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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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:
SleepingStandingUp · 06/08/2020 16:14

@LadyCatStark

I think the issue hear is definitely that he didn’t tell her. He was wrong to hide it from her and no wonder she was annoyed/ suspicious.
He didn't hide it. She was at work, he told her when he saw her.
SecretWitch · 06/08/2020 16:15

@yelyah22, my husband works overnight shift in emergency services. When he is awake, I am asleep. The days he is off and awake, I would like to spend time with him. We have a young daughter that also needs his attention. If he rocked up one day and said “ Today I’m off to the theater with Allison!” I would be pissed.

As he is a grown man and can do as he wants there would not be anything I could do to dissuade him, I suppose. Fortunately in the 14 years we have been married/together this example has not occurred 😂

smaragda · 06/08/2020 16:22

I wouldn't have a problem,but then my husband didn't have a problem waving me and my male friend off to go to the pub to watch the rugby either. I trust my husband and I would rather he went (in our case it would be a martial arts film/event) with someone else who will enjoy it and who could discuss it with him, than drag me along as I would be bored to tears

SleepingStandingUp · 06/08/2020 16:23

[quote SecretWitch]@yelyah22, my husband works overnight shift in emergency services. When he is awake, I am asleep. The days he is off and awake, I would like to spend time with him. We have a young daughter that also needs his attention. If he rocked up one day and said “ Today I’m off to the theater with Allison!” I would be pissed.

As he is a grown man and can do as he wants there would not be anything I could do to dissuade him, I suppose. Fortunately in the 14 years we have been married/together this example has not occurred 😂[/quote]
So what if you said today when you're home I'm going to take the baby to Jessica's for a party, we'll be 4 his and he said ok no worries, I really want to see that movie you hate at the cinema so I'll go do that and see if Leanne wants to go?

yelyah22 · 06/08/2020 16:36

[quote SecretWitch]@yelyah22, my husband works overnight shift in emergency services. When he is awake, I am asleep. The days he is off and awake, I would like to spend time with him. We have a young daughter that also needs his attention. If he rocked up one day and said “ Today I’m off to the theater with Allison!” I would be pissed.

As he is a grown man and can do as he wants there would not be anything I could do to dissuade him, I suppose. Fortunately in the 14 years we have been married/together this example has not occurred 😂[/quote]
Fair enough - not wanting your partner to spend all the precious time you have together with other people makes sense. Does he not have any friends that he sees on his days off, though? Or is it just female friends -I ask as you framed it as taking 'another woman' to the cinema and mention that on his days off you want to spend it with him. So not sure whether in your scenario it's the time off (in which case he's not allowed any friends haha) or the woman, in which case my question still stands - why?

PablosHoney · 06/08/2020 16:39

She sounds awful, sorry for your loss

JizzPigeon22 · 06/08/2020 16:40

My husband was a firefighter so we quite often worked opposing shifts.
We still didn’t expect to spend all of our free time together though. Having a social life was important to us.

OP posts:
PablosHoney · 06/08/2020 16:41

I’d be happy that I didn’t have to go and see a film I didn’t want to see.

gingganggooleywotsit · 06/08/2020 16:42

sorry I wouldn't be fine with this atall.

PurpleDaisies · 06/08/2020 16:46

sorry I wouldn't be fine with this at all.

Why not though? Don’t you trust your husband?

SecretWitch · 06/08/2020 16:46

I do not see this scenario happening as neither of us makes plans without the other. We see friends rarely (and I mean like twice a year). Neither of us has friends of the opposite sex any way.

Our marriage works for us. We are both fairly anti social ( the kind that don’t answer the door and would not welcome a drop in) Our time together is spent hanging out with our daughter, reading and watching Netflix .

Nobody knows what goes on in anybody marriage.

SecretWitch · 06/08/2020 16:47

Sorry, should have read “nobody knows what goes on in any marriage but their own”.

PablosHoney · 06/08/2020 16:47

Why wouldn’t you be ok with it?

gingganggooleywotsit · 06/08/2020 16:50

I do, but I would just find it irritating that she asked him. Can't help it! Everyone we know is married and we would all find it weird to ask someone else's husband to the cinema. I've met up with my mates husband to do stuff with the kids, but alone would be different.

GreenTiles22 · 06/08/2020 16:51

I am female and have been with my husband for 12 years. I have a good male friend who I have known for about 20 years, since we were in our early twenties. We met through work and have been firm friends ever since.

I left that job and went to work abroad. I had such fun, he quit his job and came to work in the same country as me. It was a very social job and although we worked in similar areas, our paths only crossed every few weeks so we weren't 'working together'. He's always had girlfriends, I had my boyfriends. We returned to the UK, met our partners and both got married.

We are still close friends. I can hand on heart say that there is no romantic interest from either party. He's just a friend. If I force myself to think about kissing him Confused it feels totally weird, the same I would feel about kissing any of my female friends (I.e. I don't want to do that!!).

We meet for dinner, drinks, we go out clubbing ( well we used to!), I wouldn't think twice about going to the cinema with him. I would certainly never ask permission from anyone, and neither would he.

He knows my husband and I know his wife. We're on friendly terms with each other's partners but don't always include them in social plans as the real friendship is between me and him.

Our respective partners have zero concerns.

So it can be true that a man and woman can be friends with no ulterior motives!

gingganggooleywotsit · 06/08/2020 16:51

I don't care if that makes me uptight it's just the way it is in my circle..

PablosHoney · 06/08/2020 16:52

What has your ‘circle’ got to do with anything? You base you decisions on what others do, very odd.

PablosHoney · 06/08/2020 16:54

It’s so old fashioned as well to think widows and divorcees will be so desperate for a man to complete them they’ll just jump on anyone. A lot of the time the husbands being safeguarded from these temptresses are totally gross anyway 😂

OVienna · 06/08/2020 16:59

I just remembered a crazy story from years ago. I was visiting DH (then BF) - at the time I lived in another country. His boss (male, had wife and family) knew I was in town and regardless invited him to go to the movies to see Four Weddings and Funeral one evening. Just the two of them. I could have given him a sharp one in the 'nads. DH would never have gone but I did feel at the time it was weirdly disrepectful. Sure - my girlfriend is here for a week only, won't see her for another six, but but definitely I'll arrange it so she's sitting at home in this friggin cold stone cottage while I'm at the flicks with you.

To this day, I still loathe Dorset, based on the people I had to engage with when he lived there.

circumventgatekeeper · 06/08/2020 17:04

I think that it's okay if everyone is okay with it?
So I love movies my husband doesn't, I happily go on my own (precovid) regularly.
I go with female friends but would only go with a married male if his wife was okay with it, a single male mate my dh would have to be okay with too.

Standrewsschool · 06/08/2020 17:06

I don’t think the issue Necessarily is that they went to the cinema together. I think the wife probably kicked off because she found out about it after the event. If I were her, I’d be wondering how many secret trysts my dh was having that I didn’t know about.

Although op says the relationship is platonic, you don’t know if the wife feels this - maybe dh once said she was the one that got away, or once admitted having a teenage crush on her etc.

minnieok · 06/08/2020 17:09

I've been to the cinema with male friends, no big deal. I think she's worried you are so close, perhaps he's said or has done other things to make her insecure. The cinema was the final straw. I'm a very laid back person but then I know I can trust dp (and exh was very trustworthy too, even warned me when he signed up for OLD in case I spotted him, I was already on it)

PurpleDaisies · 06/08/2020 17:10

I think the wife probably kicked off because she found out about it after the event.

Presumably because he told her? It doesn’t sound like there was any attempt at secrecy.

SleepingStandingUp · 06/08/2020 17:12

@SecretWitch

I do not see this scenario happening as neither of us makes plans without the other. We see friends rarely (and I mean like twice a year). Neither of us has friends of the opposite sex any way.

Our marriage works for us. We are both fairly anti social ( the kind that don’t answer the door and would not welcome a drop in) Our time together is spent hanging out with our daughter, reading and watching Netflix .

Nobody knows what goes on in anybody marriage.

They don't but some insights are fascinating. I think there's a difference between we don't get much time, neither of us have friends so this wouldn't happen and DH had lots of time alone but I wouldn't trust him alone with a woman
Namechangex10000 · 06/08/2020 17:15

I wouldn’t like my husband doing it

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