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

[skinofthericepudding]

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?

Good day to all.

Just wanted to say thank you to those posters who supported me in having a right to express an opinion without being called names.

To other posters who got angry at me and called me immoral (?), gf, arrogant, shallow, entitled etc, I can only say this.
You get angry because you know, deep down, that I am telling the truth (to a large extent, perhaps my truth is slightly exaggerated due to me working in a highly charged environment full of ambitious and confident men (aka 'twats' as per other poster description).

There are thousands of well researched studies in anthropology, evolutionary sciences and biology on the subject of fidelity, coupling, child rearing and family organisation in our species. These studies shed a lot of light on human sexual behaviour. Human beings are not 'twats' for wanting multiple sexual partners, this is not an abnormal behaviour. But I digress.

Alpha males (strong/confident/successful) have extramarital affairs significantly more often than others because they can.
Circumstances and opportunities, as well as exhibiting alpha-male / alpha-female traits, are the deciding factors in whether or not a person would have a fling / affair.
Many of the posters say 'my DH is good looking and earns well' but this does not necessarily equal to being an alpha and/or having opportunities to engage in an affair.

I am sorry if I offend you, name-calling posters, but this is where your anger is stemming from:

• either you know I am right and you don't have that self-declared unwavering confidence in your confident/successful DP, and it hurts to acknowledge so; you are in denial about your OH desires (which he may or may not be able to control either now or in the future) and you are uncomfortable with me disturbing your 'blissfully unaware' state;

OR

• your DP is simply not desirable enough due to socio-economic background; you are angry with me because I point this out to you. Yes it's most likely unpleasant for you to hear but that doesn't make it less true.

To some other posters feeling sorry for me for having such a 'distorted view of the world'. Please don't feel sorry for me.
Feel sorry for those who wake up one morning to a broken family because 'DH would never cheat / he has morals'.
Feel sorry for those who don't take care of their appearance following long years of marriage and then OW appears and 'exDH was a twat for having his head turned so easily'.
Feel sorry for those who live in denial.
And feel sorry for those with husbands who no one else wants or needs. I don't want a husband no one else would have, but then I am 'shallow and arrogant'.

There are many successful marriages in the City, despite, or perhaps, somewhat paradoxically, due to the environment.
People who make it work, first and utmost, understand what they are up against. They are prepared. It's not about snooping; it's about setting ground rules, and mitigating high risk situations, it's about working on marriages and not letting the complacency to set in.

I am not naive and I certainly don't have a marshmallow view of the world; but that doesn't make me unhappy in the slightest!
I choose to work in the City environment and I absolutely love it. With each environment come challenges. And benefits.
In the City we deal with ambitious attitudes bordering on cruelty; at a local library we may be dealing with excruciating monotony of days.

Yes, my future H would have many more opportunities to cheat than a librarian, and that's the risk I am willing to take because I'll have a clever, confident, desirable and interesting man next to me and my children will have his genes.

Thank you for reading.

Thanks be to God

theSinkingFeeling,
To answer your yesterday's post: yes I did namechange and I said so in my very first post. I discuss my colleagues sex lives so of course I needed to mitigate the risk.

Not sure what you mean by your comment that we both share some obvious entitlement.

Feel free to guess my original screen name if that entertains you.
I promise to tell you if you guess correctly.

your DP is simply not desirable enough due to socio-economic background

Have you never seen Jeremy Kyle?!!! heard if Mick Philpott? I don't think he would cut any mustard with you OW but trust me he was getting it left right and centre, like a CEO on his private jet he was!

Does all that apply to women too may I ask?

Another, I am sure you are very well equipped to talk (as you have at length) about the city environment, with its typical behaviour, rules, standard types of men etc.

Do you accept this may mean you know jack shit about how it all works in other walks of life? You speak very authoritatively, as if your city experience gives you some kind of unique insight into all people. It may not.

I know you had plenty of advice, but I myself don't find this normal either..
I'm now divorced but whilst married, I wouldn't have let him do this.. he wouldn't let me do that either..
I also don't have any male married friends who would be doing this...
unless they are looking for something else, then they wouldn't be telling their wife.. (and I don't go out with married men either)
so... not normal.
bike ride alone is one thing or with a male friend but with a female is a bit like a date.
just my honest opinion.

What you mean, AnotherOW is that your dh will want multiple sexual partners, this will be natural for him and you can't stop it, and he will never be 100% certain your children are actually his.

Ive already had my guess.

OW - I don't feel sorry for you because your view is distorted. I feel sorry for you because you seem to think that all men worth having (in your opinion) are likely to be unfaithful.
I also feel sorry for you because you think that if you do marry the type of man who can't keep it in his pants you will be able to prevent him from being unfaithful to you .

Ledkr,
It's all quite complicated and I am not going to be summarising the results of anthropological studies. I can send you links to some good reading if you are interested. But, very briefly, the higher the socio-economic status of a woman, the less likely she is to be unfaithful (as she already has access to a wide and varied sperm bank due to her status - yes sperm bank/market is the term scientist use).
The lower the status of a woman, the more likely she is to cheat, because, quite simply, her chances of success in the sperm market (aka one night stand) are higher than her chances in the marriage market.
Also, such woman wouldn't have much to loose anyway even if she does get found out.
As a result, it's estimated that a disproportionately large number of men in the lowest echelons of society are raising the kids that are not theirs (but who they believe to be theirs).
Hence, Jeremy Kyle show with all the paternity tests etc.

And to answer stopshoutingatme,
The point you are making about Jeremy Kyle show is very valid indeed. But dynamics and workings of sexual relationships in the slice of the society you mention is a subject of different discussion.
There is a different set of rules that applies, which is mostly to do with different opportunity costs and higher risk-to-reward ratio.
I was not discussing that particular sample of society, as it's very different from what the OP's situation and also from other poster's situations.

another I think you may be misinterpreting some posters comments. I'm not offended, or angry about your posts - I just disagree. I don't think men - or women, or relationships for that matter - can be so neatly summed up.

I'm not sure why it is so important to you to be absolutely and definitively correct on what all men are like. Surely this is impossible. I work in the city myself (suddenly looking over my shoulder...you don't work next to me, do you!!) - and you do have a point, men like that definitely exist.

I work with many men who are cheating on their partners, or don't pass up an opportunity to take a work trip and play away. But I can recognise this exists without it becoming the default for everyone. I am also very close to a couple of these guys, and I have to say underneath the posturing and outward success, they're often very insecure. The loudness and brashness and competitive nature that makes them successful at work can be the result of these issues.

Even your stat about 45% of marriages ending in divorce. I know it's spurious to the topic as how many of these were caused by infidelity? Does infidelity always result in divorce? Anyway I find this stat quite amazing. I think it's quite proof of the opposite of what you've been saying that statistically over half of all weddings I've been to will last for ever! Over half! That seems an enormous number, and one that would be unlikely if every man was secretly desperate to shag about at all times

roundaboutthetown,

You completely miss the point.
On the reasons why high status women don't need / don't feel compelled to cheat generally is because they already have access to an excellent genetic pool (via OH).
Please see my answer to Ledkr above.

About your second question.
It's not just my H who will want multiple sexual partners. All men do want it. Whether or not they act on it is another matter.
Alpha male is more likely to act on his desires.
That's the only difference.

Will I be able to stop him wanting others? Of course not!
It's their nature to want. They are married not dead!

Will I be able to stop him acting? Perhaps, perhaps not, who knows.
As I said there are many successful marriages in the City, so I'll do my best to make it work. Like with any marriage, city or not.

DryIce,
There is a way to disagree, and then there are those who call names and are getting angry at me. I was addressing those people specifically as is visible from my post.

OH YAY SOUND THE EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY KLAXON. You do know most of these "studies" about men being wired for sowing their seed indiscriminately, or maths, or whatever (see also: women loving pink and monogamy and feeeeeeeelings because they gather pink fruit, or summat) are, frankly, a load of piss?

PMSL at the way this thread has gone. Contrary to your belief, OW, merchant bankers (rhymes with...) are not the absolute pinnacle of desirable thrusting suity masculinity, much as you seem to think that you have found the motherlode of Objectively The Best Possible Men and we are all just gaping in jealousy at the sidelines with our unattractive beta weaklings (DP does have a high powered job, just not actually in the City. He does however have to deal with your beloved Hot Alpha City Men and their ilk being absolute entitled knobs at him on a regular basis because they have egos the size of Jupiter...)

OMG YOU ACTUALLY SAID ALPHA MALE.

continues to PMSL

Drylce - I think we will just have to accept that AnotherOW wants to marry a man she has mistaken for an alpha male, to whom she will be faithful because she thinks she is an alpha female who therefore doesn't need to be unfaithful to be at the top of the gene pool, while he happily shags around with other women behind her back. However, she will be able to console herself by telling herself that those other women are not alpha females like she is.

Yes, my future H would have many more opportunities to cheat than a librarian, and that's the risk I am willing to take because I'll have a clever, confident, desirable and interesting man next to me and my children will have his genes.

Are you sure you're not one of those tragic Men's Rights Activists doing a persona of How They Think Women Think? Like, "ooh, yeah, all the hot women reject me because I'm a nice guy beta, not like those alpha jocks who are like total wankers and sleep around with everyone, but yeah, that's what women WANT, they hate nice guys like meeeeeeeeee", possibly before starting to stockpile armaments in his basement.

Of course, school teacher or a postman just doesn't get opportunities to travel, to spend evenings unchecked, in a different time zone and when no consequences are likely.

I agree that a lot of people (male and female) cheat due to opportunity, but given this statement I wonder if you understand what an "opportunity" actually is.

Look I've said my bit.
Go back to your über successful husbands who obviously only want you for the rest of their days. They never ever fantasise about fucking OW.
And they will never do it because they have morals.

Or better still why don't you ask your OH?
I am sure they'll be telling you all about their real desires (yes including about one for a threesome with your good looking sister), oh yes and about their shower masturbation habits.

I've got better things to do than listen to a 'stick your head in the sand' brigade.
Goodbye.

Haha - could I possibly be taking this to seriously...

On another note - I do actually have a male librarian friend (also been to dinner with him, managed to keep my hussy hands of him), and let me tell you he gets loads of interest from ladies. Goodlooking, intelligent, community-ish job...

On a kind of related, although it makes me cringe a bit, note - from him I have learned also librarians earn more than I thought they would!

They never ever fantasise about fucking OW.
And they will never do it because they have morals.

Meh. Everyone fantasises about fucking someone they shouldn't. The people worth having in your life keep it as a fantasy.

YY Leedy - I think so!

Good luck with your genetically selected alpha male future husband, OW (who, according to you, will be pre-disposed to cheat on you). I'm sure you'll be very happy.