Husband’s female colleague’s issue being taken very seriously.

Ditto. Some of us actually love our DHs and enjoy their company. And they us.

Agreed. I’m away Sunday - Wednesday and I can’t wait. I know the days will be hectic but it’s the calm evenings in the hotel I enjoy… Bringing my DH along wouldn’t even make sense tbh, he’d just be doing his own thing all day and we’d only get the evening together anyway.

If work and home should be separate - then companies should have no rights to your time and attention after/outside contracted working hours… and that then also applies when away for business? The evenings are employees’ private time, unless it is a conference with evening events.

I've got 2 jobs thanks and work FT. When my DC go to Uni, I'l go PT and tag along on any trips I like the look of.

If you travel a lot, you can go to your company and say it is excessive, and it is affecting your family life. I've said this to my DH in the past, and he has cut it back. His colleagues have said it, and they have cut it back. My DH had to do extra trips last year as one of his colleagues said he could no longer travel due to having young DC and his wife had given him an ultimatum.

Out of all my friends, my DH travels the most. As I approach 60, I want my DH around more. That is either him here with me, or me there with him, or a compromise.

If you are happy for yours to the away, great. It's not why I got married. You do you, and I'll do me.

Honestly can’t imagine tagging along with DH on his work trips, ditto him on mine… It would be plain weird. I guess the colleague has never worked anywhere where this would be permitted let alone normalised so she was surprised (as I would be). She ended up eating alone because she knew the dynamic would be awkward for her as a younger single female with older male colleagues and their spouses!

I think she was right to complain personally. Work and home should be separate. It’s a work trip, not a romantic one.

Am relieved to read more posts like yours. DH has just been promoted recently. Lots of up coming travel in Europe and Asia and we were planning that I would tag along as our youngest goes to uni in September. We know he will have to go out one evening each trip with his team on longer trips, so that night I’ll have room service or a spa treatment. We’ll just do a separate bill for me so that he can claim relevant expenses. I can’t see why my being there would be distracting or negatively impact his work - the opposite in fact as he is quite often really stressed about being away a lot, I am his best friend (I know, odd for a married couple of 33 years to actually like each other) so if he has a shit day he’d rather have a meal and a few drinks with me to clear his head. In terms of his well-being and productivity, my coming along is beneficial. He’s been really looking forward to showing me Singapore and there are so many EU cities I’ve not visited yet. I can’t wait.

Plus I kind of feel the company owes me for all the nights and weekends he works when home from the office - if it’s not to distracting to deal with work issues after dinner with his wife and kids at home, meeting his wife for dinner on a business trip and sharing a bed with her can’t also be an issue, can it?

I find it amusing that people believe it was the woman, the female employee that "put a stop to this".
A lot of men (and women) who travel for work, enjoy the temporary space from home life, they don't actually want the spouse tagging along but cave to keep the peace.
I very much doubt the OP has the full story or even the truth on this.

The perspective of yeating dinner with 4 guys from work is a nightmare for me. And i guess for most women. Seeing them at work is enough.
So her behaviour is super disturbing.
I would be so happy they have sifes to eat dinner with so i am free to do what i want.
And she is weird to complain they spend time with wifes. After beeing in company few months??? They are senior to her and she wants to make rules what they do in private time.

I think someone should have told her beforehand that everyone else was bringing a plus one and it wasn’t a normal business trip but a weird couples holiday as well. Then she would have known not to expect a get together with her colleagues in the evening. If I was a wife in this situation I would be wondering why nobody told this woman how these work trips go. It’s all very peculiar.

I’m just delighted to hear that apparently we can just “tell the company” that we want another role.

Wow when is the last time you had a job? You seriously can’t think this is acceptable?

Yes, this is what I have done in the past. My DH goes everywhere from Bath, to Paris, to Japan. I would tag along and keep out of his way. Of course I'd pay my own way apart from sleeping in the room. I have seen a lot of the world as a result.

If some woman at work put a stop to this I would actually go ballistic and tell my DH it is a deal breaker for me. I am not sitting at home staring at the wall for weeks on end.

A travelling spouse actually has a negative affect on a marriage and any decent company would be happy that you senior employee is settled. Loads of my DH's colleagues have got divorced as their marriages fizzled out due to them being away so much. I have heard it directly from them.

@AtomicWedgie as a military wife I think you’re being ridiculous “up to 2 weeks” 😱 tagging along on your spouse’s work trips because you’re lonely…absolutely mental to me.

Blimey this can’t be for real? Surely?

Did you see any official documents stating that this is the complaint she made? You say you husband was told this directly, but it’s very unprofessional on the part of the person telling him this so I’d not necessarily trust what they were saying.

It could just be that she thinks it’s unprofessional to bring spouses on a work trip. Or she thinks a work trip should involve some level of team building through eating together in the evenings, and bringing your wife along is weird.

Or.. maybe the company should not be so slack with divulging the alleged contents of an alleged complaint.

If I was the alleged complainee I’d be asking them a lot of questions about that.

And she’s entitled to speak to her bosses if she felt someone was treating her in a manner that indicated they had concerns about her behaviour.

I don’t know why it’s being assumed that “unprofessional and inappropriate” has equated to “sex” or sexually inappropriate … it could also mean divulging business information loudly or inappropriately or that she’d drink too much or dance on the table.

IF she said anything remotely like that.

My DH travels a lot, up to 2 weeks away sometimes. Before DC I used to tag along on short trips. DC put a stop to my trips, but my DH continued to travel a lot.

During these trips away I was lonely, had to deal with DC on my own, and had a lot of emergencies I had to deal with single handedly.

Now my DC are starting to go off to Uni, and I won't be sitting here alone for days and weeks on end. I'll be "tagging along".

Most of my friends say they wouldn't put up with my DH's travel and I have.

Quite frankly if some woman comes along and has an issue with me being there, then I will no longer be OK with my DH being away, and he can either tell his company that he wants a job that takes him home every night, or the woman can go make her own social life, as we are not there to provide it.

If I were the DH of the OP I would refuse to have a drink or eat with her and send her a message that she hasn't got her own way.

OP referred also to the fact that DH was on site. This wouldn’t be relevant if the email had been sent to him

Professional contracts in my sector don’t tend to pay overtime - you’re expected to do the hours needed.

I could and did take time back if I’d been away a lot.

Could be insecure wives who don't trust their husbands insisting on tagging along?

Or the husbands have fibbed/assumed about the reason for the change in company culture (I'm not going to call it policy, because I suspect nothing was ever written down).

I can think of several alternative explanations:

The female employee may have wished to keep something private - maybe they are in a same sex relationship or a throuple, and because of that feels that they can't bring their partner/s along, and feels excluded. This also would be the case if anyone in the company has made some unprofessional comments about these types of relationships without realising that their colleague is the type of person they are referring to.

The female employee may have small children and can't bring their partner along as they need to care for the kids while she is abroad (especially if abroad for a week), so this could be indirect discrimination.

There may be some exclusionary behaviour at work, and the bringing partners and deciding who they have dinner with (remembering that others have talked about how culturally there can be an expectation of some informal work stuff being done/discussed at dinner or networking). Exclusionary behaviour outside the workplace can result in claims against the company e.g. if everyone goes out regularly but never invites a specific someone.

As others have said, potentially there are some tax implications, and it may be that there is someone new at the company who has pointed this out.

Finally, is there any possibility that there has been some persistent stupid banter at work around "Oooh, my wife wouldn't like that/let me do that" and so the female employee has been left with the impression that the wives are on the look out for predatory single women?

Quoting the OP and laterally thinking 🤔

So true, if you want to be part of a company get a job there. Don't tag along with hubbie and try and make out you are integral to the team.

Who phrased that, your husband? Obviously you don't work for the company so are only hearing second hand!

@the7Vabo I do find it bizarre that OP talks about contributing to the company in a positive way as if her socialising with her husband while he’s on a work trip is a team building exercise.

100% - such an old fashioned practice anyway, smacks of Stepford Wives!