to be appalled by some women’s behaviour?

[GrumpyOldWoman2]

DH has just come back from a work do at his new job (2 months in) and told me that his female colleague was drunkenly trying to get him alone, trying to hug him and offering to buy him drinks all night. We had a baby 5 weeks ago and she knows this!! He’s extremely loyal and kind (struggles to stand up for himself which bugs me sometimes but…) and kept trying to reject her advances to no avail, he ended up leaving early as she made him so uncomfortable. He came home sober.

Just disappointed for him as it was meant to be a nice break from the newborn trenches! Why are people like this? Trying to get on a married man is bad enough but doing it when you know they’ve JUST had a baby is abhorrent! He’s also dreading going back to work on Tuesday and seeing her. Grim behaviour.

He has “just” walked in. I imagined him recounting this to the OP and the OP discretely reaching for her phone and logging
on to mumsnet 🤭

The answers to this thread are really highlighting how we treat men and women differently aren’t they.

It’s reminding me of how many years ago now, I once employed an utter adonis of a young man for my team, simply because he came across best at interview.

I was heavily pregnant at the time and honestly his handsomeness hadn’t really registered until a few weeks later when a female colleague came up to me smiling with her thumbs up saying “nice appointment!” - in a very lustful manner. She then spent the next few months inviting him out for lunch and drinks and trying to get him out on a date with her, despite already having a boyfriend herself….I had to tell both her and our older receptionist to leave him alone after they kept making comments alluding to his attractiveness… He became the talk of the women in the office.

One of my more introverted colleagues came up to me one day and said “I honestly don’t understand how you can give that man supervision! I wouldn’t be able to look at him!

I was quite embarrassed by the behaviour of some of my female colleagues and asked him if he felt uncomfortable about it - he just laughed it off, I guess he was used to it and not threatened by them. He was a really good guy and totally besotted with his girlfriend, (whom he later married) I often thought how the situation would have been different if he had been a young woman.

Why are people focused on his time of departure?

Bloody hell… he’d been out and he was stone cold sober. He could have taken over baby caring whilst you slept!!

Interesting post OP. I witnessed similar at my own work party the other night, except in this case when the woman came on to the dad with a young baby, he seemed to an extent to reciprocate - there was intense slow dancing and it was only interrupted when a senior male colleague was egged on by others to 'break it up' and went over to cause a distraction. (Said senior male colleague then went on to take on the flirty close-dancing role himself, although he too is married and has kids).

Similarly my own DH was approached by a married woman at his own work Christmas party who said she'd always had a crush on him and was being very flirty. She has young kids herself and knows that DH and I have a toddler.

In all of the above cases I'm pretty confident that the people involved wouldn't have 'gone further', or would have known that going further was unlikely even if they would have liked it to happen. My take is that many people like to flirt, like to feel special, and that parties like this seem to act as an escape from reality where the usual rules feel loosened to explore fantasies. Perhaps the fact that usual workplace roles and hierarchies are being set aside adds to the transgressive appeal. I don't think it's a nice or good way to behave but I do think it's very common. I also think men have done this sort of thing always (I have horrible recollections of a bloke at a work party a few years back getting off with numerous colleagues in one night, including married ones - two of the women ended up hugging each other and crying about it!) and that we're naive to be surprised when a woman is the initiator instead - despite enduring expectations and stereotypes, women are not always 'on one another's side' and enjoy fantasy life and a sense of the forbidden as much as any man.

The good side to all this is that these things tend to be completely forgotten by Monday - or at least it's common for people to collectively pretend it never happened. After all, I think so many have done things they regret at parties, or have wanted to do so, that most people feel it's in the collective interest to keep these as sort of strange parallel universe worlds where you don't bring up what happened later.

I don’t know why “people” are

I’m curious because you said he left early
but at 2am you say he’s just walked in
so just curious was time is “early”?

Has he never been to a work do with alcohol before? There are nearly always shenanigans with people drinking.

Did you think you having a baby 5 weeks ago would make her behave and not try it on with your DH? Why would she care if you had a baby? She was drunk. Drunk people generally are not the most considerate people.

He doesn't have to go to work dos - it is not compulsory.

No he doesn’t have to go, but he wanted to go as he likes the people he works with. Was he meant to predict the future that this one woman would come on to him?

Is he at least up and looking after the children now Op? Honestly he comes back sober and goes straight to bed leaving you with refluxy baby

So other people should avoid places because some people can't know their limits with alcohol and make others feel uncomfortable?

Maybe the people who turn into dicks when drunk should be the ones avoiding places and be called out on their poor behaviour?

Alcohol is no excuse and we should stop enabling poor behaviour due to alcohol consumption. The majority who drink are adults and can take responsibility for their actions

You are being ridiculous. Who cares what time he left, what time he arrived back home, what time he fell asleep, what time OP started posting or any other of your irrelevant comments on this thread.

The OP and her DH can decide for themselves how to look after their newborn.

yes but it says a lot about him!

So much internalized mysogyny from some of the women responding on this thread. Blaming the OP's DH and trying to twist the narrative. Mumsnet is generally very unkind these days.

This was bang out of order. I see it every time we have a work party and it's a woman who is old enough to know better and is married herself.
It makes my male colleagues (also married) deeply uncomfortable and awkward.

Some of the guys have started to avoid going to work parties because of it.
Several of us, and her line manager have had polite chats with this woman to no avail.
If the boot was on j the other foot and a man did it, there would be a sexual harassment case.

So, according to you, husbands and wives shouldn’t ever share or talk about things that are going on in their lives unless those things directly affect both of them…. That just makes marriages/relationships very transactional.

No wonder so many marriages fail due to poor communication and lack of connection if people have your attitude.

He’d been at work the entire day and stayed up all night before that with baby so needed a rest. But thank you for your opinion.

It’s mad! One rule for women a crybaby for a man!

I must be getting cynical in my old age but this sounds like someone covering his tracks. A woman who offered to buy him drinks 'all night'. 🤔 Isn't this something men usually do to women to get them drunk? It's not a typical female behaviour. You have a 5 week old so I am guessing the sexual relationship between the two of you is on the back burner at the moment. And suddenly your dh has a woman at the office who is drunkenly trying to get him on his own all night? I wonder how she was doing that? Sorry but i think you need to listen very carefully to your dh over the next few months and keep an eye on his behaviour.

No it doesn't.

He worked all day on a Saturday… For some reason I assumed an office Christmas party. What kind of a company is it? Would he consider raising with HR?

It's possible that she has woken up quite embarrassed.

Anyway, I think the main thing is your DH needs to try and reframe it. It says everything about her and nothing about him so he should just ignore it and ignore her.

Well it would if he’d gone out for work do, returned sober to wife and new born awake and crying, and flopped asleep.

I don't think he needs to worry about going into work. She'll probably have the hangover morbs today. She may not remember it. He just needs to be professional with her and it'll die down.

Been years since I went to a work party. Someone always falls over something or.down the stairs

There's been another recent thread where a woman flashed one male colleague and groped another. Again at a work party.

Women behaving badly at work parties is actually pretty common, probably because so many people rush to excuse her and accuse the man of not shutting it down/laughing it off. Zero consequences and blatant double standards.

If this was a man doing this to a woman he would be in deep trouble.

I hate that some women feel that being inappropriate & flirty with men is Ok when it's literally the same behaviour that has been called out and damned in the MeToo movement.

I think that if your H feels uncomfortable to the point of dreading work he should consider speaking to HR. Only if he has witnesses to the behaviour though in case she turns it back on him.

Men find this behaviour unattractive anyway.