AIBU to spend time with a male friend?

[EvenSmilingMakesMyFaceAche]

Cuddling on the sofa this evening with DH, and I said that I'd really enjoyed the walk I'd taken today. He asked where I'd been, and I said I'd met a (male) friend at a country park.
For context, this is someone I know from a group that we're both members of that meets roughly every 6 weeks. It's a very close, friendly group but I hadn't ever seen him outside the group before, if that's relevant.
My DH stiffens and says he's really not happy with it. I look at him, kind of astounded, and ask why not? He says I can't be spending hours in the woods with a young man (friend is about 10 years younger than me) and he just doesn't think it's ok. He's gone off upstairs now because he's upset about it.
So I wanted to ask - is he right to feel so miffed? Was I unreasonable to meet a male friend and go for a walk?

YANBU
It wouldn't bother me or my DH at all, we both have close opposite sex friends who we see often- in groups or solo. Some of my close friends who are male have been fantastic support during troubled times and I wouldn't be prepared to turn my back on them because of DH jealousy

I guess your DH isn't U to feel the way he does, because that's how he feels but I would want to talk it through with him and I would want him to accept that his fears are irrational and not your (individual) problem to solve (although you may agree on joint couple boundaries)

Whether or not you would be happy to e.g. not meet a male friend in future is up to you but I wouldn't be myself, it all depends on what you and DH think

Personally i would've bet that most posters will/would say they'd be fine with this.

It's funny how some think the 'MN' response will be mostly the other way.

My husband has female friends he has known for longer than me and I genuinely don't have a problem if they go to places without me.

I guess every relationship is different and you've accidentally found a line that you didn't know had been drawn in your relationship.

You and your partner need to explore that a bit more I think but you shouldn't be made to feel that you have done something wrong. Maybe you should have informed (not asked) your partner beforehand but you didn't, prob. because to you it's not a big deal.

On a lighter note: I went to a fitness class once and there was a school dad there. I ended up showing him my knickers after the instructor literally pushed my shoulders down to get me deeper into a squat. I then passed out , fell backwards on top of school dad as he tried to catch me. My husband wasn't best pleased when I told him that one.

In my teens and 20s, I used to have loads of male friends and regularly met up for coffees, lunch, gigs, etc one on one. Then, shockingly, I ended up as the other woman in an emotional affair with a man who had a long distance girlfriend. I’ve always been very moral so it was disturbing how weak I was around him. It all snuck up on us over lunchtime walks and chats and trips into the city to see concerts etc. One minute it was purely a friendship, the next everything had somehow changed.

I managed to step away from it eventually and since then I’ve come to look at Male/Female relationships very differently. It was way too easy for us to pretend to ourselves it was platonic and over shared interests when it was anything but and the emotions on both sides were very confusing and overwhelming. If it could happen to me, it could happen to anyone and though we never had sex or even kissed, I am terribly ashamed of how inappropriately close and emotionally intimate/reliant we were with one another.

I don’t personally think it’s right for me to spend time alone with a man who is in a relationship and I wouldn’t think it’s fair for me to spend time with a man who is not my partner if I am in a relationship. I also wouldn’t be happy if the man I was with was spending one on one time with a woman and going for lunches, walks in the woods or to the cinema or concerts etc.

I can see why your partner is hurt.

Way i see it is if you don't trust your partner you have a serious problem. And it is down to trust. You don't trust them not to get too close to someone of the other sex, so you forbid friendships.

I've had male friends for the last 15 years, funnily enough i've never cheated on my partner. Physically or emotionally.

Laugh at your H and tell him not to be such a dickhead. You should never let anyone get away with jealousy, it's poisonous. You have every right to spend your time with whoever you like, as does your H.

I always wonder if the kind of people who appear not to ‘allow’ their spouses/partners to have opposite sex friends are those couples you see on nights out, two men striding ahead talking about football and two women tottering along behind talking about handbags and appearing to be minor appendages.

My best friend is male. I spent yesterday entirely with him — we both took a day off to go to an exhibition in another city, as my DH had taken a day and night away last week for a gig. We’ve been away for the weekend together a couple of times. We’re both happily married with children, but don’t know one another’s spouses well. DH has always had good female friends, too. We’ve been together for 26 years. I can’t imagine us policing one another’s friendships.

Is your husband always this controlling? My husband did something similar a couple of weeks ago. I was going stay in a hotel overnight because I needed to be in town late Wednesday afternoon and then first thing Thursday morning. DH said he didn’t want me to because ‘he was scared that someone would take me from him’. When I pressed further he swore blind that he trusted me etc but still ‘worried’. I took that to mean he was insecure and a bit spoiled by having me around. This earned a big eye roll from me.

I think your oh has a point

It’s not that you did it it’s that you didn’t mention it to him before the walk. As in - im meeting so and so today - I hate walking alone and x is free. I guess it’ll feel a bit weird but i know he had I can have a good chat about y subject.

You kind of sprung it on your oh

This would be normal for me and my husband also has a lot of female friends who he spends time (alone!) with. Neither of us would be jealous or upset by this. I can't imagine having to worry about something like this! Do you not trust each other?!

But red, the OP doesn’t think it’s ‘weird’ to go for a walk with a male friend, so it would have been very odd to have to mention it to smooth the way. It’s her DH who is being juvenile and vaguely medieval, and appears to think that DH Lawrence-style grappling among the undergrowth was likely. In the oOP’s shoes I’d be wondering what I was doing with someone so weirdly controlling and insecure.

Oh fgs! It's fine. Really. Your DH is being unreasonable. I've got lots of male friends, married to my DH for 35 years, been together much longer. Never looked at another man that way. Lots of male and female friends. He trusts me, I trust him

You're not WRONG to spend time with a male friend, but it could have been much more "right".

1. Tell your DH beforehand. That way there's no feeling of being undermined/deceived by omission.

1. Has your DH ever met this man? I'm a lot more comfortable with my GF going out 1-2-1 with another bloke if I've met him first, I imagine many other people feel the same way. It's not a prerequisite, but it helps.

1. Is this friend single? Is he interested in you? Both huge strong flashing sirens in the mind of your DH when it comes to how he views this, even if your intentions are 100% pure.

1. Can you do an activity other than a long walk in the park? Long countryside-ish walks are very often seen as a "couple-y" thing to do. I've only ever been on walks like that with family members and my partner of the time. I certainly wouldn't invite a woman on a walk like that 1-2-1 unless I was interested in her, that way.

1. Depending on your age, then the age of the guy is actually important. Your DH may well be self conscious about getting older. Hair thinning, paunch developing, abs disappearing, going grey, etc etc. Having his wife (who may well be younger than him to begin with) hanging around with someone who isn't at the same age may well make him even more self conscious.

All of the above said, there's no reason you can't spend time with male friends. Just be aware that it's absolutely NOT THE SAME as meeting up with your female friends.

What sethis said

It’s not weird- but different rules do apply to make it ok

Wife and I just had a chat about this - offering up numerous examples of people we know/context etc. Some of them we agreed would be fine, others one of us would find “weird” if the other met up with a partner of opposite sex. so it’s all very context dependent and I don’t think answers from people on here are going to be terribly useful without knowledge of the dynamics of your little group. You’re probably better off asking them if it’s weird or not.

I know people will mock me and dh but no we don't spend time alone with the opposite sex. There is no need for us to. I don't think most people set out to have an affair and I think under the right circumstances it's easy to see how they begin. We have a lot of couple friends and go out a lot, but that's different. Many will find this terribly old fashioned but it works for us.

I’m genuinely shocked at a lot of the responses on here.

Most of my friends are male. Partly because I studied a typically male subject at university.

My OH was away visiting family last weekend and I met up with a male mate for dinner. It wasn’t even remarked upon by my OH beyond him asking if I liked the restaurant.

I wouldn’t be bothered if he met female friends for dinner/walks.

We have a secure loving relationship and have absolutely no reason to suspect each other of having emotional affairs or indeed any type of affair. If I did have him pegged as that type of guy I wouldn’t be wasting my time with him.

I hate this aspect of MN, men and women can't be friends, the implication being that men mainly are only interested in one thing. You went for a walk with him not a bloody romantic weekend away. I'd go nuts if my DH started trying to control who I could be friends with and who I could see, and then sulking about it! I would never ever do it to him either. Ultimately if you trust your partner someone else could offer themselves up on a plate and it wouldn't matter because they'd turn it down. There is so much insecurity on these boards, and please please ignore the male contributor advice who tells you of course you can see a male friend as long as you follow his rules. FFS I really despair sometimes.

YABU you can't socialize alone with other men and not expect your partner to get paranoid. Imagine if it was the other way around? I would go ballistic

We have a secure loving relationship and have absolutely no reason to suspect each other of having emotional affairs or indeed any type of affair.

Reading the odd "Just found out about affair" thread, then I'd say 50% or more of all people who are cheated on have exactly this opinion of themselves, their partner, and their relationship. Until they find out.

Which isn't a dig at you, at all. Just pointing out that if affairs were always obvious, they really wouldn't be as big of a deal as they are.

Really, the point is that all relationships are different. Two unique people will have a unique bond between them.

Someone who is 100% comfortable with their partner going for walks in the park for hours with an acquaintance does not have a "better" relationship than someone who is made uncomfortable by the thought. Their relationship isn't "stronger" or "deeper". It just means you're different people who are comfortable with different things, just the same as some people are happy with long distance relationships, and others aren't. Or some people are happy with open relationships, and others aren't.

The problems only arise when two people in a relationship together are made uncomfortable by different things, and there is a difference of opinion. Best way to solve that is by talking it through together rationally and arriving at a compromise or agreement where both partners are happy. GL OP!

please please ignore the male contributor advice who tells you of course you can see a male friend as long as you follow his rules.

Following your partners rules =/= doing things that take your partners feelings into account.

Me not flirting with other women than my DP isn't me "following her rules". It's me being considerate of her feelings, and not just doing what I want, when I want.

Of course if you want to view this as an adversarial relationship then we could equally tell the DH that he's perfectly able to do whatever he wants without considering the OPs feelings, right? Except we don't. Because that's not how relationships work.

But if you have an axe to grind against all men, ever, and how we evilly control women, then by all means, continue to preach that.

If someone is going to cheat they will cheat, regardless if you ban them from having opposite sex friends, if you check their phone, have a joint fb, track their location etc. You either trust or you don't and there's always a risk when you put your emotions on the line, I'd just rather be in a relaxed trusting relationship where we respect each other than one with suspicion, rules and control. If it's going to happen it will happen.

I hate these threads. Men must only have men friends, and women must only have women friends. Awful. Like friendship is the last frontier, untouched by feminism.

It makes me rage. All my lovely male school friends - am I to ditch them?

Fuck it, OP. Have your friends. Your DP doesn’t trust you or your choice of friends. That’s the problem here. Not going for a walk.

@PersonaNonGarter sometimes I wonder where my people are on here, thank you for your logical perspective

Crikey. I can’t imagine not being able to do as I please for fear of damaging my DHs fragile ego!