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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

...to feel a little miffed that DH is out for the day with a female friend

589 replies

skinofthericepudding · 20/03/2016 10:03

My DH told me a few days ago that he'd be out cycling today. and would need the car. I asked a couple of days ago what time he would be back, and he said late afternoon. I happened to ask who he was cycling with (he belongs to a couple of cycling groups) and he said that it was a female friend. He has met her few times for lunch etc and they have been to a local town for the day together for lunch and sight seeing. They used to work together and I have to admit that they probably have more shared interests than we do! I have never met her, but can't help feeling a little put out that he's spending Sunday with her. AIBU?

OP posts:

ephemeralfairy · 21/03/2016 13:38

Nope nope nope!! Alarm bells for me I am afraid. I have been 'the friend' in the scenario. It was at a very vulnerable time in my life when I was suffering with undiagnosed depression. I struck up a friendship with a guy I worked with and we would have those sort of days out. He told me that his girlfriend was away a lot, or that she was working or out with other friends.
I am ashamed now that I believed these lines but I was really not thinking straight at the time. I'd just come out of a borderline EA relationship and my head was all over the place.
But to cut a very long and painful story short he told me he was in love with me and broke up with his girlfriend (who had a male work 'friend' that she went on to marry!!). He then got cold feet and decided he wanted to be on his own, and after a very painful year of us trying to be 'friends' I discovered he had been seeing one of our mutual friends for two months behind my back.
Anyway a digression, but yes. I would be very wary OP. Sounds like you've got your head screwed on though. Good luck.

roundaboutthetown · 21/03/2016 13:40

Why be so selfish with new friends? Why not introduce them to your dw once you've got to the point of lunches, sightseeing, cycling and walks? Worried the dw would put them off, or cramp your style??

TinklyLittleLaugh · 21/03/2016 13:42

I suppose by older friends I mean friends that predate my DP. Friends I probably sussed out and discounted for romantic purposes, yet liked having in my life. I wouldn't bin them off just because I met DP?

But yes longstanding friends, friends you are definitely in the safe, not going to get entangled with, zone with. I wouldn't have hung out with DP's best mate without him in the first few years after we met. But now I would go to something with just him if neither of our partners wanted to come along.

whois · 21/03/2016 13:42

I think it is a newer friend thing Only. The scenarios you describe would not work for me. I'd be happy for my DH to wander down the South Bank with an old friend. I would not be happy about him doing it with someone he had just met.

Same.

I had a bit of a 'new friend' situation last year. I became friends with a guy, we got on really well. As friends. Then i started to feel that meeting up with him wasn't actually the right thing to do, but couldn't articulate what had changed. A short while later I started to get the 'more than friends' vibes from him and he declared his interest. Obviously I had to put a stop to that friendship!

beefthief · 21/03/2016 13:45

Would any of you forbid your husband from making a new, female friend?

roundaboutthetown · 21/03/2016 13:47

No, I would expect him to introduce me to her.

lotbyname · 21/03/2016 13:48

Hmm. It sounds like one of those situations whete it depends. Given what you've told us then Yanbu. You've not met her, he's not involved you either in thier friendship generally or today and the drip feeding. I would give some leeway for it being cycling but sightseeing rather negates that. You have a reasonable reason in your background for feeling uncomfortable so hopefully he will hear your point when you speak to him. Good luck

balimoon · 21/03/2016 13:48

Hmmmmm exactly how affairs start!

ThatsNotMyRabbit · 21/03/2016 13:53

Pfffft. Only on mumsnet would anyone be expected to be ok about this 🙄

Well I'm not a cool wife. If my DH suggested this I'd be "Whoooah there Trigger. I don't fucking think so" 🤔

eatsleephockeyrepeat · 21/03/2016 13:53

I can understand why posters would come at this like it was cut and dried one way or the other, but 3 pages of concerted disagreement shows it's the kind of thing that depends 100% on the two people involved.

He didn't immediately tell her his companion's identity and gender? Did he also not mention her sexuality, her pretty eyes and her disgustingly off-putting habit of picking her nose? Regardless of whether such details would be pertinent to the OP, perhaps they weren't pertinent to him, so he didn't mention them. Or perhaps he was trying to hide this information because he knew it would be important to the OP. I defy anyone on here (other than perhaps the OP) to know the answer to this.

Each to their own, but in my experience if someone's going to cheat they will find a way. There will not necessarily be red flags. You cannot always be vigilant to that possibility and you cannot always protect yourself from it happening to you. Similarly you can destroy the love you share with someone by looking for signs, seeing them when they are not there, or putting someone else's experiences onto your own.

OP, all I can say is how do you feel about this situation? If you feel it's shifty - even if it turns out you were wrong - I would advise communicating openly with your partner about your feelings, working together to come up with a plan that you find reassuring and he doesn't find stifling. Get on the same page about what you think it appropriate. You cannot guarantee you will protect your relationship, but you're also aware the experiences of others may be clouding your judgement - don't let those bad feelings undermine your relationship either; that can be just as terminal as an affair!

MitzyLeFrouf · 21/03/2016 13:54

I wouldn't forbid my husband from making a friend of the opposite sex, because that would be weird and controlling. But if I found out he was intending to spend a Sunday going for a long walk and having a lunch with a new female friend I'd certainly be very interested to meet her.

donajimena · 21/03/2016 13:58

thatsnot yep agreed. Why not send him off with some condoms and a cheery 'I won't wait up'

DadOnIce · 21/03/2016 13:59

Either you trust DH or you don't. If he's going to have an affair with Ms CyclingShorts - or indeed anyone else - they'll find a way to do it anyway. And if he's not, then going out on their bikes for the day won't lead to that. If he's anything like most of the cyclists I know, they will be obsessing over mileages and gear-oiling and tyre tension and LED lights and disc brakes and bike chain lube and primoplastic mudguards, etc. (without any of that being in the least bit a euphemism, before anybody goes all Finbar Saunders).

(What do people with bisexual partners do in these circumstances, anyway? About 2% of people identify as bisexual, I'm reliably informed, so there must be a good few hundred on here. Are they not allowed to spend one-to-one time with any friends of either gender in case they feel like jumping them, because, obviously they are going to fancy everyone they are friends with.)

GlitterGlassEye · 21/03/2016 14:03

'Cool wife' was invented by men to persuade their wives to be putting up with any old shite they throw at them. With a smile on her face.

I know, I was one. Not fucking now!

beefthief · 21/03/2016 14:04

ThatsNotMyRabbit - swearing at your husband when he wants to go out, and forbidding him from doing so doesn't make you an "uncool wife", it makes you a controlling bully.

OVienna · 21/03/2016 14:16

DadonIce except the OP came back to say there was a 'fault' with the woman's bike so they had a walk and a lunch together, according to the DP. So much for the peloton.

"Lunch and sightseeing" in another village - but OPs never met her.

OP YANBU.

Marynary · 21/03/2016 14:18

Either you trust DH or you don't. If he's going to have an affair with Ms CyclingShorts - or indeed anyone else - they'll find a way to do it anyway.

That is rubbish. Whilst some people will have affairs whatever the circumstances, others will only in certain circumstances.

roundaboutthetown · 21/03/2016 14:27

Other circumstances being realising that you would rather walk, lunch and sightsee with a woman who is not your dw. Or was the sightseeing a shopping trip to the local bike shop?

eatsleephockeyrepeat · 21/03/2016 14:30

Anyone read "The Woman Destroyed" by Simone de Beauvoir? Fantastic BTW, but that's beside the point.

It's not so much that it's about a similar scenario (it isn't), but it is about a woman who tries to absolutely everything she can to stop her husband falling in love with another woman and leaving her. Sometimes she follows the advice from other women who have been in similar positions, sometimes she tries to do what she thinks will work. Suffice to say she does not succeed in keep her husband's love, and she destroys herself in the process.

I do believe if someone's going to cheat they will. I do not believe many of us as partners have as much control as we may like to think. Surely all you can do is aim to have the healthiest, kindest and most fair and balanced relationship possible; one that enables both parties to feel trusted, and that their concerns are respected and taken into account?

roundaboutthetown · 21/03/2016 14:33

That's why I don't keep my friends from my dh - I introduce them to him.

amarmai · 21/03/2016 14:35

hobby=affair?

roundaboutthetown · 21/03/2016 14:41

Lunch, sightseeing and walking are all hobbies the dh shares with his dw, so it's not just about an unshared hobby, it's an unshared friendship that the dh wants to pursue.

theredjellybean · 21/03/2016 14:41

it is not so much hobby=affair

it is the fact this friendship is going outside of just the shared hobby . And though there is no problem in having friends of both sexes and spending time doing stuff, it does come accros from the OP that her DH has 'chosen' to spend his leisure time doing something ...not related to the shared hobby with this other woman, and has not chosen to spend his leisure time with his wife.

It wouldn't worry me if my DP had female friends i had not met as they shared a hobby, and did that hobby together, but i would find it bit odd that DP and a female friend when faced with not being able to do hobby didn't then want to use that opportunity to spend time with me.

I can see that OP feels that her DH has 'chosen' to have nice sunday time with someone else and that is hurtful whether there is anything untoward or not.

And whether her DH sees it like that or not , the bottom line is OP has been hurt by his actions and maybe he should be putting her first rather than cycling shorts lady.

dilys4trevor · 21/03/2016 14:42

Cheaters often do seem 'really surprised' when the subject of a cheating possibility is brought up by a partner.

This is because cheaters tend to indulge in activities known as 'pretending' and 'hiding the truth.'

There wouldn't be much occurring on the Relationships board if cheaters were all terrible liars.

theredjellybean · 21/03/2016 14:43

plus the broken bike was not the first time ....they had been out for a day of sight seeing and lunch together before....

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