Husband’s wants to lunch with another woman

[GEW]

My husband wants to take another woman who I don’t know, but I think she’s unmarried, out for lunch because it was her birthday. I will be sat at home whilst he has lunch with her. It feels odd. I told him it was weird but he didn’t listen. I have been upset all day and decided that if he insists on going I will tell him I am also going out for lunch with someone else. I won’t actually meet anyone but I will go out. I set my clothes ready tonight before I went to bed. He asked where I was going tomorrow. I said I was going out to lunch with a man if he was going out with this woman. He went ballistic accusing me of jealousy turning it all around on me. Am I wrong to feel like this?

He threw and broke your glasses in a fit of temper?

He stayed out the whole night on a work Christmas do?

He sounds horrible and there is definitely something going on with his ex-PA. I would start making plans to leave him.

Id turn up and join them

He is DARVO’ing… the anger is actually a huge red flag. I have a few male friends and my husband has a few female friends, we have a healthy relationship because we have clear boundaries around these friendships and a birthday lunch 1:1 would be absolutely out of the question. There is a lot of gaslighting going on, on this thread and it’s frustrating. You are not controlling. You have clear boundaries which he is crossing.

OP he does not have your best intentions at heart. He is duplicitous, he minimises your concerns and lies by omission. It looks as though he has cheated in the past.

TBH the fact he shouted at you and threw your glasses shows that he is nasty.

I’d genuinely seek legal advice and dig a bit deeper. I wouldn’t be passive in this.

He's awful. Arrange a solicitor's appointment while he's at lunch.

Lunch with a female friend not bothered, but then I have met most of his female friends even just in passing tbf.

if I expressed discomfort then Dp would probably invite me along, or tell me me meet up at end for a coffee… he absolutely would not react in anger.

i think the issue is meeting friends of opposite sex appears to be unusual in ops relationship and his reaction is extreme…

the main question is, what is your life like in general? Are you spend quality time together? Does he take op out to lunch? is the allegation of control in any way true?

if the answer is no you don’t spend quality time together, and you feel the relationship slipping you maybe trying to control him to hang on to the relationship.

no answers from me, and maybe some counselling would be helpful op… on your own or as a couple

Thing is, I’ve had this moniker levelled at me a lot over the years, but this situation would have me worried. The lunch thing would have been fine. The cycling thing would have been a bit 🤔 but ok. The PA he never wanted me to meet, that’s not a red flag but is getting there. The losing his shit when I said I was concerned 🚩 🚩🚩

If I’d raised this concern with my husband, he’d invite me along.

She’s younger than him and slim like he likes ladies to be. I know that much. He has mentioned that before.

He threw your glasses and broke them, he sounds awful, violent and abusive and gaslighting you

Yes he does

Exactly my point dear.

All the apologists on here trying to make it sound as though it's no different to fat old Burt's birthday lunch need to give themselves a shake.

It's very very different to fat old Burt. That's the problem. Fat old Burt's lunch feels nothing like this. I know we'll have the,

''I've have male friends that I holiday alone with. We share a bed and nothing's ever happened. My husband fully supports this and even encourages it blah blah'' bullshit stories

but sorry ladies, if you're husband wants to date another woman (however he packages the information) you're in the shit.

OP's husband is going to lunch alone with a woman who is happy to go to lunch alone with another woman's husband. She should be worried.

When they are worthy of trust yes. But as the Spanish say, it´s raining on wet ground.
I am usually quite cool about this kind of thing. My husband has some female friends (from an activity of his), they have taken each other out to lunch and catch up, he has told me. I know who they are, have spoken to them and they acknowledge me, even though we are not friends we are acquaintances. What the op is describing has some red flags. I was about to say she was being unreasonable until I read he went absolutely ballistic on her to the point he broke her glasses. That´s when I thought oh my, he is hiding in plain sight and it isn´t working, that´s why he´s so angry. So Op, YANBU. So what are you going to do about it.

Sort out your financial situation so you can leave him if you want to

Your behaviour was ridiculous, childish and petulant.

His behaviour was vile.

And you are probably right about this woman.

What keeps you with him?

You know, you know.

Please don’t doubt yourself.

His reaction to you going out yourself is concerning . But the tit for tat stuff is rarely a good idea . I suppose your husband is being honest with you & not trying to hide it . So it’s possible that it is completely innocent, I think you need to have further discussions with him . I go out with my best friend who is male all the time . He is handsome , kind & funny , however he also happens to be gay so my other half does not mind at all . 😂

Absolutely not, this is a story as old as time. Let me guess, she's younger, attractive, single/recently single and possibly going through a "rough time"?

I am married. I regularly go out for dinner with a male friend, who my husband doesn't really know. It's completely platonic, but he's my friend, so I don't really want my husband joining us.
My husband has had female friends over the years who he's gone out for dinner etc with that I've never met.
I completely trust him, but clearly you do not trust your husband. That is the issue.
If you don't trust your partner, why on earth are you with them?

I'm not fat, thank you very much.

I'm not cool at all.
But I'm also not a bitchy keyboard warrior 🤷‍♀️

I never said OP's DH was innocent, and given OP's recent updates there is a while army of red flags in this relationship on both sides.

I also think they probably slept together at the Xmas party, and are having an affair. Him breaking your glasses and ushering you out of the office and also never meeting her are all signs something is going on. You have to decide whether to turn a blind eye or start getting your ducks in a row. I know which one I'd choose.

'he wouldn't have told you if it wasn't anything' lol. My kids dad asked for permission to meet his ex girlfriend for dinner while we were together. I said no because she didn't like me at all, they hadn't spoken in over 3 years and all of a sudden they chatted again. They met anyway, I left 2 years after and they got back together. He told me when he met her (but only said this after we split) that he realised he still loved her that night they met. Yeah context is really important here.

His violent response is very concerning.

The rest of your follow up posts do make their relationship sound suspicious.

It sounds like his violent outburst was not motivated by jealousy at the thought of you going out with a male friend; instead it sounds as though he was being deliberately threatening to intimidate you into shutting up.

You should consider seeing a solicitor about any preparations you should make ahead of a potential divorce.

Wow OP I am surprised with some of responses to your thread. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck..

Nothing about this or his behaviour would be okay in my marriage. We both have work friends of the opposite sex, we don't take them out 1-1 for birthday lunches. Its a significant boundary for me and a 1-1 birthday lunch is way too intimate for my liking. Also, he has gone out of his way to make sure you never meet this woman, this is suspicious in itself, my husband always introduces me to colleagues and staff. If there was a woman he was actively avoiding me meeting it would be a red flag. The not coming home on a Christmas work night out is also a screaming red flag to me.

I agree with a pp that he is hiding in plain sight, his behaviour towards you and the gas lighting is manipulative and abusive, he is lashing out because he has been rumbled.

If it were me, I would be considering happily waving him off for his date while you spend the alone time getting your ducks in a row to leave, a call with a solicitor might be a good use of the time.

That's what you think! Try experimentally giving the slightest hint that you might be interested and see what happens 🤣

My DH and I go for lunch together twice a week. Before he retired he occasionally had a working lunch with sometimes a small group but occasionally just a single/married woman. I didn't really care because it would have been all boring accountant and financial modelling talk. I certainly wouldn't have wanted to join them. On one or two occasions after an evening work do he has rang me and asked me to collect him and I've done so and dropped a couple of women off to their homes as they had drank alcohol and wouldn't drive. Who is this woman OP? Is she a colleague or a person he has met somewhere else? To have a successful marriage you need both mutual trust and respect.