction will disproportionately impact women.

If the men you know would try it on and harrass female colleagues in work related settings you might want to demand higher standards from the men in your life.

@C8H10N4O2 absolutely not the case - it really depends on the circumstances - as I said below I think women genuinely can do this all the time because they are interested in people as friends -all ages, all levels of attractiveness

I think many men's minds work differently - I know very few men who would go out their way to arrange one on one drinks with women unless as I said below it's because they are attracted or they are 'of use' professionally or for networking or it's a very old friend of long standing.

It's not being paranoid- your original post implied that just because people are colleagues it's unlikely anything would be going on and I was just pointing out that it's one of the very common places for affairs in plain sight if not the most common

How old do you need to be to not do it? My partner is 66 and I'm 53. Both of us would had no issue with this.

Id say it seems to be more of an issue with younger people

Seriously? Colleagues of the opposite sex can't have a drink or lunch together without it turning into a shag?

I have no idea how some of you get through the day without dying of paranoia.

So you may no longer make new friends of the opposite sex after marriage?

I have loads of male friends and see them regularly without my husband

Well, and? even supposing that's true, OP's husband can't fuck someone who doesn't want to fuck him. Nothing is going to happen unless both people choose for it to happen.

@C8H10N4O2 and of course no one on mumsnet has ever been blindsided in their marriage by a partners colleague rather than their H/partner being on dating sites.

Yh I would kick off.

To a drink at lunch, not an orgy!

If he wants to shag someone else, he’s going to shag someone else.

I guess maybe the point is OP’s husband wants to take the friendship outside a professional setting

So if OP's partner wants to shag his colleague, OP asking him not to go won't solve the issue, will it?

Course you have a choice, you can choose not to be with a man who fancies his work colleagues.

Like a PP said, you’re speaking from a female perspective - you don’t view them with romantic interest, but you don’t know how they view you. You’ve said his wife must have the patience of a saint, she probably doesn’t have any choice if he’s anything like OP’s husband

I agree

I guess a lot depends if his treatment of you is what is making you feel insecure even if it's simply at a level of making you feel taken for granted. Or you are just feeling a bit emotional, middle aged and unattractive as many of us do at various points. Both are within your control to try to improve.

If he's making repeated new friendships, messaging and social life on a 1:1 basis with other women he hasn't known for decades then I'd ask myself why. Not to put that on you at all but that's a conversation you two should be having - are you in a rut with your lives on a treadmill of work, kids and logistics. What's changing for 2025?

I regularly go out with colleagues for a few drinks. Sometimes on a solo basis though that's rare. There is nothing beyond a desire to have a drink and bit of rant [usually] with people who are also living through the epic batshittery that is corporate life sometimes, without dragging it home yet again to bore the pants off your spouse. Or even worse, bore them even further by having to explain it all.