Do you allow your husband to meet his woman friends ?

[splendid]

Do you allow your husband to go to dinner or travel with his female friend just two of them?

Well you could just as well use the word "accept" here:

"Do you accept that your husband will go for dinner and go travelling with his woman friends?"

Answer in my case: dinner - yes

travelling - it has never come up

But that doesn't mean that I would accept him developing a sudden new friendship with a woman and going for dinners with her and away for weekends with her while I stayed at home and looked after our children.

I don't think that makes me controlling. I think that makes me not a fool.

Equally, I would not expect him to be happy for me to go for regular meals or holidays with a new male friend.

Although I'm still waiting for him to notice the roses on the mantelpiece I got given as a present last week :o He is not the most perceptive of people.

Hmmm..I almost never come onto AIBU but I am compelled to add to this thread.

I agree 100% with spidookly. Like other threads about this issue, some posters would rather take the piss, than debate the realities that affairs can and do happen as the result of a friendship. It's a shame the poster chose the word "allow" because that generated even more piss-taking than usual.

Opposite-sex friendships and those with gay or bi-sexual individuals are enriching and life-enhancing, but it is wholly disingenuous to pretend that those friendships shouldn't have some boundaries. The three golden rules with a new friendship especially, are that the boundaries have been crossed when:

1. There is secrecy, either about the friendship's existence or the interactions within it.
2. There is physical chemistry.
3. The new "friend" knows more about your primary relationship than your spouse knows about the friendship.

People are astonishingly naive about this and delude themselves that their relationship, their partner and sometimes themselves as individuals, are invulnerable to flattery, attention and temptation. Hence posters claim that their partner is not the "unfaithful type" or on other threads I've seen "our marriage is happy, so I'm not concerned."

And yet, good people have affairs and affairs happen in good marriages, often when one of the individuals is going through a personal low-point, or it's been yonks since anyone but their partner found them attractive. And these affairs occur as a result of a friendship that "got out of hand" precisely because the person who thought s/he was invulnerable failed to take even sensible precautions about flirting back, or recognising their excitement about their new friend.

I suspect "new friendships" that were never "just friendships" at all, was what the now-frightened OP was referring to, so the litany of posts about platonic university friendships are red herrings, as usual.

It consistently amazes me that some posters have a greater fear of being thought of as possessive and controlling than of having the self-esteem and wisdom to state their boundaries. As spidookly said on another thread recently, it's as though there is a cognitive disonnance at times on here, that affairs happen. The people having them are not the devil incarnate, just people who consistently under-estimated their own vulnerabilities, married to people who were too scared of being accused of paranoia.

I agree with wwifn and spidookly (have said this many, many times)

Old friendships of several years standing are very different to the sudden interest in socialising with the "new girl at the office", for example

I also agree with Spidookly. Of course men and women can have platonic relationships, but I personally think that when you are married, there are certain boundaries that you should have. Dinner alone and most definitely a holiday away, would be crossing these boundaries. This isn't because I don't 'trust' my DH, but it is naive to think that affairs don't happen unless someone is the roving type. My sister's husband was most definitely not the unfaithful type, and yet when he was going through a very stressful time at work, they were not spending as much time together as they should have been, etc. he met another woman. He is now living with her and my sister and their children are totally devastated. However, this was a new woman and not someone he had been friends with for many years.
Anyway, I find it strange that I seem to be in the minority in thinking it would be odd for DH to spend time alone with another woman in that way.

I also agree with the previous posters. No, I wouldn't like it. I couldn't stop him but I definitely would be upset if my husband left me to look after his 4 children while he goes to dinner with another woman!

I am sure he wouldn't be too impressed if I did that to him.

Having worked in offices for many years and seeing how many men and women "stray" in a moment of weakness, I have formed the opinion that it is not about moral integrity or strength of a relationship, but more about opportunity.

It is much more likely to happen if one has had a few drinks and feels attracted to someone and they have had a bad day and they happen to be somewhere on their own...and I would rather not be in that situation or my other half be in that situation themselves if it can be helped!!!

fluffles, just read your post

It doesn't really come up, most of dh's female friends are those he was at school or university with and we don't live anywhere near them. I'd expect him to meet up with any of them though if he happened to be near where they live.

I don't know what you mean by 'travel with'. On holiday? No. I can't imagine why he would unless he climbed, or dived or something like that, but he doesn't. Holidays are rare, time and money permitting we'll go together thanks very much.

He used to regularly meet a mutual female friend so that our kids could play together, it was a weekly arrangement mainly because the timings suited and our children are good friends. Didn't bother me. It was coffee at each other's houses or occasionally soft play.

My best friend is a man. My DH has lots of women friends. It's not an issue here.
I would say though that it's naive to think that there's an "unfaithful type"- I don't think DH will ever be unfaithful to me, but I don't know for sure. If he were to have an affair with one of his friends, well he'd be a fool because he'd lose me! :)

If he were to have an affair with one of his friends, well he'd be a fool because he'd lose me!

I expect we all think like that, until he/she does it and blows a family apart. None of them "mean" to do it, I would think. Ask the devastated women on the relationships board if they thought their husband was the affair type.

of course men and women can be platonic friends... but let's not fool ourselves, the sex thing is always there, under the surface. That's part of what makes the friendship fun.

Doesn't necessarily mean that it will be acted on. I certainly have female friends I haven't had sex with... but IMO it's always there, lurking.

Interesting male viewpoint

Nogrey your friend needs to start dating her Male best Friend

hmm..Just an example here:

My mother's best friend was a man...they even shared their birthday and did everything together, really close ...

My dad never seemed to have an issue with their relationship but I was a child at the time so maybe I didn't notice...

About 20 years later my Mum and Dad got divorced and her supposed best-friend thought now she was free he would make his move!!? apparently he'd been carrying a candle for many years!!! and their friendship actually ended after this happened...

All I'm saying is what you percieve as a true friendship with no sexual connotations can be something else to the other person in the relationship..

You can't know what can happen in a relationship but you can be peceptive and honest with your partner about your feelings.

DH has given another 'male perspective' - I put Op to him 'course I would' (allow me to go out that is), long pause 'it would depend how long you'd known them- if it was a new friend you'd have to know them for a few years before i'd be happy with it'.

That's sort of how I feel too- we trust each other but who/where/when/why this new opposite sex friend?

It's interesting that there seems to be a general agreement that it's ok as long as they are 'old friends', but any new friends of the opposite sex would be viewed differently. I also asked DH for a male perspective and he said it would 'just be weird' to go away with someone else of the opposite sex, and dinner would be ok if they were an old friend but otherwise it'd be odd to want to do that with someone other than your wife.

I agree that 'allowed' in unfortunate terminology.

I regularly see my male friends without their other halves. I have one friend whose wife (then girlfriend) stopped this happening. I think it said more about their relationship than anything else they did.

Even after being married for > 5 years she won't let him speak to me uninterrupted at group social events. I think is v. sad that she is so insecure in her relationship.

I frequently go away with friends of both genders without their partners as I do lots of outdoor sport that involves trips away.

I think with a new friend it would seem odd if they were going off together all the time. But if there was a new female friend in a general friendship group, that wouldn't be so odd. And then if that developed into a closer friendship that might just seem like a natural progression. I think that any caring partner would be sensitive to this though. I guess it's like anything - you need to trust your instincts and if something feels wrong, you should talk to your husband/partner about it.

I haven't read the whole thread, but I treat DH as I would want to be treated... I would not want him telling me who I can & can't go out for dinner with, so I would never do it to him.

If your husband is going to have an affair with her (I assume this is why you are asking?) and you "stop" him going out with her, then he'll just lie & say he's going out with some male friends.

I have met new friends of both sexes all my life, so has dh.
I don't expect him never to form new friendships post getting together with me

I would think my husband had every right to tell me if he was uncomfortable with me going for dinner with another man, and vice versa, just the two of us. It just seems like such a disrespectful way to treat your partner. I completely agree with what was posted about relationships by necessity having boundaries. If you've agreed to enter a relationship with someone, in effect you are agreeing to a certain set of bounderies anyway. For most people I'm guessing that would be that you're not to sleep with or have sexual contact with someone else. So why shouldn't there be other boundaries in place? As long as you are both happy with them and both agree to them.
I also think certain things, certain moments of intimacy, are part of the exclusivity of a couple. I mean things beyond sex and physical contact.
Agreed that people seem to almost think that the accusation of being possesive or having jealousy is a dreadful character flaw. I refuse to pretend to be cool about things I'm really not - did it when younger and I won't do it again. I expect to be treated and a loving and respectful way and not made to feel emotionally vulnerable.

in a loving and respectful way

I haven't read the whole of this but....
allow ,how rude is that?
Dp is not a child and i don't disallow anything.
BTW i do trust DP and therefore yes i would not disallow him to do this.

my husband treats me in a loving and respectful way as I do him. To us that does not preclude our other friendships. I am not PRETENDING to be cool about anything

afraid Spidookly's argument seems to me a bit of a non-sequitur:

because some male/female friendships undeniably take a romantic turn and because we can all agree that this is a bad thing in the case of a married person, no male/female friendships, however, unromantic, should be allowed

to be convinced, I would need to see proof that all male/female friendships have a romantic side to them- and that has not been my own experience

I also strongly suspect that those of us who find male/female friendships a normal part of life are often professional women: to us, it is a normal part of life to spend our days talking to men we are not married to, it is a normal part of life to lunch with colleagues in a friendly way, not just in the shape of unavoidable business lunches, and the friendships that arise out of daily mutual interests can last for the best part of our adult lives- and last beyond the mutual employment

I also strongly suspect that those of us who find male/female friendships a normal part of life are often professional women

how patronising

FWIW, I am the most "professional" of "professional" women and I agree with spidookly. What a crock.