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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To expect dh to show some remorse or some understanding?

350 replies

Confusedmummy2 · 05/03/2013 07:12

(I have named changed as I have to friends on here - sorry).
I am really annoyed and upset with dh and he doesn't appear to have a care in the world!

Last weekend was dh's work night out, so dh had booked a hotel to avoid coming home worse for wear and waking me and dd. This is his story . . .

Had a good night drank a bit much. Some of the ladies at work had a falling out, leading to one of them not getting her lift / shared taxi home. She is crying. All the other men from work suddenly disappear, have to get home, have important phonecalls to make! Dh is left with crying colleague. He comforts her and tells her his room has a spare bed, so she can stay there! This offer is accepted. Nothing happens. He takes her home the following day.

Right so he comes home and tells me this the next day. I trust him, so if he says nothing happened, Then nothing happened. But I am still within my right to be angry and upset by this right? I am not being unreasonable am I? I would never do this to him or put someone else's. wife in this position!

OP posts:
DeWe · 05/03/2013 11:33

Another aspect.
He isn't at work where he has to sign Offical Secrets' Acts or something?

I'm going be careful about what I say here:
But it's a similar story that I've heard from a family member who was in a firm back in the 50s/60s which was tight on security because of military spies. Collegue was put in similar situation, let the woman sleep on his couch, turned out she waited until he was asleep, let someone else in and then had various insinuating photos taken which were then shown to him for blackmail: Information or we tell your wife.
Nearly destroyed their marriage, but he decided to go to police rather than give in.

Nancy66 · 05/03/2013 11:34

Hate to say it but story really doesn't ring true and sounds like a case of some desperate arse covering to avoid a bigger picture.

I can never imaging being so drunk that I'd feel comfortable sharing a bedroom with one of my male work colleagues

IneedAsockamnesty · 05/03/2013 11:39

Wouldn't bother me in the slightest.

He's a grown up,one you trust,he helped out a friend

Getting upset about it or executing a choice in it implies that you don't trust him

EuphemiaLennox · 05/03/2013 11:54

This whole 'you don't trust him' thing is odd to me.

I don't just trust my DH not to have sex with other women.

I also trust that he will not put himself in positions with other women which I would feel uncomfortable with.

I can think of various examples that would fall into this category that would not involve sex but i would still not feel comfortable with him doing, and spending the night in a hotel room with a female work colleague would certainly fit the criteria.

Morloth · 05/03/2013 11:58

I trust DH plenty.

Mostly I trust him to not be a bloody idiot.

It isn't that difficult to not end up sharing a hotel room with a drunken colleague.

XiCi · 05/03/2013 12:01

I've heard this story before.

A male friend told it to his gf to cover his back in case the story got out that a girl from work had slept in his room

Of course, he had shagged her

In this instance I can't really think of any reason why this woman needed to stay in your DHs hotel room other than for a drunken shag. Unless she knows you DH really well I can't imagine any woman would put herself in that position rather than get a taxi home. Just doesn't ring true

PMSL that he may be a military spy - not heard that excuse before!!

targaryen24 · 05/03/2013 12:01

Again...It's about boundaries! Not trust.

And this would cross the line for many people, and not for some (as proved on this thread).

If you felt uncomfortable about it then that's fair enough, plenty would.

GhoulWithADragonTattoo · 05/03/2013 12:02

I don't think you're unreasonable. I find your husband's behaviour very disrespectful. I cannot think of any circumstances where I would find myself in a hotel room with a male colleague. There will be talk of them sharing a room at work now and that too is disrespectful to you even if nothing actually happened.

I do think the fact he booked a hotel room in advance when others didn't and then ended up sharing it with a woman from work is suspicious. You have only his word for it that it was a twin not a double...

Viviennemary · 05/03/2013 12:05

In hindsight yes it would have been better if she had gone home in a taxi. I wouldn't be happy either with my DH offering a spare bed to a colleague. however, he told you about it. And that should be the end of the matter. Unless you are worried something else went on and that's different. But if you are convinved that was all there was to it then you should try and forget it happened. And hope that if you or your DD was in a situation like this a man would help them out.

midastouch · 05/03/2013 12:08

YANBU i wouldnt be impressed! Why could she not have her own hotel room or a cab home? I dont see why a grown woman is helpless!

BuntyPenfold · 05/03/2013 12:09

it is not only a cover story, it's the most obvious take-you-for-a-fool cover story. In my opinion, of course.

Nancy66 · 05/03/2013 12:12

doesn't make much sense that he would have booked a twin room unless that's all they had available.

AThingInYourLife · 05/03/2013 12:14

I find the concept of trust espoused by some on these threads really adolescent.

It reminds me of the kind of argument teenagers have with their paramours.

Where the trust that is demanded is based on nothing other than the fact of the demand.

Trust me - even though it appears that I am untrustworthy, you must believe, against all evidence, that I would never lie to you.

Trusting someone doesn't mean making a decision to believe that there is no chance they will ever lie to you.

It means taking the chance that they won't because you know them well enough to think it unlikely.

But you can never be 100% certain of another person.

There are always bits of them that you can't know.

Trust is a series of small decisions.

Not one big decision you make early and then stick with no matter what new evidence comes to light.

Pigsmummy · 05/03/2013 12:19

I have shared a room and a cabin on board a yacht with male colleagues, nothing happened. The yacht was pure bad planning by the event organiser, the hotel situation was because it was just easier than trying to get a cab (in the middle of the countryside) and the hotel was full.

curryeater · 05/03/2013 12:19

I can't believe the number of people who think the OP is silly to be upset. I don't blame you for being upset, OP.

I just want to make a slightly obsessive note - the language of the OP is heavily gendered. The women - no, "ladies" - were socialising together (without the men, or at least in a taxi-sharing group to which the men were peripheral) until the falling out, and then it is apparently generally assumed that it will be up to one of the men to "look after" the lone "lady" (rather than that she call a cab or book a single room, as everyone else has suggested she might).
This denotes a very traditional and rather sexist worldview within which:

a. no of course married men do not share hotel rooms with "ladies" not their wives, ffs, and
b. the OP might be in a rather traditional set-up within which women can very easily be treated badly. Men who go out on big work piss-ups and stay in hotel rooms, and socialise in gendered groups, and often treat their wives disrespectfully. (Many don't - but if you were a man, and you wanted to have a wife but flings too, you would get the sort of job where this sort of situation arises, and you would marry a woman who uses words like "ladies" which denote a "lady-like" sensibility)

Ormiriathomimus · 05/03/2013 12:20

She's a grown-up not a tantruming toddler. if neccessary he should have paid for her to get a taxi and she could have paid him back at work.

I'd be annoyed. But I have a good reason to distrust H's KISA syndrome these days Hmm

And of course they'll be loads of rumours at work....

Ormiriathomimus · 05/03/2013 12:22

And even in my Pollyanna days I'd have been a little dubious and annoyed at this.

Viviennemary · 05/03/2013 12:23

If you are suspicious why not do some detective work on the hotel. Or try and find out about the booking. If it was a twin room or double room. I must say I hadn't read the whole thread and it didn't enter my head it could be a cover story and it was planned all along. But I can see why some people would think this.

GirlOutNumbered · 05/03/2013 12:24

What you should have done is just trusted him and forgot about it. Now you have a whole thread where people are putting doubt in your mind.

Thisisaeuphemism · 05/03/2013 12:24

I hope DH would never put me or 'a drunken lady' in this position.

At best it's super-naive.

I simply wouldn't understand why she didn't get a cab home (like I would have done)

pigletmania · 05/03/2013 12:26

Yabvu what was he supposed to do leave her there! He was honest with you, he called you check it ok, I am afraid you do have trust issues. He has nothing to apologise or feel remorseful for, nothing happened get a grip!

cakebar · 05/03/2013 12:26

YANBU.

The professional repercussions are horrendous. If I knew a married man at work had spent the night in a hotel room with a female colleague I would lose all respect for him as he is either very stupid or shagging around.

OP, does he have form for being naive? Does he care what other people think? Is he the type that can see beyond the end of his nose that other solutions were available? That would inform how I would react.

Other solutions were obvious. I would think they would only share a room if they thought it was going to be an exciting thing to do (even if they didn't have sex).

Jenny70 · 05/03/2013 12:27

I wouldn't like this, and I am a non-suspicious/jealous person, my DH often meets overseas friends for drinks after work/ a meal, many of these are single women... doesn't bother me a jot.

But two drunk collegues in a hotel room together is very different... what if she cracked onto him during the night, what if she wakes up and thinks he's put the moves on her, what if the whole office assumes they went for it all night and think he's a cheating bastard??? Ultimately this isn't his responsibility - he could pay for a cab home, offer her his room and cab it home, but bunking together isn't appropriate, in my opinion.

Different to offer her a couch in your home, under different circumstances, but not alone in a hotel.

Morloth · 05/03/2013 12:29

This is a grown adult not a child, of course he could have left her there.

Adult women are capable of looking after themselves.

AThingInYourLife · 05/03/2013 12:35

Only a complete fool wouldn't have trust issues after their husband booked a hotel room and spent the night in it with a female colleague.

What he did looks identical whether he shagged her or not.

There is no way to know for sure what happened in that room.

He says nothing happened.

But people lie.

People have affairs.

Drunk colleagues get together on nights out.

Only the monumentally arrogant think it is impossible that these common occurrences could happen in their marriage.

A man who thinks inviting drunk women back to his hotel room is a good idea and who plans to do so again Hmm is someone you need to reconsider trusting so much.