Walked out of DH'S work dinner

[rosesandflowers1]

I went to DH's work party. Was absolutely dreading it anyway but this just tops the cake. It's all on my other thread but the summary is that DH's work friends are mostly arses, and their wives don't like me. I wasn't happy to go but did on the conditions that DH would sit next to me, encourage a whole table discussion and I'd drive up alone so could leave when I wanted.

The most confrontational woman (let's call her Vera or something) and her DH were a bit late so it gave me some time to start making some small talk with some more indifferent wives/mums. We were chatting quite well before she arrived; once she did, the conversation shifted more to her, as it usually does, but she was more interested in compliments on each other's dresses etc. at the beginning. I said I liked the way she'd done her hair, she smiled at that, I thought it wouldn't be so bad, and as it went on for half an hour or so I could see DH was making an effort.

Anyway, the food got passed out and one of the women went to get something and her DH told her to get something else as that was too fatty. She looked vv embarrassed (as I would have been) but went for another option. I was but didn't say anything.

One of the women said "oh, I'm not having any either, I'm on a diet" and that divulged a new line of discussion. One man joked he was going to put his wife on a diet, at which point Vera asked, sugar-sweet, "so are you [DH] going to put [rosesandflowers] on a diet?" I daresay us getting along was too good to be true!

DH I'm sure was a bit shocked but just replied "implying what?" which made her squirm a little. At which point another woman followed up with "oh, he couldn't make her do anything." Not quite sure if she was shit stirring or just making a very valid comment that it would not be my DH's decision to put me on a diet But she's not super important to this really.

DH just smiled and said, "well, of course not" and tried to divert the conversation, but one of his friends who'd already had a bit too much to drink barely a quarter through the evening was determined to follow this up and asked me, "does he not tell you what to do then?"

I said, "no, not really" very blandly and then tried to move on, but he then remarked that that was surprising because of our bedroom activity and followed up with some very graphic details! Essentially DH is very into D/s and I'm happy to let him take on a more dominant role. I'm not happy for him to discuss this in detail - at his workplace! - with the sort of guy who'd blurt this out over dinner! Especially as he knows my views on them and that they're generally very disrespectful to me.

At the point at which the obviously drunk man clearly had no intention of stopping, I excused myself and walked out to go home. DH followed and I told him to stay at the brunch. Was fuming with him at the time and it is pretty important so.

He's still there and likely won't be home for quite some time. Am absolutely mortified and fuming, but honestly I'm feeling quite betrayed as well. I can't believe he'd divulge details like that I'm not sure if I'm BU to be so pissed off and it's possible that it's just embarrassment that I'm taking out on him, but I feel like he's being absolutely irresponsible sharing details of our private life like this. Now I'm home I'm thinking leaving was over dramatic.

So I know what I'm going to say to DH when I come home; WIBU?

I think you know exactly why he decided to take a mate lunchtime lingerie shopping. He was cock a hoop to share his manly dominance in public and didn't give a fuck about how it made you look.

He's just awful and despite your protestations that he's changed since you've first met him, he really really hasn't. He's just manipulated you all along.

He gives no fucks what you think. That's why he wanted you there last night even though he knew full well you were going to get treated like shit, it's why he likes dominance stuff in the bedroom when you don't, it's why he always miraculously has something to do/somewhere to be whenever you cautiously raise his latest fuck up with him.

When I find out exactly when he told this friend could be very damning. If it was last week, for example, I'll be fuming with him.

Can't understand why the hell this would matter. The fact is, he told them.

There's no hope for you judging by your comments. I just hope you are happy to live a life of such disrespect shown to you.

He took the colleague to Ann Summers precisely so that he could disclose intimate details of your sex life. He got off on it. Your privacy and dignity don't matter. I imagine the rest of the meal was characterised by ribald speculation about exactly what he'd do to reassert his mastery - and he either listened to it or joined in.

If he didn't go to Eton why did you mention it with reference to him?

Because a lot of his friends went to private school, many of them Eton, and it's a well known private school? It also best suits the point I was making because it's stereotyped as producing posh twats like he often hung out with.

Lipsy and Ann Summers - seriously?
I love Lipsy, firstly. It's one of my favourite shops.

As for Ann Summers, like I mentioned, DH often buys gifts from the shopping centre he has lunch in sometimes. It's a bit weird because Ann Summers is hardly his favourite but I don't know, maybe he saw it in the window or something. I checked and I have got some stuff from there he bought me three or so months ago. Do you think a well off person would see something he liked, have the money to buy it, and then think "oh no, it's a common shop" and not get it?

Do you think a well off person would see something he liked, have the money to buy it, and then think "oh no, it's a common shop" and not get it? 

Um, yeah? Especially if it's made out of scratchy 'lace' and highly flammable gusset.

It's called taste

Is his fetish polyester?

Do you think a well off person would see something he liked, have the money to buy it, and then think "oh no, it's a common shop" and not get it? I'd expect my DH to think "will Schnitzel like it?" And if Ann Summers, followed by "no".

You cant be in the ME as you posted yesterday evening at 8.30pm GMT saying you were home early from the brunch - which would have been past midnight in Dubai time.

Well no, I'm in the UK. Like I said

@HoldMeCloserTonyDanza
it’s possible for brunch to secretly mean evening polo buffet
Snooooort! Is this going to become a MN marker of belonging for NCing? "Regular poster but have NC, Sharon, T-rexing, snapped and farted, secret polo buffet brunch, etc."

I’ve read you other thread now and the comment that stands out is this:

He was definitely misogynistic in the past. That changed completely over the years; it was something I just would not compromise over and he learnt.

He is behaving like he is because he wants control. I suspect the epilepsy has triggered it, he is used to being good at everything and in charge of everything, he can’t control this so he is being a dick again.

You need to decide if you can be bothered retraining him, if it’s possible to retrain him, and if the training you did before actually worked if he was talking about your sex life to people.

You seem sure it’s his mates and not him. That may be the case as when he did stand up for you one of them was determined to drop him in it.

I think if you continue the “I want you to get another job at a different company away from those dickheads” conversation you will find out one way or another from his response.

People are cracking me up with their perception of upper class people on this thread I've met very few rich people who refuse to buy something because it's considered cheap if they want it. Only twats who aren't really all that well off.

He was cock a hoop to share his manly dominance in public and didn't give a fuck about how it made you look.

I was considering this and a couple other have commented similar

I don't understand why he would take his friend. But if it was getting competitive or whatever, I can see him seeing a lingerie shop and a good opening to brag.

I think a serious discussion about this is needed.

OP I find this thread all a bit weird, to be honest. Too much playing in the stereotype of the "successful man with kept woman?" Our marriage could be seen like that from the outside and most of my friends are SAHWs to such men. I've been to more work dinners, etc over the years than I can shake a stick at, but I've never known such nonsense to take place. As wives we don't speculate about each other's relationships or sex lives and even if we did we don't make naff comments over dinner. Does your DH see the dom / sub element as some kind of gimmick? What kind of man tells work colleagues about their sex life, fgs? He sounds more "dim" than "dom". Is this for real because it sounds like you have a particular concept of a certain kind of marriage and you're projecting on here?

People are cracking me up with their perception of upper class people on this thread

I'm so glad it's mutual.

This is so sad because at the heart of it is the OP whose husband is an unpleasant, emotionally stunted and manipulative control freak but she cannot seem to see that -or it floats her boat somehow .

She just thinks he's an alpha male type (shudder) and up to now she didn't mind that too much.
But the chickens are coming home to roost. What she went through at the brunch-dinner is deeply humiliating.
The upside may be that she will never have to go to one again but how on earth could her DP show his face when he returned to the table ? He and his drunken twat of a colleague showed themselves up badly over the stupid revelations and subsequent highly offensive remarks - and I can't believe there won't be repercussions at work.
If he's a lawyer, or a RW think-tank politico, or in old-school finance, his employers will be highly sensitive to any possible bad publicity especially the 'kinky sex' angle and attempted humiliation/harassment of a senior employee's spouse by another employee.
(If I was a DM news editor I'd be extremely interested in identifying the firm especially since the Presidents' Dinner scandal - and we know they monitor these threads.)

Time for some very hard thinking and possibly counselling, OP.

Alpha Males - so called because it's the only letter of the alphabet they got up to.

A strong man controls himself. A weak one controls others.

And it’s possible to be both obsessed with status and competitiveness, and send your children to state school.

I don't believe in choosing my kids schools once they're old enough and neither does DH.

DD was adamant to go to a state secondary. She wanted a more rounded view of the world, essentially. DS looked around lots of schools and fell in love with a state one (that to this day he still loves.) He is also very intelligent and thrives at a grammar more than he would somewhere mixed ability, I think.

But at a certain point, it does stop being probable.

Yy, HoldMeCloser.

Definitely possible for a high-powered posh bloke who hangs out with an identikit set of fellow former public schoolboys whose thing is competitive boasting about luxury objects but buys his wife polyester-gusseted Ann Summers scanties that he saw while window-shopping in a shopping centre on his lunchbreak, despite wondering furtively what the chaps would say at one of their regular night-time self-service brunches if they knew.

Perhaps 'brunch' is code for 'BDSM meet [aren't they called 'munches'?] at which OE's discuss the ethics of allowing Ann Summer furry manacles into the Red Rooms of Pain'?

You know what this keeps reminding me of? Badly written Harry Potter fanfic by US teenagers who have Harry, Ron and Hermione going to their homerooms after recess and electing homecoming kings and queens, declaring themselves 'pissed' at their moms and dads, and where Dean Thomas is often described as 'the African-American Gryffindor Chaser'.

I've not commented thus far as I've just been lurking. My DH went to a posh school (not private but a posh grammar) and so I've met the "type". I'm kind of therefore sympathetic to your handling of this, within the realms of normal banter/behaviour (and FWIW would have walked out, just as you did, from that so-called brunch)

Anyway something did strike me though, and it's when you said this:

I think this is definitely more of a make sure this doesn't happen again situation than leaving him completely

At some point he needs to just stop acting like a shit because otherwise you are in a never ending cycle of "ok, well just make sure this doesn't happen again". You shouldn't have to spell out that he shouldn't be manipulative. You shouldn't have to spell out that his colleagues are dicks and you'd have rather not gone to he brunch. You shouldn't have to spell out that you don't want your sex life discussed. The list goes on and on and will go on and on if you deal in specific situations that you are telling him to ensure avoiding. It's not like you can write him a definitive list of things to do/not do! (And the onus shouldn't be on you anyway) I'm not sure how you break this cycle tbh because it's who he is?

Have absolutely no idea what relevance the other women are to this conversation.
But your husband discussing your sex life? Fuck that. Let him and his fantasies off...

I’ve read you other thread now and the comment that stands out is this:

He was definitely misogynistic in the past. That changed completely over the years; it was something I just would not compromise over and he learnt.

He is behaving like he is because he wants control. I suspect the epilepsy has triggered it, he is used to being good at everything and in charge of everything, he can’t control this so he is being a dick again.

It is coming down to his control issues again, isn't it?

I think this definitely has an element of staying at the top/bragging. The more I think about it the more strange it seems that he'd go to Ann Summers with his colleague.

I think you may be right about the epilepsy as a sort of trigger for all of this.

You need to decide if you can be bothered retraining him, if it’s possible to retrain him, and if the training you did before actually worked if he was talking about your sex life to people.

Yes.

The "training" I did was because he's got loads of endearing qualities and is a genuinely good man and I do love him. I was ready to work for a marriageable man then and I will now.

I highly doubt a split will be worth all the problems it will cause and honestly I'd hate to do it.

You seem sure it’s his mates and not him. That may be the case as when he did stand up for you one of them was determined to drop him in it.

I think his mates egg him on a bit. That doesn't mean it's not him - he's a grown man, FFS, and isn't blameless in responding to the weird group atmosphere they have. But I do think the sort of vibe from his friendship group encourages him.

I think if you continue the “I want you to get another job at a different company away from those dickheads” conversation you will find out one way or another from his response.

Going to talk about it with him now.

She just thinks he's an alpha male type (shudder) and up to now she didn't mind that too much.

Not really, no... he was always pretty precise about things, enjoyed being in control and at the top of his game. I'm much more relaxed about things and I thought we balanced each other out well.

But there are downsides to that kind of personality which I've been seeing lately

But the chickens are coming home to roost. What she went through at the brunch-dinner is deeply humiliating.
The upside may be that she will never have to go to one again but how on earth could her DP show his face when he returned to the table ?

I don't think he was all too embarrassed. He was the one who shared the information in the first place!

I think his colleague might be when he gets over the hangover. Apparently his wife was.

He and his drunken twat of a colleague showed themselves up badly over the stupid revelations and subsequent highly offensive remarks - and I can't believe there won't be repercussions at work.

Someone mentioned on my other thread that in some places a formal complaint could be made I don't really want to take things that far but it's relieving to know that, at some point, there are repercussions!

Does he understand why you hate these brunches now? Even leaving aside the sex-talk, has he admitted you were right about how awful they all are?

This was posted by Lannieduck a few pages back but got lost in amongst all the silly brunch comments, but it’s a very pertinent question. You were firml against going to this awful brunch but felt pushed by your DH. Does he finally get why you hate them so much?

I was ready to work for a marriageable man then and I will now.

WTF?

I think his mates egg him on a bit. That doesn't mean it's not him - he's a grown man, FFS, and isn't blameless in responding to the weird group atmosphere they have. But I do think the sort of vibe from his friendship group encourages him

I bet neither you or him would accept that kind of behaviour from your children.