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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Would you be ok with your husband going to the cinema with a female friend?

1000 replies

JizzPigeon22 · 05/08/2020 20:38

I have a friend who I’ve known since I was 3 years old. Last year he got a job in a pub directly across the road from my house so I see him quite often as he will occasionally stop by after a shift for a coffee or to see my kids, who they refer to as their uncle, they’re all very close. Over the years we’ve been to festivals together, holidays, camping trips etc. He was the best man at my wedding. Last year my husband passed away and my friend was great in helping sort things out, and just to have someone to chat to. We both like marvel films, which his wife hates, so when the new avengers film came out last year he bought tickets for the first showing as it was at 12 noon so we had time to watch it before getting the kids from school. His wife was at work and he was doing the school run.
She went absolutely apoplectic with rage when she found it. Said that going to the cinema was something couples do, I was desperate to get a man because my husband had died and now I was lonely etc. My friend was so disgusted with her that it almost ended their marriage.
I hadn’t really thought about it till today when it came up in conversation with 2 other friends who had very different views. One was of the opinion that it was fine, the other of the opinion that it’s never ok for men and women who are married to socialise like that as it’s disrespectful.

Aibu to think the cinema with a friend is fine? She’s fine with him coming to my house but not the cinema? I just found it such a bizzare reaction and the nasty things she said about me following my husbands death were pretty unforgivable.

OP posts:
PasstheBucket89 · 06/08/2020 11:13

your being defensive, i understand you are experiencing a tough time, labelling other peoples marriages as isolating and controlling isnt really on either, just because people have different limits.

SleepingStandingUp · 06/08/2020 11:13

[quote JizzPigeon22]@EarringsandLipstick what age did are your children and what age did it get easier? I was pregnant when my husband died (he died very suddenly) so have a 5 year old, 3 year old a 10 month old. They’re very good well behaved kids but my god I’m frazzled![/quote]
Gosh Op that's especially hard. My three are 5 years and 7 months and it's hard work. Couldn't imagine doing it alone and whilst everyone assumes I'd have energy to shag their darling husband Flowers

Thislittlelady · 06/08/2020 11:15

I think if you turn this on it’s head - you are in effect the dreaded ‘female friend’ he drops in after work, you might drop in to his work to see him, he regards you very highly so he will be very supportive of you, he had a major role in your wedding, now not only do you do festivals and trips etc together but he’s started to have spontaneous trips out with you during the day.... maybe she feels that time and attention would be better spent in her and not his ‘female friend’. No ones saying your friendship is wrong, but surely you can see it from her side.... all the ‘fun’ things are being done with YOU and not HER......... she feels threatened by you and you can’t see it.

SleepingStandingUp · 06/08/2020 11:15

[quote Artandlove]@SleepingStandingUp This friendship isn’t being inclusive of everybody. Going when his wife is a work and kids are at school seems strange. Why not arrange it in advance so everybody is invited along. Like I already said, I wouldn’t go to the cinema with someone else’s husband just the two of us. Terrible situation for OP losing her husband but I can’t help feel sorry for his wife in this arrangement.[/quote]
The kids are 3 and 5. Marvel movies are NOT suitable. I am going to hoik up my judgey pants now. There's far too much violence in it for a 5 to and too much everything for a 3 yo. It's too long and they'd distract from Thor.

maddy68 · 06/08/2020 11:17

I think it depends. A life long friend I would have zero issue with. , I go with my (male) friend every week. But if it was a new friend I may have concerns , maybe?

Original poster
JizzPigeon22 · 06/08/2020 11:19

@Thislittlelady we have ALWAYS had spontaneous trips out together. They were married for 5 years. This wasn’t a new thing. It’s not my problem that she never wants to do anything.

OP posts:
SleepingStandingUp · 06/08/2020 11:20

I could not live with myself if I caused someone's marriage to fall apart you wouldn't be. It would be his actions or her actions that caused the end of a marriage. You can't cause a marriage to end as a third party

SleepingStandingUp · 06/08/2020 11:22

@PasstheBucket89

your being defensive, i understand you are experiencing a tough time, labelling other peoples marriages as isolating and controlling isnt really on either, just because people have different limits.
If people can't do something without seeking permission, can't do anything fun that doesn't include their partner, aren't allowed friends of the opposite sex etc then yeah, that's controlling and isolating
RedNun · 06/08/2020 11:23

A life long friend I would have zero issue with. , I go with my (male) friend every week. But if it was a new friend I may have concerns , maybe?

But a lifelong friendship has to begin somewhere, as all friendships do. At one point everyone who becomes a significant longterm close friend will have been a stranger, a colleague, a minor acquaintance. Or are people suggesting that you can no longer form significant friendships once you're in a committed relationship or marriage? Or is that only opposite-sex friendships?

Icedteaplease · 06/08/2020 11:25

My husband is the type who is generally quite introverted and will only really spend time with people he knows very well, otherwise he seriously doesn't enjoy himself. He has one good female friend who he will go to the pub alone with, out for lunch etc. and I have absolutely no issue with this. However, if I learned he had gone to the cinema with a new woman I hadn't heard of, I would know immediately that there was something very unusual happening so I would be confused/annoyed with him because it absolutely would mean something.

nicenames · 06/08/2020 11:34

OP, I am so sorry for your loss.

In your situation, I would have been totally happy with the cinema outing if I were the wife and definitely wouldn't have bawled you out over it.

I would have probably thought differently if my DH had suddenly struck up a friendship with someone who he had "loads in common with" and started going on "dates" out of nowhere, but that is not your scenario.

To be honest, it sounds as if their relationship was on its way out given that it ended only 8 months later. not finished but waning a bit, and she had realised that they were very different people, which was perhaps why it touched such a nerve.

Presumably you are sure that your friend doesn't carry a candle for you, even if you are not interested?

RedNun · 06/08/2020 11:37

@Icedteaplease, I think I may have been (in all innocence) the 'new woman' in this scenario. Someone who has subsequently become a very close friend was originally a colleague I worked closely with on a particular committee, and we talked a lot about film in idle moments. (We're from the same country originally (not UK), both had postgraduate degrees in French and love French film.) I asked if he wanted to go together to see a French film in a festival at the local arthouse after work, and we did. That was eight years ago, and we're firm friends, though we no longer live in the same country.

What I had absolutely no idea about on that first film date was that this man, who seemed perfectly sociable at work, was in fact an introverted homebird who had no active friendships at all other than vaguely keeping in touch with university friends from 30 years earlier), and that this was literally the first time in years that he had spontaneously gone out somewhere with someone else.

It was nothing special in me, and didn't indicate any sexual interest on his part, I believe it was simply that I'd asked him. I also didn't mean anything in particular by asking -- it was something I normally did if I met someone I liked and an opportunity came up to do something that interested us both. Quite a few of my lasting friendships have started this way.

His wife, when I eventually met her, was lovely, and in fact pleased he had developed some life outside home and work, but I can imagine it must have seemed deeply anomalous to her at the time. But it was anomalous in his life, not mine I have other friends, male and female, that I go to the cinema or out for dinner or away for the weekend with and so I had no idea this was such an unusual thing for him.

Original poster
JizzPigeon22 · 06/08/2020 11:37

Yes of course I’m sure.

I’m a good looking girl but am perfectly aware that not every person I meet wants to fuck me.

I think the people who think like this maybe need to consider that for a second.

OP posts:
nicenames · 06/08/2020 11:42

Sorry OP, I didn't mean to cause you any offence in asking and I'm sorry if it has already been asked below. That would be the only reason for the DW to be threatened really and so from your responses clearly her reaction is totally out of line.

Cheeseandwin5 · 06/08/2020 11:47

@JizzPigeon22

Neither you or your friend have done nothing wrong. Both Me and and my DH have friends of the opposite gender. We see them and go out individually or as a group. Neither of us have any problem with this.

What your friends wife and all those saying it is wrong are meaning is that they , don't trust their partners, they don't trust their friends, they feel that ppl will cheat if they are not controlled and that they have esteem issues.

Its ridiculous really and I am not sure how you could be in a committed realtionship with such trust issues.

MaggieAndHopey · 06/08/2020 11:49

You've known each other since you were 3. If anything were going to happen between you, it would have done. You both like Marvel films, she doesn't.

I can see that there is an association between cinema and dating but really it's just a big expensive telly. I would have absolutely no issue with this in her shoes.

ToffeePennie · 06/08/2020 11:53

No.
My friend and I like sci fi/action films. My husband hates them.
So we go and watch them together.
Does it change because my friend is Male?
Does it change further when I say that he calls me his sister and I call him bro? Because that’s how we see each other!

ToffeePennie · 06/08/2020 11:54

Sorry that should say “no problems with it”

Crystal87 · 06/08/2020 11:59

No I wouldn't like it. We very rarely get the chance to go out just the two of us so I would hate it if he took another woman out.

SchrodingersImmigrant · 06/08/2020 12:01

@Crystal87

No I wouldn't like it. We very rarely get the chance to go out just the two of us so I would hate it if he took another woman out.
So if one of you is at work, what does the other one do? Nothing?

A friend since nappies isn't just "another woman".

SleepingStandingUp · 06/08/2020 12:03

@Crystal87

No I wouldn't like it. We very rarely get the chance to go out just the two of us so I would hate it if he took another woman out.
He didn't take another woman out. He went out with a friend. It's not the same thing.

I assume if your busy your do is expected to sit on the sofa at home staring at the wall until you return to grace him with your presence?

RedNun · 06/08/2020 12:11

No I wouldn't like it. We very rarely get the chance to go out just the two of us so I would hate it if he took another woman out.

But aren't you missing the point? We almost never get to go out together either, because we have no nighttime babysitting, which is precisely why we both take turns going out separately with friends. I don't see why, simply because you can't socialise as much as you would like with your spouse, you should not go out with friends.

nasiisthebest · 06/08/2020 12:16

Also the cinema trip was just 3 months after he died. You’d have to be pretty insane to think I’d be after anybody at that point.

My dad had already dated three ir four different women at that point, so I don't think it's insane at all.

Bluemooninmyeyes1 · 06/08/2020 12:19

People saying they’d be fine with it and he only ‘went out with a friend’. What if the next week it was a candlelit meal for two, again with the wife uninvited, would you be ok with that aswell? After all, it’s still just ‘going out with a friend’, and then the next week something else, just the two of them.

Surely you have to draw the line somewhere, or is this what people do now?!

nasiisthebest · 06/08/2020 12:19

I'd be majorly pissed off for not being invited too. I wouldn't go because I hate marvel films too but it's the deliberately excluding the partner that makes it suspicious. If you and he have nothing to hide you could have invited her and let her make the decision if she wants to come or not.

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