School reunions - Is it normal to exclude partners?

[MeltedLolly]

DH and I are both 45. My old school had a reunion a few years back and partners were invited, some opted to go without partners, some took partners along.

Now my husband’s school (old primary school) is organizing a reunion too. Well it’s not actually the school doing the organizing, just two former classmates. They have managed to contact 28 of the 31 people from their former class, and 25 of their former class, including hubby, agreed to attend.

We just got the letter confirming the details, and it states quite categorically that partners are NOT invited.

There was emails going back and forth for a few months discussing which location would suit everyone, which dates would suit everyone, what sort of “event” they should plan, but there was no discussion over should partners be invited or not. It was just made clear at this late stage that they weren’t invited.

To be honest, I think if this was made clear upfront in the beginning, that hubby would never have put his name forward. Both of us were a bit taken aback that partners weren’t allowed, I think we both initially felt it was just “wrong”. But - well, I am wondering now if we’re odd feeling this way, and what the majority consensus is on something like this?

Opinions from all sides welcome. Is this strange to specifically exclude partners? Or is it normal. Or have healthy boundaries in relationships just became too big a deal for me after reading about so many things on MN where relationships go tits up because of bad boundaries? hehe

I think I have given all the background information above. It is concerning a primary school reunion, so they were all the same class from 5 years of age till 12 years of age, and are all now 45, so haven’t seen each other in around 33 years.

Boundaries aren’t an issue in our relationship, and it isn’t that I don’t trust hubby, it is just purely the fact that we both feel quite miffed that many of the group will have been married (partnered) for well over 20 years and their partners are being excluded. Space at the venue also isn’t an issue, it could as easily accommodate 50 people as it could 25.

Opinions PLEASE and thanks!

To be honest I would only go to my school reunion if I could bring along my gorgeous DH.

Never pulled one of the hot guys at school.

I'd say I was normal for partners to not be invited to school reunions.

MY old school is trying to sort one now and its a non partner event.

Thanks all for the many perspectives, it’s actually heartening to read that most actually expect school reunions to be without partner. I can see now that is not at all unusual.

I have to disagree with you all about it boring for the partner though. At my school reunion I was very relieved DH agreed to tag along, although he did say he might make a polite exit after 2 hours. I think he did it initially more for me though as I didn’t really fancy being stuck in a room with loads of people I barely knew, with the possibility I would have little to talk about with people I hadn’t seen since I was 11. As it turned out, I think it’s fair to say DH has a great time, and he’s the one pushing for us to go back to my next reunion. It was very nice for him to put names to the faces of people I often talked about but he had never met. It was hilarious for him to see old photos and hear silly old stories. I was ready to leave a good hour before hubby was, but we both had a good time.

And as for the “just because you’re married doesn’t mean you’re joint at the hip” points of view, of course that’s so. But marriages are different, as are the amount of time couples spend together. We already spend masses of time apart due to our respective jobs and respective busy travel schedules. The last thing either of us really want is to be spending yet another night alone in a hotel room. We enjoy the little time together we have. Time together is not something we have a lot of, certainly not an excess of.

Someone mentioned organising another get together if this one doesn’t suit, and I think that’s already happening as someone else sent an email around over the weekend suggesting this very thing and about 9 replies are already in with “ yes I would rather go to the -with partner- one too”, and hubby hasn’t even responded yet as I really wanted to get an idea of what the norm was for school reunions . To me and hubby though this is stupid as it going to mean 2 get togethers, both with half a group. I think that kind of defeats the purpose.

However, I have made a decision. I am not going to go, but hope hubby does go. It is nice to see how people are after so many years. I just hope for him that a fair amount of people do actually turn up, lol.

Thank you all for the many and varied perspectives!

In short, OP, you're odd. :)