To think I'm cool with being a cool wife

[zeezeek]

I’ve been married for over 25 years now and have always had a good relationship with my husband. We don’t live in each other’s pockets and are apart a lot. I was talking to a female friend earlier today about how DH went hiking with some women he knows from the PTA and ended up getting trashed and staying over at one of their houses. She didn’t understand why that didn’t bother me and accused me of being a cool wife and giving other women a bad name.

As it was the woman’s husband was there as well, but even if now, it wouldn’t have bothered me. He’s a grown man and not my possession - as I’m not his. We respect each other and give each other leeway to be independent and live our own lives.

I don’t make a fuss if he’s looking at other women and he doesn’t make a fuss if I’m looking at other men.

Neither of us are bothered by the other spending time with friends of the opposite sex.

While I hate the porn industry as an industry I can’t get bothered by my husband watching it.

So, if that makes me a cool wife, then I’m cool with it.

Sorry OP but you've already broken the first rule of "Cool Wives Club"

DON'T TALK ABOUT COOL WIVES CLUB

Yabu not to have started your op with 'I am in an open marriage'. I think that would have elicited some different responses. Different strokes for different folks and all that.

I imagine you haven't told your suspicious friend that either as that would not be discreet. However, it's a bit disingenuous to act like you trust your husband not to cheat, when you actually have an agreement with him that it's OK for him to cheat.

I just read 2 thirds of your thread thinking 'fair enough, but why do you have to judge everyone else' to now feeling a bit pissed off tbh.

OMG aren't you lot being bitchy.

ZEE your marriage works, you have been together a long time and I bet your husband comes home and tells you all the funny bits of his day, and you sit and have a laugh, being friends with the person you live with is so important, friendship also includes trust.
Please accept my congratulations on being a COOL wife.
As to an open marriage, think your partner would just think that means you don't judge each other, as your lifes are an open book in each others eyes.
How sad that people think any man who stays at a friends house, while the husband is in the house, must be cheating...

Hope your hubby finds this as funny as I do...

cool wife is just yet another way for women to be nasty about other women.

I didn't start the thread with the declaration that I'm in an open marriage because I'm not!! We just decided, a long, long time ago, that if either of us slept with someone else as a one off at a conference or something, then it wouldn't be the end of the world. And it hasn't been. It works both ways, you know. I'm not some pathetic little wife sat at home wondering what her husband is up to - most of the time it is me that's away from home, often for up to a month or two and he isn't a pathetic, controlling husband that is doing the same. It is an arrangement that has worked for us for over 25 years and continues to do so.

I don't describe myself as a cool wife because a) why should I label my marriage just to suit MN and b) it is used on here, and among others in real life, such as my friend, as an insult and an insinuation that one is insecure, pathetic and downtrodden.
I also don't criticise my friend on the way she conducts her private life - even though I do judge her and think that she should calm the fuck down and stop being so paranoid; but I don't tell her that, because it is rude and, of course, I don't know everything that is happening in her marriage.
I was just telling her about our weekends - mine and the girls meeting up with her step sister in London for some wedding/bridesmaid dress shopping, and my husband doing a walk with some of his friends. The ones who also just happen to be members of the PTA - hence how he met them. I could have easily just described them as an accountant, scientist, engineer and banker - cos that's their day jobs.

Oh, you are in an open relationship, well then of course it is fine if your husband does have sex with someone else. That is not being a "cool wife", just having an open relationship.
I would be concerned though about an adult who gets so trashed they can not make their way home. If it is a one off, fine. If not it sounds more like a problem with alcohol or drugs.

What part of sleeping with other people doesn't make your marriage open? 🤔

If you’re a cool wife, I’m a hot wife

You don't "criticise" your friend but you do "judge" her?

I bet my husband wishes I was as cool as you

Okay x posted, you don't label your marriage an open one. I do think there is a difference between saying you are fine with each other having sex as a one off with someone else, and saying it would not be the end of the marriage. The latter scenario you might be very unhappy that your partner had had sex with someone else, but not enough to end the marriage. Not sure which is the case for you.

I agree that we do not own people. So each doing your own thing, fair enough.

Sorry you do sound a bit dim to understand how harmful the porn industry is, but not to care if your partner uses porn.

@Smeaton lol best reply iv read on here.

It's not like this in Finland, everyone is cool there.

You don't "criticise" your friend but you do "judge" her?

Yeah, cos no one ever judges anyone on MN at all, do they.

It's not like this in Finland, everyone is cool there.
Very true, especially this time of year. My late father in law was a Finn who moved to the south of Sweden in retirement for the warmer weather!!

Just because a woman isn't checking her partners phone every two minutes, saying who he can socialise with and searching his pockets for receipts doesn't mean you're letting the side down

Actually, the paranoia on this thread is really quite telling. Many posters seem to covet a close, happy and trusting traditional marriage and yet seem terribly afraid that their menfolk will, at the drop of a hat and as soon as they are out of sight, have illicit affairs or one-nighters. I'd hate to live with that level of anxiety.

Cool is cool is you’re 15

To me it screams I don’t give a fuck what he does as status cool is better than DH balls deep in the hiking club 👍🏻

Can I just point out, the concept of fidelity was one which was rooted in religion and also one which was used to control fertility and inheritance, particularly of women.

We're not really a religious society anymore and contraception has removed much of the worry about unwanted children of dubious parentage. Sex is often a recreational activity these days rather than a sacred act for reproduction. It's not really surprising given the way our society has changed that fidelity is a long way down the list of desirable qualities in a partner for some people these days.

Is being a cool wife like being a yummy mummy? As in, if you declare you are, you're probably not.

Here is the extract by Gillian Flynn that defines a "cool girl" and which has been extended to include cool wife.

“Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl.

Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men – friends, coworkers, strangers – giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them. I’d want to grab the poor guy by his lapels or messenger bag and say: The bitch doesn’t really love chili dogs that much – no one loves chili dogs that much! And the Cool Girls are even more pathetic: They’re not even pretending to be the woman they want to be, they’re pretending to be the woman a man wants them to be. Oh, and if you’re not a Cool Girl, I beg you not to believe that your man doesn’t want the Cool Girl. It may be a slightly different version – maybe he’s a vegetarian, so Cool Girl loves seitan and is great with dogs; or maybe he’s a hipster artist, so Cool Girl is a tattooed, bespectacled nerd who loves comics. There are variations to the window dressing, but believe me, he wants Cool Girl, who is basically the girl who likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn’t ever complain. (How do you know you’re not Cool Girl? Because he says things like: “I like strong women.” If he says that to you, he will at some point fuck someone else. Because “I like strong women” is code for “I hate strong women.”)” "

Defo biscuit time.
OP is nasty to her pal because MN members are a bit judgey?
Late father in law a Finn?

ah @BertrandRussell

Thank you, cross posted. Very helpful.
Your analysis makes perfect sense.

She wasn't nasty too her friend, her friend was nasty to her. As a lot of people on this thread have been nasty too. It's amazing how threatened some people feel by the idea there are women out there who aren't sticking tracking devices in their husband's cars and timing their journey home.

You've really hit a few raw nerves here OP and I think it says more about the people responding than it does about you.

I don't think it's that alas People who post basically trying to find a way to blow their own trumpet always get roasted like this. It doesn't really matter what it's about.

'Wow I totally don't understand how you can't allow your husband space to be his own person, if that makes me a 'cool wife' I'm happy with that'

'Wow I totally don't understand how you can't cook from scratch most of the time, I mean it's actually CHEAPER and takes what ten minutes at the most, how can crap pizza be easier?'

'Wow I totally don't understand how it's not easier to breastfeed I mean all that faffing with bottles...'

'Wow I don't get the hostility when I say I just get on with men better than with women, I just find them more straightforward, but then I've never been one for cliques and backbiting really'

etc. etc.

Ha Ha Ha!

Here is the Plate. How would you like your Arse - fried or boiled?

BertrandRussell

And that, right there, is why feminism sucks so hard.

Because as soon as woman does break out of gender expectations about correct feminine behaviour, feminists find a reason to call her inauthentic and shit all over her.

Cool story bro.... Needs more dragons.

This made me laugh more than it should have