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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

Do you go out without your partner?

368 replies

VelvetRope212 · 08/11/2021 14:25

I've been in a relationship for a few months.

Partner, bit older, Says he has never gone out without his partner in previous relationships, and would not do so.

He seems to think me expecting to go out without him is weird/inappropriate. This crops up almost every time I go out without him and is becoming a source of friction.

(My sisters, in fairness, dint tend to go out without their partner's. A coffee in the daytime would be the height of it. I've always been more independent though).

OP posts:
OnyxOryx · 09/11/2021 13:32

@VelvetRope212

He and his family seem to think that once you get into a couple, you socialise together, end of. And everyone assumes you socialise together, and attempting to set up sex/gender separate socialising (outside someone's home) is foul play, abd the person doing it should be ostracised, hence his affront at my cousin; in his view her behaviour is inappropriate and not kosher.

I never thought it would be possible to have such cultural differences with someone of the same (theoretically) culture.

You know that's bullshit right? An excuse for isolating you from a family member. He's ticking every box in the abuser's handbook.
lightandshade · 09/11/2021 13:37

Red flag 🚩

Also a point I need to make there is a huge difference between couples going out together naturally and what your partner wants. It wouldn't be organic you would only take him to keep him happy and that not ok

Sidehustle99 · 09/11/2021 13:38

@VelvetRope212

Are you going to stay in this relationship?

MrsClatterbuck · 09/11/2021 14:01

With DH over 30 years. I have gone out alone loads of time. Have met friends and family for lunch without DH. Have also have had lunch on my own and been away twice visiting family abroad on my own. Dh has been away with other people without me. Yesterday I had lunch with friends and dh was also out and had lunch on his own. We do do things together but now things are eased we are enjoying getting out and meeting up with our friends and family but necessarily always together. I really couldn't be with someone who didn't like me socialising or meeting family and friends without them. It would be stifling and suffocating plus it would feel like they didn't trust me. This is definitely a red flag. The fact you have posted about this says you already know this. Listen to your gut.

Original poster
VelvetRope212 · 09/11/2021 14:05

[quote Sidehustle99]@VelvetRope212

Are you going to stay in this relationship?[/quote]
I don't think this relationship is going to work out. Its a pity, but i feel stifled by he and his wider family's views. & behaviour. I'm apparently not the right woman for him.

OP posts:
PurpleDaisies · 09/11/2021 14:07

I'm apparently not the right woman for him.

You mean he isn’t the right man for you.

Original poster
VelvetRope212 · 09/11/2021 14:07

One of my sisters would have been the perfect woman for him (!) Except the one who drinks to excess, because he doesn't, and can't tolerate it in other people).

OP posts:
Original poster
VelvetRope212 · 09/11/2021 14:08

@PurpleDaisies

I'm apparently not the right woman for him.

You mean he isn’t the right man for you.

Yep, equally true.
OP posts:
MrsClatterbuck · 09/11/2021 14:10

Btw I'm in my sixties and my friends and family similar in age do not and have never subscribed to this that you only socialise with your oh

Sidehustle99 · 09/11/2021 14:10

I think you are too good for him and he knows it. That's why he wants you on a leash.

PurpleDaisies · 09/11/2021 14:10

Yep, equally true.

Doesn’t the fact you’re saying you’re wrong for him rather than he’s wrong for you tell you something about what you think of yourself?

ufucoffee · 09/11/2021 14:12

Christ I'd go mental if I couldn't have nights out with my friends. I love them. We go to bars, restaurants, live music. My husband would hate it as well, he has a great time doing the same thing with his mates. And we're both a lot older than your new man.

AcrossthePond55 · 09/11/2021 14:35

I don't think this relationship is going to work out. Its a pity, but i feel stifled by he and his wider family's views. & behaviour. I'm apparently not the right woman for him.

@VelvetRope212

You know, we are told 'love conquers all' but it really doesn't. You can love someone to distraction and they can love you back just as much, but that doesn't mean you are right for each other. In those cases, it's better to just let go, regret the loss, and move on.

Hrpuffnstuff1 · 09/11/2021 16:00

@Glassofshloer

As well as being healthy to socialise without the other, it also means you keep ‘your’ friends rather than ‘couple’ friends. Much needed if you split.
What a rather bizarre mindset. Keep your friends just in case (That's a big red flag of itself).

Anyhow, we both have friends and socialize separately, however, in the main our plans are together or with groups. I personally wouldn't date a drunkard, pisshead, or a druggy.

Lifewith · 09/11/2021 16:05

Keeping your friends is not a red flag at all.
When i did split, I found my couple friends distanced themselves completely.
It's not bizzare, it healthy to keep some life for yourself. You don't stop becoming an individual once you're a couple.

Hrpuffnstuff1 · 09/11/2021 16:14

Keep your friends because they're your friends, not as a parachute just in case.Confused
What kind of commitment is that.

billy1966 · 09/11/2021 16:47

OP,
Mid 50's here and it is very normal in my long marriage and that of my friends to go out without my husband, he does too.

I would be running away so fast at any suggestion of him telling you what you should be doing with your time.

Flowers
Kite22 · 09/11/2021 18:14

he commented; "everyone knows what house parties are like - drinking and copping off and going to bedrooms etc".

Maybe he is judging others by his own standards then, as this isn't what I see at house parties, even back in my teens and 20s.

I mean, if I were dating someone and then invited to a party, I would probably ask them to come along - that's normal isn't it? In the same way if I were the host and invited a friend, I would ask them to bring along their new beau if only because I'm nosey and wanted to meet them , but then I have also (in over 30 yrs together with dh) been to many a party without him because he wasn't available, or the occasional 'do' where just 'people from work' or 'people in this sports Team' or hobby or whatever, are going. Indeed I am going to the evening do of a colleague's wedding soon, where her colleagues are going as a crowd, and partners haven't been invited. I don't think anyone at work thinks it is odd she couldn't invited an extra 20 people that she has never even met.

Hrpuffnstuff1 · 09/11/2021 18:32

What culture and community is it ..

Blue4YOU · 09/11/2021 18:34

Yes. Don’t have much choice as there are only the two of us to care for my disabled DD.
But even before her yes. With friends, work colleagues, gigs if he didn’t want to go…
He does too.
Completely normal in my view!

Gwenhwyfar · 09/11/2021 19:17

@lightandshade

Red flag 🚩

Also a point I need to make there is a huge difference between couples going out together naturally and what your partner wants. It wouldn't be organic you would only take him to keep him happy and that not ok

What does naturally and organic mean here? If people only go out together it's a decision.
Original poster
VelvetRope212 · 09/11/2021 19:31

@Hrpuffnstuff1

What culture and community is it ..
ROI rural.

They still have Miss Town name/business name beauty (and supposedly personality) Competitions; his daughter entered one. They are under pressure to attend church at least once weekly, not having a child christened would be seen as ... unimaginable, the older women in the community are fixated on priests, bishops etc. Almost every family had a priest or nun in their parents generation (his generations aunts and uncles). They get married younger than i'm used to and have larger families than I'm used to. More of them are virgins upon marriage than anything I'm used to (all his in laws, his cousin & his wife etc, he said he (when younger) dated out if town girls because that was the only way you'd have sex.A lot of of women dont work outside the home, I know both he and their grandparents have discouraged the kids from working outside their regipn, the community is, in his words, "clannish". I find them insular and very gossipy. They seem to all be in some kind of moral.superiority/respectability competition. I could go on

It's like a milder version of iriah traveller documentaries.

OP posts:
Original poster
VelvetRope212 · 09/11/2021 19:37

On the subject of the beauty pageants; the local (but ts actually regional) women's magazine here had two or more full page spreads pics of Miss Northern Ireland, with the fkg bikini/swimsuit round included.

They then did two pages of interviews with "women in construction" supposedly to try to counter balance it. The funny (not) thing about the interviews was they just highlighted that the women are in a tiny minority. It was like something that should have been set in the 1960s or 70s "trail blazing women in.construction professional roles, avd they were all really made up in the photos too.

The magazine consists mostly of ads for clothing, lingerie, botox, beauty treatments, wedding services etc

OP posts:
Original poster
VelvetRope212 · 09/11/2021 19:41

Another, more serious example to try to communicate what it's like is that I saw anti choice posts on his son's FB.

OP posts:
TheBlessedCheesemaker · 09/11/2021 20:03

Not only totally normal in our 50’s to have separate nights out with friends, but my parents do the same. In their 80’s.