To be jealous of new female friend

[ABroads]

My DH has recently started up a friendship with a girl he met through a work related conference (they don't work together). She's slightly younger than me but very attractive and single. They have a lot in common and have been meeting for lunches and went for a night out recently. He has been totally open about it and I've seen her messages, which are friendly but usually with a work related twist. I do trust him, but I'm feeling a bit insecure in myself at the moment and frankly jealous that he can have fun lunches and nights out with an attractive girl, without a kid in tow like we usually have.

I'm becoming a horrible jealous and suspicious person and I don't like myself.. But I guess I am jealous and worried about how their relationship will develop.

Funny how men don't make best friends with the older lady at work, meet up for lunch etc - oh, I spose it's because older women aren't witty or fun

Considering they don't even work together, haven't known each other long at all and seem to have spent a fair amount of time with eachother since meeting I'd be incredibly uncomfortable wth this.
Dp has a very close female friend, in fact they dated when they were 15 (aww) and he can go and spend as much time with her as he wishes, he has lots of female work colleagues he grabs coffee with at work etc and plenty of male friends too. It's fine. If he decided he'd made this random new female friend and is mentioning her a lot (seemingly), going out for lunch and night outs just with her I'd definitely have to do something about it.
At the end of the day he can do what he wants but you'd hope that he wouldn't want to put strain on yor relationship. You'll never know if he's actually stopped the lunches etc, that's the hard bit...do you trust him to be honest?

And of course he's gone down the "tell her everything she'll suspect nothing route".
Well that worked didn't it.

Every single male 'friend' I have had over the years has made a pass at some stage (apart from the gay ones) and I would not be impressed if this was my partner.

I think your husband is behaving very disrespectfully OP and I would feel the same as you.

Trust your gut.

I'm another one in the minority not thinking it's a problem. Dh and I both have friends of the opposite gender.
I'd be absolutely coldly furious if he attempted to impose some ban on me socialising with male friends - I would wonder what on earth made him think he had the right, consider it hugely controlling behaviour, and would ltb. I've been in a relationship before where my partner effectively did this - he was very abusive, in a number of ways. I hate to even think about it.
I also doubt you can prevent people having affairs by limiting who they socialise with. And even if you can, in some senses what's the point? Do you want to be with someone who is itching for affairs with others, but you've managed to stop it by putting them on a socialising-with-the-opposite-sex ban? Or someone who is actually faithful to you out of choice.
Strangely, most people I know in RL have cross-gender friendships, in fact I'm struggling now to think of anyone who doesn't. But according to this thread, I must move in some bloody weird circles!

Norah makes a very good point!

I'm single. I've got male friends who are in relationships and met me after their relationships started. I'm both older and younger than no some of these guys and their partners.

I've gone out for dinner / drinks alone with these men.

Somehow we've managed to not shag over the starters... .

Not all friendships with single women result in affairs.

I have male friends too but I don't think that's what this is about. It's not about making a new friend. It's about meeting someone and all of a suddenly spending a lot of time with them very quickly - lunches/nights out etc. that's what would make me feel a bit

Sudden not suddenly - edit function please!!!!

A married colleague I worked closely with for years kept asking me to go out for coffee/drinks/curry. When I eventually went, as he got more and more drunk he confessed he had feelings for me. I said, I thought you were happily married. He said, I am. He still tried it on.

I have never managed to have genuine male friends. I would never trust your husband in this situation.

I disagree. I've been that woman - gone for lunch weekly, dinner a couple of times in a month or so.

No passes made by either side. Nor an undercurrent of sexual attraction.

I've been in this situation. I'm probably what people would disparagingly call the "cool wife" as it didn't bother me. I know I am massively in the minority, I'm not naive but maybe I don't care enough and that probably says more about me and my marriage than anything else... But the way I saw it, if he wanted to be with someone else then that was his choice. I trusted him not to cheat on me, I trusted that if the female friend tried it on he would say no, but at the end of the day if he wanted to have an affair then me banning him seeing her wouldn't have stopped it. And if he wanted to have an affair then there was something not right in our marriage and just stopping him seeing any single females would be simply papering over the cracks. If he were a cheater, he would find a way. I don't think for one minute that he cheated on me. You all probably think I am naive and he did. And if he did, well so what? We are happy.

Life happens, we are all grown ups and I am not in the business of telling my husband what he can and can't do, or trying to "protect him from himself" by banning certain behaviours. I'd be furious if my husband told me I couldn't have lunch with a new friend who happened to be male.

If my husband decides he would rather be with someone else, so be it. But I don't think for one tiny minute he ever will. :-)

I was wondering when the 'cool' thing would be trotted out on this thread. I don't have male friends because I "need" to get away from my partner or have a "flirt", I have them because I have things in common with them, I enjoy spending time with them and I can see past gender and look at the person. The same way I can see that this is why my DP has female friends, I don't (and won't) think that every other woman is the enemy.

OP, I really feel for you because this must be really eating you up. I think that you need to address the lack of trust in your relationship, please talk to him about this or your feelings will spiral.

To all the ones who think you should be fine with this, I wonder what kind of situation would they find unacceptable regarding a man and woman having a possible fling. What would cause them to be suspicious, because it does happen and you can't bury your head in the sand saying "he's entitled to have a female friend" and go on dates with her and think nothing could be going on. Wouldn't that make things so easy and convenient for anyone wanting to be unfaithful, if all they had to say was "she's just a friend".

I'd just like to point something out from the contact's perspective here; you find your DH attractive, you consider her to be an attractive woman. This does not mean that she will necessarily find your DH to be attractive too... Just because she is female doesn't mean she is automatically going to pander to your husband and want him for herself. I think you'd be making a good decision in meeting her.

Do posters with lots of friends of the opposite sex meet new ones regularly, or do these friends go back a few years. So are old friends. As that's different imo.

Most people have friends from their past, who they see now and again.

If I or DH met lovely new friend who were seeing a lot of I think we'd want to introduce them to our DP.

Could it even be possible that she's told your DH she's started dating someone so as to make it clear to him she isn't interested in things being anything more than a friendship/working contact scenario?

I think you would know yourself whether this felt like a genuine "friend" or something more threatening.

I don't bloody think so! My nearly ex husband did this sort of thing, they give the impression of being "open and honest" when actually they're not and especially not with themselves. I don't know your husband, you do, the fact you have felt the need to post about this and are clearly very concerned means that you need to nip this in the bud now. Ask him how he would feel if the situation were reversed. Time for a full and frank OP. I would also warn her off, I really would.

I think you need to find more about her professional value to him to get the full picture. For example, in my line of work we need to bid for funding grants regularly to ensure we all stay in our jobs. That involves putting teams together that consist of leaders from various specialities in their field, plus some junior up and coming individuals. I could imagine my boss needing to attend these sorts of events/ lunches etc frequently, for a short period of time with the right sorts of people, attractive or not, in order to put a team together to write a bid/ attract funding.

If she seems to be someone who is useful to him in a work context, I would be less suspicious. If she is not, then maybe you have more to worry about.

dragdownthemoon I agree.

OP regardless of the rights and the wrongs, you need tbh with your DH and tell him exactly how you feel. I mean this in the nicest possible way - jealousy is such a destructive emotion, it eats you up and hurts your partner when it is unjustified. If you want to be the one having a childfree evening, ask DH out on a date. All the previous suggestions about dressing up and going seeing a fake office hottie. What precisely is that going to achieve? Grown up relationships aren't tit for tat.

This is slightly off topic, but I periodically try to do something out of character just to make DH laugh/from taking me for granted. Trying to pluck up the courage to ninjaboob him. Read it on a thread somewhere and he would be so shocked if I did that - he'd remember it. IE, remember me!

I hope you feel happier soon.