Husband and a colleague

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For not wanting my husband to go out for a drink and a meal with a fellow female colleague in the evening while I look after the kids? He is now saying I could do the same but I am currently a SAHM. I am normally not the jealous type but this new friendship has just got to me.
I do trust him and know its just a friendship but what I have been struggling with is just that - even though I trust him I know that sometimes friendships become something else even if intentions start good as hes a bit naive in nature. Also where to you draw a line - I would call that a date really and in the past feel a bit naughty if I excepted and invite thats the same when in a relationship and would not have done it?

I think if it was a female friend he has known for years before meeting me then that is fine, I also have male friends like this.

But starting a new friendship with a woman when you have a wife and kids at home is not on.

Whatever any of us on here think, you feel the way you feel. As long as you don't habitually tell your DH who he can/can't socialise with, I think you are perfectly within your rights to say to him "Look, I know you think I'm being unreasonable, but I don't feel comfortable with you going out with women/this particular woman for dinner."

Or have you already said that?

I do actually understand why a lot of the posters on here would be OK with their DPs developing new friendships with other women, but it's not how things work in my marriage.

I would definitely NOT be ok with my dp taking another woman out on a dinner date.

fuck that.

getting along with women as people, no problem. Chatting to women friends as part of a group, or whatever. Fine.

Cosy dinner dates where I am not invited and developing intimacy. Not OK.

Im not really convinced by 95% of platonic friendships anyway.

Ive only had one platonic friend in my entire 37 years where it didnt turn out that they secretly wanted to fuck me.

I agree with your platonic friendships comment, Bran! My friend says she's had a some platonic friendships, but all of these men wanted more from the relationship - IMO, a true platonic friendship is where neither party have a sexual/romantic interest in the other.

TBH, I've never had a platonic friendship with a man. Of course I've got on well with male colleagues or my female friends DPs, but I've never, in all my 42 years, gone out with a man by myself without one of us hoping it would lead somewhere.

I think it depends on the circumstances. I have a colleague who lives away from home in a different city 4 nights a week. If he didn't meet team members for dinner then he'd be sat in a hotel room getting lonely. If any of the team members are also staying over then they go out for dinner, either as a group, or just him + team member. The gender of the team members doesn't come into it, it is just about being sociable.

This might be the first rumblings of an affair, or it might be just two colleagues going for dinner. Banning them from having dinner is not going to stop the affair happening, but I think that it's okay to say you're not comfortable with it. If we were in that situation my husband would tell me to get a babysitter and join them for dinner.

I'm a big believer in instinct, so if it makes you uncomfortable I'm not going to say suck it up.

But... I am appalled at how many on here have read "they are going out to dinner" and then typed "he is taking her out to dinner". FFS.

I go to dinner with male friends/colleagues all the time - I work away, so not an option for H to come too. Closer to home, I meet male friends alone. As I do female. It doesn't even matter if they secretly fancy me. I've got a mind of my own, you know?

I had a male friend spend a whole weekend alone with me when I was working abroad for 6 months. I refuse to write off friendship with 50% of the population. How sad that would be.

I wouldn't be happy with this either, even though I trust my DH, do you get invited aswell, and does he do the same with male colleagues.

I would be tempted to throw a dinner party to get to meet her, then it would be on your terms surrounded by your friends.

I definitely wouldn't be happy with it. YANBU.

My Dh occasionally goes for drinks after work with female colleagues, occasionally male colleagues, sometimes both. It never occurred to me that he shouldn't, I just see it as him catching up with people he gets on with. I guess I maybe don't mind as he's always had close female friends from when we first met, and when we go out together with those friends it is very clear he sees them as just that, friends.

I have also met his female work colleagues after he has met them without me a few times, they always seem pleased to meet me and say he's told them all about me etc.

I'd be upset if I felt he was discussing things with them rather than talking to me, but I'd feel that way if it were a male colleague too.

I don't think I would mind if they were nipping out for something to eat in their lunch hour but not sure about going out in the evening. Perhaps if there were others going or you knew this woman but YANBU for being uncomfortable with it.

Daytime meetings and lunches are different to evening get-togethers.

After work drinks and/or meal, locally, crowd of colleagues, no problem.
After work drinks and/or meal, locally, just him and her, why?

If he is going to stray with someone at work he won't wait for a night rendezvous but I think YANBU and if you are uneasy there's usually something in it.

I think it is the intensity of the one on one situation that to me feels like overstepping the mark.

When I was a SAHM I made friends with a SAHD at a baby class - it was completely platonic. We often used to go for lunch afterwards, but i'd always make sure there was a group of us. I don't think it would have felt right if it had just been the two of us... and I would have understood if DH hadn't liked the idea. FWIW he goes out with work colleagues at lunchtimes (male and female) but not one to one with female colleagues and not for dinner unless it is an event where partners are invited too.

But it does make you feel rubbish when you are washing his shirts and he is out having a meal with another woman. That's the problem its not crime scene but none the less makes you feel a bit crap?

You are definitely definitely NOT BU.

Gosh this thread is going round and round in circles.

OP i'd be bloody furious if my DH wanted to take another woman out to dinner (unless it was his sister or his mother).

He'd understand because he'd be bloody furious if i wanted to go out to dinner with a bloke. It's the way we are and it works for us. The day he says he doesn't care if go out for dinner with some other guy is the day i know our relationship is in trouble. He'd say the same. It may not be very PC but ..... i'm fine with it. It feels right.

The fact that other people, here on MN, or anywhere, would be OK with their partners taking other women out to dinner doesn't mean your feelings aren't valid. So don't worry about that.

If you feel deep down that there is even more to this than just the simple unreasonableness of you being left at home while he takes another woman out to dinner, (ie: you think she may have an agenda) then all the more reason to go with your gut feelings and don't let this pass. I'd be kicking up a bloody stink!

I wouldn't be happy about this either and I'm generally a very trusting type.

Dinner together seems very intimate as other people have said.

Also I've thought what would I do if a male friend who was married asked me out for dinner one evening.

I wouldn't go. I'd feel very uncomfortable thinking that his wife was at home with the children whilst I was out having dinner and drinks with her husband.

I'd also be questioning his intentions.

Exactly Blueballoon79 - thats just how I would feel and wouldent go - if I fancied them a little bit then I would think this could lead to something I wont go - if I didnt I would think its possible they fancy me (as I have had many coming on me at work SHarass the lot!

There are two different types of cheater. There's the one who is always going to be on the lookout for someone to shag, but there is also the one, who would define themselves as fundamentally loyal, good people, but who put themselves in positions where an affair 'just happens'.

For the second type of cheater, it happens because they have not observed appropriate boundaries with people outside their relationship.

I don't understand why any wife (or husband) would happily sit back while their spouse deliberately puts themselves in a social situation that creates intimacy with someone other than themselves. That means cosy evening dinners, while the spouse is at home with the kids.

My dh goes to work so he can earn money to support our family life. When he is not at work, I expect him to get home and actually partake in that family life. He is not at work to make friends and socialise. If there is time and money for cosy dinners, I expect him to be having them with me.

Call me old fashioned but I think the OP's dh is taking the piss. It may well be innocent, but it is definitely inappropriate.

I am also cynical, but plenty of people hide in plain sight - they think you won't possibly suspect them because they've been so up front!

I don't think I'd be cool with this, nor would DP expect me to be. It's the appearance of impropriety for me.

A business trip is completely different IMO but I'm still wary of certain scenarios. (It's usually me on the business trips, so these are situations I try to avoid myself rather than rules I impose on DP).

Well until I read this, I would happily go for dinner with a male without any expectation of anything happening I have worked in an industry for years where you are friendly to everyone and I've not been chatted up! I know I wouldn't see a married man for a myriad of reasons and thankfully, I've not had to put that to the test recently.

Having read this, however, I am beginning to rethink how appropriate it is!

At no point have I said the OP is being unreasonable. I think its perfecly reasonable for her to ask him not to go.

What I do think is unreasonable are all the posts along the lines of "My husband is not allowed to make new female friends, my husband is not allowed to socialise alone with female friends, etc, etc".

There's a world of difference between being unhappy your partner is going out spending family time and money on someone else (gender irrelevant) when they should be helping split the work load at home, and just a blanket unhappiness at the situation due to gender.

This is a joke right?

I think it depends on the 'friend'.

My DH had work colleagues who were really my type, ie I liked them, they were funny, had v busy lives if they were not married, and, obviously very busy lives if they were, didn't wear plunging necklines or flirty type clothing, had a good laugh with DH (and with me if I was there) so him having a meal with them was fine.

If the friend is not your type, in my case maybe a bit dipsy, a bit needy, single, or married but DH never mentioned, I wouldn't be happy.