To not want my dh to become a freemason?

[Piggyleroux]

He has his 'interview' on Saturday. I have a bad feeling about it.

I don't want him to join an cult organisation he knows nothing about.

He has precious little time with me and ds as it is without taking on more.

He is a 'yes' man and finds it hard to say no to people, I am afraid he will be taken advantage of.

I am also afraid it will cost us money. After all, there's no such thing as a free lunch right? Can you leave if you don't like it?

Can someone come and tell me something bad about it to put him off.

Interesting book available on freemasons
www.amazon.co.uk/Brotherhood-Panther-Books-Stephen-Knight/dp/0586059830

sorry not read all the posts
I was a waitress at the masonic hall when I was 16
The masons would ring a bell and we would have to scurry out!
they were generally a bunch of pervy men, I was smacked on the bottom once when serving soup, I gave the job up after that and went to work at WHSmith
On the other hand my friends Dad was a mason, as was someone high up in the dvla, she was guarenteed to pass her driving test first time due to her fathers connections!

My dad is a mason and has been for years.

He and my mum have a fab social life and it really helped when they moved house. Joining the lodge here really helped them make friends.

Masons aren't sinister, world dominating crazies they are just normal guys who do loads of good stuff for charity.

My dh has been a mason for years, and we have a fab social life and have made some really nice friends.

I get mightily pissed off with some of the crap I read on here about Freemasonry, and would like to point out that most mason's wives are as up on ritual as their dh as you can't help but overhear them practising, and I've even read the lines of another masonic role to help my dh learn his lines.

It's not that secretive!

I have two sons and will actively encourage them to join dh at the lodge when they are old enough, and I'm really looking forward to taking them to ladies nights etc when they are older teens.

beesimo I've always refered to it as scouts for grown ups also!!

previous thread here - lots of contrasting views

Just read the other thread - this thread is nicer imo!

His loyalty should be toward you and your kids... and he will definitely feel pressured to be loyal to them too (keeping things form you etc. which is never healthy in a relationship)... you hardly see him now... what on earth does he hope to gain from joining them?

My dad has been a freemason for as long as I remember. I cannot claim to know much about it but it did mainly seem to be about charity, looking after members and socialising. I always loved Ladies and Burns night!

Now that my father is old and not particularly well, they [the Lodge] have been incredibly kind to him. It is always arranged that someone will come and collect him for events and drive him home. I am pretty sure thay have given him money, too.

OP - YANBU

Someone close to us (who shall remain nameless in this thread) goes to FM meetings EVERY night of the week, leaving his wife at home.

She hates the fact that he goes there, but he is obsessed with it!

I'm not blaming the FM organisation itself, as I know it doesn't request their members to do that, I'm just raging at this pig of a man I know

Otoh, I've read a few FM books: it's secretive in the main, not focused on one religion, men focused and involves lots of dodgy dressing up and robes...

One book I read about FM said that it excluded men who were deaf or had deformed hands as they would not be able to recite the chants or be able to do the handshakes.

Your DH is being a twit, tell him to focus on his job and his family, for the time being at least.

No Lodge holds meeting every night I smell a rat is there any possibility of a bit of back door creeping going on here. 1000 to 1 he's not at the Masons!

As someone who grew up on the West Coast of Scotland we would run a mile. Freemasons in Scotland are Protestants and give work to each other so it won't go to Catholics. Rememeber, we still have sectarian schools in Scotland and look at the violence associated with 'old firm' games (Rangers=Prod, Celtic=Catholic. Nasty and sectarian, in my experience (yes, I do have family members who are masons, they are not sectarian but are tradesmen and felt they had to join to get the work, but it is vile).

My father is a mason.

It's not secretive as they have all their names published in a book (Public documentation).

From what I gather, they wear white gloves and little blue pinnies.

THe brotherhood is quite cool, if or e.g. your husband was stuck in another country for whatever reason, the masons would appoint one of their men to put him up...fraternity-style.

They also do fabulous work for charity (there is a payment similar to a tithe which gets paid to charitycharities every month).

My father is a bit of a roller and shaker so it suits him for business to network that way. He's also a member of the rotary club and while these are very different they do pretty much the same thing.

beesimo is that comment directed at what I said? Yeah, that thought had crossed my mind too.... According to him he goes to meetings in local lodges each night, not the same one each time, iyswim.

To my mind I really doubt him and feel so :( for his wife.

But anyway, this thread is about the OP, not that man I know!

How do you think things such as "planning permission" really works?

Free Masons are incredibly corrupt.

Ithaka you are thinking if the Orange Lodge which is a completely different thing to the Freemasons. The Orange Lodge hold the marches in the summer, not the Freemasons.

There is a separate Free Mason organisation for women only that is unconnected to the men's organisation. So yes, women can be masons too.