Boyfriend going to lunch with female colleague.

[boyfriendwhatsapp]

I posted on here a couple of weeks ago about my boyfriend. He had a conversation on WhatsApp with another woman that he then deleted, which set alarm bells ringing.

I’ve been monitoring the situation since, and another conversation appeared this morning. Basically I have gleaned from the conversation that they go for lunch together at work. He has never mentioned this colleague to me, and when I’ve asked him who he’s gone for lunch for he says, ‘nobody, I was on my own.’ She was quite flirty, putting all sad face emojis when he said he wouldn’t be in for lunch that day. He wasn’t flirty and replied quite matter of fact with her on this occasion, but the small part I saw of the deleted conversation was a bit flirty.

When we were discussing boundaries at the start of our relationship, I said I didn’t think it was appropriate for a man to take another woman out for sit down lunch/dinner, and pay for it. That I thought it was a bit weird and looks strange to outsiders as that’s something a typical couple would do. I was very clear with my opinion on it and he agreed with me. Now I’m concerned he’s basically agreed with me but now is lying and doing it behind my back anyway. As well as the deleted WhatsApp conversation with her previously, the whole thing just screams dodgy. Why lie about it? Maybe he is worried I’ll be paranoid when there’s nothing going on, but it’s even worse to lie and delete conversation?!

He is a lovely partner in all other regards though, perfect even. I’m not sure whether to confront him now or continue waiting and watching, as this may be something that is more serious than I know of at present.

Paper - It’s all about context though, surely? Having said that, out of all the married friends I have (hundreds), I can’t think of one who would go away with a male friend for the weekend. I really can’t. Firstly, nobody has the time. Secondly, it would just be weird. I’m in my 40s now, but I wouldn’t have done that in my 20s or 30s either. I would feel uncomfortable, let alone DH. But maybe you have a particularly niche hobby or interest or something?

Silver - maybe you are all just very old-fashioned? My mother or grandmother wouldn’t do this either. They seem to think once your married you are not allowed to have work-relationships/friendships with other men. Incredibly- I sometimes forget myself and put an X after a text to email to my boss. My husband thinks nothing of it and no - I’m not having a secret lunch/dinner/affair with my boss but I have (on many occasions) found myself having drinks with him at the local pub, talking about anything and everything. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Well I don’t know about old-fashioned, but all I can say is that EVERY time I have thought, “Oh it’s just lunch / a drink / a text message etc” it always ends up in a very awkward disaster. Either they directly think it’s a signal that you’re open for something more and blatantly tell you this. Or they have the other “modus operandi” where they start confiding in you about their wives, sex lives or whatever other key details they think will draw you in - in a way that feels personal and has all the beginnings of an emotional affair. So with this life-experience, I just think you have to have very clear boundaries.

silver, you literally never have the time to leave home for two nights, ever? Do you never manage a holiday, either?

We’re a pretty busy household here, in that we both have demanding jobs, and both travel for them, though DH more than I do, and we have no childcare we don’t pay for, so we absolutely both make time for leisure, at home and away/together and separately, even though it means putting things on the calendar months in advance.

And no, it wasn’t anything hobby-related. Friend and I just went somewhere neither of us had been — neither of us is originally from the UK — and did some book shopping, beach walking and eating out, somewhere that turned out to be lovely.

Paper - Well no, I wouldn’t do that for the reasons above. I wouldn't even need to ask DH how he would feel about the suggestion.

Wether you trust someone or not is irrelevant, your trust doesn't stop someone cheating

True, but why would you choose to be in a relationship with someone you clearly didn't trust?

Of course you can't stop someone from cheating and if someone is that way inclined they'll do it anyway, but that doesn't mean you have to live your life in a permanent state of paranoia!

silver i never literaly never found myself in that situation ever. And i work with a team where 94% of them are male. None of them have ever asked me about my sex life, although we know each others partners/children.hobbies etc - none of them have ever tried to sleep with me, and a few of them have met my husband, some of them even ask how he and the kids are etc. Its all quite normal. There is no awkwardness. There is no disaster. There is no weirdness. If conversations only revolved around work - i would die of boredom.

Well if both people work with children and everything else that comes with that, my husband and I don’t really have enough time for each other! If he managed to find an hour a day to have lunch with the same female colleague then I would be pissed off (though I guess I shouldn’t really be). For me it’s a time thing. That lunch hour means getting home even later, not seeing the kids etc.

Anyway in this situation I think the OP has sensed something and is right to keep an eye on it.

Oh and I agree with Silver. The amount of times I thought thought I was having an innocent lunch/drink and then they wanted more..even the married ones...

But this is MN - where everyone has male friends who they all go out with one-to-one regularly and the DHs are all super-cool blah blah

This is totally based on the assumption that women and men cannot just be friends. I am single and have single male friends and we still don't sleep together.

I go out for lunch or dinner with my boss loads. (Every time we meet up, its over food, I work from home mostly) My husband trusts me, I’m in a happy and committed relationship so the thought of cheating wouldn’t cross my mind.
My husband sometimes has restaurant meetings with other ladies. Or dines out with female colleagues. It’s not the eating together that you have to worry about.
Maybe your boyfriend deleted the conversation because he knows you have relationship issues. You definitely don’t trust him, that’s not a healthy start. Now he’s lying to you that he hasn’t had lunch with his colleagues, let him have some breathing space because you will either find you can trust him or you will drive him away if you don’t trust him iyswim. But stop reading so much into him having lunch with a colleague.

Your boyfriend has a female friend who he likes to go to lunch with, that’s fine isn’t it? My husband has lunch with a female coworker everyday I have never batted an eyelid over it, you need to sort out your own issues.

OP, why does your boyfriend need to tell you who he is having lunch with? He is at work. Part of a lot of people's work days is going to lunch with a colleague, it really shouldn't matter if they are male or female and its very odd that you think he needs to inform you of who he has lunch with, the type of lunch, and the payment method. Its very controlling and not a good set up for any relationship.

If you have some trust issues that weren't caused by him then you need to work on these before you can get involved seriously with anyone.

I’m actually not the paranoid nut job that people have made me out to be on here. I’m not in the habit of checking my partners phone, or being suspicious of female friends. In fact, my previous partner lived alone with two females! No issues. I trusted my current boyfriend whole heartedly until I saw the deleted WhatsApp conversation, stumbled across innocently, which incidentally people were telling me to keep an eye on and monitor him on the previous thread...

I think people have conflated the ‘not allowed to go for lunch or dinner’ aspect of the thread. I would never, and have never, stopped or prevented anyone from doing anything. When asked what my boundaries were, and what I was happy/not happy with, I was clear and assertive. As I would expect my partner to be with me. If there is an issue that one partner doesn’t agree with, then you discuss and resolve. If it’s a deal breaker, you find out early in the relationship and move on.

There is a difference between grabbing the occasional pret/Starbucks/canteen with a colleague, and actively arranging lunches at restaurants. Going for a sit down meal at a London restaurant (or any restaurant really) once a week is something you do as a couple - not something you arrange with a female colleague to do every week. It is taking time and money away from what could be spent on your relationship or a date night/lunch with your other half. This - taken with the deleted, WhatsApp conversation and subsequent (in my mind) flirty text messages about missing going for lunch that day - is what I am suspicious about and what crossed my personal boundary. It’s not as black and white as ‘you are a paranoid nut job who wants their partners balls in a vice.’

I find it strange that a married woman would go away for a weekend with a male friend. As would everyone in my circle, that is definitely not the norm. But as been proven by this thread, people have different levels of what they deem to be acceptable within their relationship.

i never literaly never found myself in that situation ever. And i work with a team where 94% of them are male. None of them have ever asked me about my sex life, although we know each others partners/children.hobbies etc - none of them have ever tried to sleep with me, and a few of them have met my husband, some of them even ask how he and the kids are etc. Its all quite normal. There is no awkwardness. There is no disaster. There is no weirdness. If conversations only revolved around work - i would die of boredom.

This, pretty much, only my workplaces are not male-dominated. Most of the close friends I have made since university have been via work, so there comes a moment when you move on from seeing them as work colleagues and they become friends, and try and cram in time to see them, whether that's at lunch or around work. (Though I tend to agree that an hour's lunchbreak a day every day is a poor use of time!)

I've literally never had any of them make a pass at me -- in fact, I would say that one of the things which characterise my three closest male friends (two of whom now live in other countries, so it's Skype and occasional visits) is that they're all three very happily married, and of the two who have children both are besotted fathers, and one is currently a SAHP for his small kids.

I saw the deleted WhatsApp conversation, stumbled across innocently, which incidentally people were telling me to keep an eye on and monitor him on the previous thread...

Well those people were wrong imo. Why didn't you, having innocently seen the 1st message, ask him about it then? As you say yourself, talk about it and resolve it? You snooping on his messages then makes you at fault too or is it ok because he presumably hasn't told you his boundaries about snooping on messages?

OP - you are not a nut job. Just know that.

It is not the norm to arrange dinners / lunches / weekends away with other women. That’s not to say it never happens, but it is not the norm by a long stretch, so no need to doubt yourself here!

@boyfriendwhatsapp - you are getting a ridiculously hard time here.

DH has women friends, and he has women colleagues that he goes out for lunch with.

But I get it. Something about this particular thing upsets and gets to you. Something is setting off your senses.

Going for a sit down meal at a London restaurant (or any restaurant really) once a week is something you do as a couple - not something you arrange with a female colleague to do every week. It is taking time and money away from what could be spent on your relationship or a date night/lunch with your other half.

I'm no longer in London, but I regularly go for a restaurant lunch with a male colleague who has become a friend. At times, it's probably been weekly, though not recently because of different work patterns and busyness. I don't see eating out as exclusively a couple thing, or anything that takes time away from my marriage, and it certainly doesn't have to be wildly expensive.

(And isn't thinking in this way about your finances, as though they were pooled, a little bit previous, given that your relationship is so new?)

There is a difference between grabbing the occasional pret/Starbucks/canteen with a colleague, and actively arranging lunches at restaurants. Going for a sit down meal at a London restaurant (or any restaurant really) once a week is something you do as a couple - not something you arrange with a female colleague to do every week. It is taking time and money away from what could be spent on your relationship or a date night/lunch with your other half. This - taken with the deleted, WhatsApp conversation and subsequent (in my mind) flirty text messages about missing going for lunch that day - is what I am suspicious about and what crossed my personal boundary

Do you know what? That’s fair enough and it’d give me the willies too.

I do think you need to not look at his phone though!

I have several friends of both sexes who live/work in London and I go to have lunch with one or two of them every couple of weeks. Are you seriously saying, OP, that it’s wrong for me to spend money on that, I should only spend my money on eating with my husband? Seriously? You may think your world is normal, I beg to differ.

And I’m still mystified by the concept of a sit down meal. I eat all my meals sitting down.

“I regularly go for a restaurant lunch with a male colleague who has become a friend. At times, it's probably been weekly,”

Paper - how can you be sure he sees this the same way you do, regardless of what he says? How do you see this panning out? Does he have a wife? Do you think she’s delighted?

She’s probably as happy as I am when my husband has lunch with a female colleague @silver. Normal people who trust their partners don’t have an issue with them having lunch with people who happen to be the opposite sex.

If he isn't flirty about lunch but deleted his messaged I'd assume he just knows you are paranoid about things and that you wouldn't let him have lunch with a woman? I think of a man at my work refused to go for lunch with me I'd find it odd? I have lunch with men in relationships all the time and can promise you it isn't sexual! Barely have energy to have sex with my own husband I just don't like eating alone

Look I think the OP's boundary is bonkers. But it is her boundary and she made it clear. He agrees with her and lies. Not OK.

I agree with this. He agreed with OP on the boundary and even said he wouldn’t want her going out to lunch with male friends.

I - and apparently most people on this thread - would have seen OP’s boundary as a massive red flag and ran a million miles (presumably a bisexual partner isn’t supposed to go to lunch with friends of either sex, lest they be overcome and jump them?). But this bloke didn’t.

So he should either tell OP he thinks she’s cray cray and was just talking bollocks when he said he wouldn’t like her going for lunch with other men or break up with her. Or quit sneaking around.

It is of course possible that the boyfriend would dislike OP going out for meals with male friends but doesn’t think the same principle should apply to him. In which case, bin him.