Dh meeting female colleague for a drink

[Bookish01]

My dh of 20 years is very sociable and has lots of friends. He recently gave a female colleague a lift home from work and since then they’ve arranged to meet for a lunchtime drink soon. She’s about 10 years younger, single parent. She usually gets lifts with another male colleague and assume will continue to do so when their car is fixed.
Dh always been faithful and trustworthy. I’m in a bit of a weird place emotionally and lacking a lot of self confidence recently probably due to empty nest syndrome.
I said to him that I feel uncomfortable with his plans to meet her and he’s not responded well and said I’ve got nothing to worry about and he should be allowed to meet a mate, male or female. He’d be fine with me doing the same.
Aibu to ask him not to meet her? (It won’t go down well)

He's told you about it. He's going for lunch, not late night drinks.

You can feel how you feel ofc, but it's not okay imo to tell him he can't do this.

I have a different perspective as I'm a lesbian, but how ridiculous would it be if I told my wife she couldn't see female friends alone? And queer people usually have lots of queer friends, so it's not just straight women!

You have to trust your husband enough to know that if someone was flirting, he'd shut it down.

why not recognise it’s your issue, and not make it his problem @Queenofthejabs - totally unnecessary what a bitchy response

OP does he take you out for lunch?

This is such a ridiculous and sad point of view. My husband has a female friend who he used to see regularly for a lunchtime drink etc until we left that area. There is no way on earth he would want to be anything other than friends with her, and neither would she with him. She was a colleague of both of ours at one time and I know her well. They still speak on the phone and text occasionally (we now live hundreds of miles away). She's now 70 and he's 76. At no time in the last 40 odd years have I been worried about their friendship, just like any other reasonable person. He doesn't police my friendships or my movements and I don't his. What an awfully dark, constricted, fearful life you must lead.

Oh @lionloaf you poor innocent....

@Queenofthejabs I think it is very unkind of you to suggest that the OP has issues that should be dealt with in therapy to get her to react in a different way !

She is PERFECTLY ENTITLED to feel like this and many women would and do. It is about respect for your partner. It didn't matter whether it is a lunchtime drink or something else. They need to come to some resolution on this which works for them but to suggest she shouldn't have this reaction - shocking!

I work in a predominantly male industry and most of my colleagues are men. Many are also my very good friends. In my experience, meeting men at work can lead to great friendships that never even veer towards the inappropriate due to being in a professional setting.

Thanks for your patronising comment, but I think it’s sad if you don’t think men and women can be friends without an ulterior motive.

Unless you have other reasons to give you cause for concern OP, I wouldn't worry. I work in a male-dominated field, I often meet up with a ex-colleague for a beer or a meal. I met up with my old boss last week, just had a natter, meal and a pint. Nothing between us apart from friendship, never will be anything else other than friendship. (My personal opinion is his wife must be a saint!) I wouldn't stress about it unless there are other signs you have cause for concern.

Of course when he mentions the inevitable rumours circulating at work, you'll know it's nonsense. You've always known about them having lunches/drinks (because it won't be just once). They're just friends....

As we so often see, the new work friend is usually a younger female. Not always, but it doesn't really matter if she looks like Cindy Crawford or Joan Crawford, if there's an attraction, that could be trouble.

I guess a lot depends if his treatment of you is what is making you feel insecure even if it's simply at a level of making you feel taken for granted. Or you are just feeling a bit emotional, middle aged and unattractive as many of us do at various points. Both are within your control to try to improve.

If he's making repeated new friendships, messaging and social life on a 1:1 basis with other women he hasn't known for decades then I'd ask myself why. Not to put that on you at all but that's a conversation you two should be having - are you in a rut with your lives on a treadmill of work, kids and logistics. What's changing for 2025?

I regularly go out with colleagues for a few drinks. Sometimes on a solo basis though that's rare. There is nothing beyond a desire to have a drink and bit of rant [usually] with people who are also living through the epic batshittery that is corporate life sometimes, without dragging it home yet again to bore the pants off your spouse. Or even worse, bore them even further by having to explain it all.

I agree

Like a PP said, you’re speaking from a female perspective - you don’t view them with romantic interest, but you don’t know how they view you. You’ve said his wife must have the patience of a saint, she probably doesn’t have any choice if he’s anything like OP’s husband

So if OP's partner wants to shag his colleague, OP asking him not to go won't solve the issue, will it?

Course you have a choice, you can choose not to be with a man who fancies his work colleagues.

I guess maybe the point is OP’s husband wants to take the friendship outside a professional setting

To a drink at lunch, not an orgy!

If he wants to shag someone else, he’s going to shag someone else.

Yh I would kick off.

@C8H10N4O2 and of course no one on mumsnet has ever been blindsided in their marriage by a partners colleague rather than their H/partner being on dating sites.

Well, and? even supposing that's true, OP's husband can't fuck someone who doesn't want to fuck him. Nothing is going to happen unless both people choose for it to happen.

I have loads of male friends and see them regularly without my husband

So you may no longer make new friends of the opposite sex after marriage?

Seriously? Colleagues of the opposite sex can't have a drink or lunch together without it turning into a shag?

I have no idea how some of you get through the day without dying of paranoia.

How old do you need to be to not do it? My partner is 66 and I'm 53. Both of us would had no issue with this.

Id say it seems to be more of an issue with younger people

@C8H10N4O2 absolutely not the case - it really depends on the circumstances - as I said below I think women genuinely can do this all the time because they are interested in people as friends -all ages, all levels of attractiveness

I think many men's minds work differently - I know very few men who would go out their way to arrange one on one drinks with women unless as I said below it's because they are attracted or they are 'of use' professionally or for networking or it's a very old friend of long standing.

It's not being paranoid- your original post implied that just because people are colleagues it's unlikely anything would be going on and I was just pointing out that it's one of the very common places for affairs in plain sight if not the most common

No it implied nothing of the sort. However its no more likely than in any other setting so unless you are planning to propose sex segregated workplaces, leisure places and just about everywhere else then the workplace setting is irrelevant. A man or woman (it takes two) looking to play away will do it.

Networking and maintaining links with colleagues is a fundamental part of many jobs - restricting women from networking and building links with colleagues is simple sexism because the restriction will disproportionately impact women.

If the men you know would try it on and harrass female colleagues in work related settings you might want to demand higher standards from the men in your life.

Oh god, definitely not my thinking at all!
It's hard to explain, it's how I have seen him around certain men that has made me wonder, nothing to do with how he is around me (am not remotely attractive anyway, I already said that)