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Original poster

Am I wrong to be bothered by DH going to cinema with female colleague

237 replies

Anon1234567891 · 16/10/2025 20:19

Just that really. DH has been to the cinema a few times with a female colleague as she doesn’t have anyone else to go with that likes this type of film, including her own DH. I don’t believe they are having an affair, physically anyway, as this is the only time they go out alone and it’s only a few times a year. So am I wrong to be jealous / annoyed? It’s complicated because things haven’t been great the last few years and because of various things I have probably been quite withdrawn from him so probably couldn’t blame him and he doesn’t have much of a social life so not surprised he wants to go out. Just feels like he is more happy to go out with her than he is to make the effort to go out with me.

OP posts:
wrongthinker · 18/10/2025 16:21

If there was any hint of flirting it would be different, of course, but friends are friends. If either of us were uncomfortable with a relationship, we'd discuss it. It hasn't ever been the end of a friendship to date (think it's only happened once from memory).

Well, exactly. No one is saying that married people can't have opposite sex friends. They are saying if a friendship crosses into uncomfortable territory, then it's a potential problem. So no, it's not wrong for OP to feel uncomfortable about her husband's friendship. As you say, if it happened in your marriage, you'd want to discuss it (and potentially even end the friendship - as you say, that's happened once.)

Not sure why pp are wanging on about MN banning friendships.

SomeConstellation · 18/10/2025 16:27

mindutopia · 18/10/2025 14:46

It’s a bit weird and clingy. Why can’t she go to the cinema on her own? I go to the cinema on my own all the time. Unless we bring the whole family, someone has to stay home with the dc. I definitely wouldn’t bring my work colleague along to the cinema just because I couldn’t take Dh. It’s just a little odd.

I often go to the cinema or theatre solo too, but sometimes going with someone else who likes the same type of film is fun.

ForeverHopeful3 · 18/10/2025 22:59

gannett · 17/10/2025 08:52

If a man dared say anything like this to me he'd be out on his ear and the relationship would be instantly over. Take a look at your controlling self. Talk about a red flag.

Show quote history

Except I would never want to go anywhere without my boyfriend and with just another man? It makes me feel uncomfortable and makes me miss him usually the whole time.

And if a man in a relationship is going out alone with a lady, that's weird as heck.

BarbarasRhabarberba · 19/10/2025 00:33

ForeverHopeful3 · 18/10/2025 22:59

Except I would never want to go anywhere without my boyfriend and with just another man? It makes me feel uncomfortable and makes me miss him usually the whole time.

And if a man in a relationship is going out alone with a lady, that's weird as heck.

Show quote history

This is an incredibly weird way to think.

chocolateychurros · 19/10/2025 00:38

I read the first response and thought, god I must be the most controlling person in the world then. Thankfully though most seem to think like me. I would not and could not deal with that.

JustMe2026 · 19/10/2025 00:43

Erm I'm fine with it as is my hubby, sorry but if you totally and utterly trust each other there won't be a problem and funny enough my hubby goes a handful of times over the year with a woman he works with who is also married because they love horrors and me and her dh hate them, just like hubby has no problems me going with male friends to play tennis or bowling etc. If your marriage is good, communication on point then there should be no problem with male,female friendships

ozarina · 19/10/2025 02:13

I have to ask - what genre of film is it ?

FictionalCharacter · 19/10/2025 02:55

Just feels like he is more happy to go out with her than he is to make the effort to go out with me.
This is the concerning part and this is why it doesn't feel right. Why doesn't he make an effort to go out with you?

3luckystars · 19/10/2025 03:30

No way would I be ok with this, just the two of them. That’s a date.

spoonbillstretford · 19/10/2025 03:38

gannett · 17/10/2025 10:19

This is probably right.

When you have a strong emotional connection with your partner, you're not threatened by the possibility of him having platonic emotional connections with other people and you're not threatened if those people happen to be women.

I suppose when your emotional connection has died, those things can be threatening. But trying to police his friendships and prevent other (normal, platonic) emotional connections isn't going to resurrect it. Whether you can bring it back depends on you and him - not the friends you may or may not have outside the marriage, nor whether those friends are men or women.

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Yes. f he doesn't want to find things he has in common with his wife and share activities they can do as a couple and prioritise that over friendships and emotional connections with other women then it may as well be a flatshare with two singletons.

SugarPlumpFairyCakes · 19/10/2025 05:01

Dating in plain sight.

ClareBlue · 19/10/2025 10:54

Of course if your husband, or anybody, wants to have an affair thet can have one without going to the cinema and no restrictions on socialising are going to stop them.

But most people who have affairs never start out wanting to have one. What most commonly happens is they have issues, whether real or perceived, in their established relationships and find emotional intimacy outside that relationship that leads to a physical affair.
The most common conduit for finding the outside emotional intimacy being a work colleague because at work people generally behave with respect and value each other and are away from domestic drudgery and child rearing and have common goals and achievements.
So if you are experiencing disconnect in your relationship and your partner starts socialising with a work colleague of the opposite sex in an intimate situation like a cinema, then it is an issue for your marriage. Nothing to do with control or being unreasonable. It's a significant threat to your marriage and if you want your marriage to survive then it's not unreasonable what so ever to be concerned about it.

It's the context in these situations that is so important. This includes the helping the colleague move out when she separated, which is a highly emotional event that the OPs husband was sharing with his colleague outside the workplace.
Don't let people tell you that your concerns are some kind of control freaky personality and of course it's fine for your husband to be creating emotional intimacy with a female work colleague, whilst your marriage is losing those connections. It's a significant threat to your relationship.

SomeConstellation · 19/10/2025 11:24

SugarPlumpFairyCakes · 19/10/2025 05:01

Dating in plain sight.

And yet I can assure you that I’m not ‘dating’, in plain sight or in secret, any of the male friends with whom I go to the cinema or the opera, or for coffee or a drink. I have managed not to rip their clothes off since 1992, when I got together with my now-DH.

All of these friendships were established after that, so it’s not that they predate DH. I’m still not snogging them in the back row of the Picturehouse.

SugarPlumpFairyCakes · 19/10/2025 12:20

SomeConstellation · 19/10/2025 11:24

And yet I can assure you that I’m not ‘dating’, in plain sight or in secret, any of the male friends with whom I go to the cinema or the opera, or for coffee or a drink. I have managed not to rip their clothes off since 1992, when I got together with my now-DH.

All of these friendships were established after that, so it’s not that they predate DH. I’m still not snogging them in the back row of the Picturehouse.

Show quote history

Who said anything about you?

BauhausOfEliott · 19/10/2025 12:22

Anon1234567891 · 16/10/2025 21:03

It’s horror/scary films and I really don’t like that sort of thing. He did say I can come if I want to but he knows I don’t like horror films. He even wasn’t that keen on this one but is going because she wants someone to go with her. They do also text each other about random things but so do other colleagues.
I have met her a few times when we’ve been on work nights out with their work.

It’s not about an affair, just whether it’s appropriate. He also helped her move house when she split up with her husband and our son helped, but they’ve got back together now. Yet he isn’t the one going to the cinema with her!

I love horror films. DP doesn’t and cannot sit through them.

He would have absolutely no problem whatsoever with me going to watch them with a male friend. Similarly I have no problem with him meeting female friends. In fact, yesterday he met up with a female former colleague for a sporting event they were both going to, as they’re fans of the same team. She has season tickets with someone but if the other person can’t go she offers the seat to DP and they have a drink before the match.

I generally go on my own to watch horror films because I don’t mind going to things like that on my own. I’ve also been to the theatre on my own for things DP couldn’t go to or didn’t fancy watching. However - not everyone feels comfortable doing that and lots of people would want someone else to go with. Plus, even as someone who is happy with a solo trip, I do think it’s nice to gave someone else there to discuss the film/play with afterwards.

It genuinely amazes me that Mumsnet throws out words like ‘inappropriate’ when it comes to socialising with the opposite sex. This isn’t Afghanistan FFS.

wrongthinker · 19/10/2025 12:30

ClareBlue · 19/10/2025 10:54

Of course if your husband, or anybody, wants to have an affair thet can have one without going to the cinema and no restrictions on socialising are going to stop them.

But most people who have affairs never start out wanting to have one. What most commonly happens is they have issues, whether real or perceived, in their established relationships and find emotional intimacy outside that relationship that leads to a physical affair.
The most common conduit for finding the outside emotional intimacy being a work colleague because at work people generally behave with respect and value each other and are away from domestic drudgery and child rearing and have common goals and achievements.
So if you are experiencing disconnect in your relationship and your partner starts socialising with a work colleague of the opposite sex in an intimate situation like a cinema, then it is an issue for your marriage. Nothing to do with control or being unreasonable. It's a significant threat to your marriage and if you want your marriage to survive then it's not unreasonable what so ever to be concerned about it.

It's the context in these situations that is so important. This includes the helping the colleague move out when she separated, which is a highly emotional event that the OPs husband was sharing with his colleague outside the workplace.
Don't let people tell you that your concerns are some kind of control freaky personality and of course it's fine for your husband to be creating emotional intimacy with a female work colleague, whilst your marriage is losing those connections. It's a significant threat to your relationship.

It's so weird how pp on this thread seem unable to grasp the idea that context matters in this situation. No one is trying to suggest people can't have opposite sex friends outside their marriage, or that anyone who goes to the cinema with a friend is having an affair. But people seem so obsessed with defending themselves and their own situation that they can't tell the difference between a context in which a marriage is vulnerable and one in which it's not, and can't understand that the same event can mean wildly different things depending on that context.

I'm not sure if pp are a bit thick or just really want to brag about having friends?

Gingernessy · 19/10/2025 12:38

Why does being in a relationship mean you can't see friends of the opposite sex without it having some deeper meaning.
If I didn't trust my partner enough to let him out with his female friends without me there's no point in being in a relationship anyway.

Disturbia81 · 19/10/2025 13:02

I wouldn’t mind this at all.
BUT why can’t she go alone? Cinema is more of a solo activity than most things

gannett · 19/10/2025 13:37

wrongthinker · 19/10/2025 12:30

It's so weird how pp on this thread seem unable to grasp the idea that context matters in this situation. No one is trying to suggest people can't have opposite sex friends outside their marriage, or that anyone who goes to the cinema with a friend is having an affair. But people seem so obsessed with defending themselves and their own situation that they can't tell the difference between a context in which a marriage is vulnerable and one in which it's not, and can't understand that the same event can mean wildly different things depending on that context.

I'm not sure if pp are a bit thick or just really want to brag about having friends?

Show quote history

Quite a lot of posters are saying they "wouldn't allow that" as a blanket rule. Let's not pretend an alarming proportion of MN aren't wildly territorial types whose hackles go up whenever their husband so much as talks to Another Woman (and God forbid she's young and attractive).

I would suggest that if one's marriage is vulnerable then trying to ban your spouse from seeing friends isn't a great fix.

Original poster
Anon1234567891 · 19/10/2025 13:47

gannett · 19/10/2025 13:37

Quite a lot of posters are saying they "wouldn't allow that" as a blanket rule. Let's not pretend an alarming proportion of MN aren't wildly territorial types whose hackles go up whenever their husband so much as talks to Another Woman (and God forbid she's young and attractive).

I would suggest that if one's marriage is vulnerable then trying to ban your spouse from seeing friends isn't a great fix.

Show quote history

In my case I never said I was trying to ban him from seeing her, I just asked if I was wrong to feel weird about it.

OP posts:
Original poster
Anon1234567891 · 19/10/2025 13:53

Maybe also if you’re marriage is vulnerable and you claim to love your DW and not want to be with anyone else then they should put more effort into doing stuff with their DW than other people!

OP posts:
LeapyearLoser · 19/10/2025 13:53

It's when its hidden or not mentioned that problems appear, imo.

SugarPlumpFairyCakes · 19/10/2025 15:43

Anon1234567891 · 19/10/2025 13:53

Maybe also if you’re marriage is vulnerable and you claim to love your DW and not want to be with anyone else then they should put more effort into doing stuff with their DW than other people!

Absolutely this.

middleagebumpyroad · 19/10/2025 15:55

Anon1234567891 · 19/10/2025 13:53

Maybe also if you’re marriage is vulnerable and you claim to love your DW and not want to be with anyone else then they should put more effort into doing stuff with their DW than other people!

Agree with you totally! Are you going to speak to him about how to start improving your marriage? You dont have to mention his cinema friends. Could you go out for a drink or coffee and discuss or do you have dc?

CrazyGoatLady · 19/10/2025 16:18

Anon1234567891 · 19/10/2025 13:53

Maybe also if you’re marriage is vulnerable and you claim to love your DW and not want to be with anyone else then they should put more effort into doing stuff with their DW than other people!

Well yes...this is true. But in your OP you say they go to the cinema a few times a year, so you must be going out together even less. Do you go out as a couple ever? Have shared interests? Go out with mutual friends?

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