Was I wrong to go for a meal with male gym friends?

[BeRubyMaker]

Hi, just wondered if anyone please had any opinion on the situation below which is causing friction between husband and me. I was invited to a meal out from our gym with male friends only who are all about 10 years older married/widowed and have been out on Christmas meet up previously with them. I was invited and went, then husband is super annoyed as he found it was all men went. Nothing untoward at all it was simply a meet up meal with people I’ve been with before to a local restaurant and was not doing anything else that evening I asked my friend she said just go what’s the problem. Any opinions I feel awful it has upset him but thought nothing of it at the time. 😥now I’m really upset as he has hardly spoke to me for days as says it’s weird going out with only all male friends. Help I do not know how to handle this.

He didn't even break the silence for your birthday? Well...

Does he have form for causing arguments around your birthday or special occasions? Ruining the one day a year that is for you is cruel in my opinion.

Going out with 4 male friends I can get him not liking it. Ideally it would have been a diss issuing before the outing.

But his behaviour is unacceptable, ignoring a loved one for a prolonged period is horrible and especially over your birthday. And you say this behaviour is not uncommon.

id seriously consider if he is worth the grief.

JMO before anyone comes at me.

Going for a meal or a drink with members of the opposite sex (when you are in a hetero relationship) is fine if there is more than one. Going with just one person of the opposite sex, just the two of you, is a bit odd IMO.

I mean, you have to take numerous factors into account. ie; were you friends before you and your partner/spouse met?

Also does this other person acknowledge you?

DH had a friend at work - a woman 20-ish years younger (mid 30s, married - 1 child age 12,) who he would stay at work and chat to for half an hour when his shift finished and hers started. Twice a week he would do this, and he would come home and tell me the gossip she had shared.

She has left now (2 months ago) and he chats to her once every week to 10 days for about half hour on WhatsApp, (just a catch up) and that's fine IMO. I have spoken to her some 4 or 5 times, and met her 3 times, (2 of them at a social event.) She is friendly and charming and always asks DH how I am, and she added me on Facebook, and 'likes' my photos. (DH doesn't have Facebook.)

He wants to meet her for a coffee in a few weeks and I have been asked to come. But I don't know her really, so have said to DH that I will go with him, and look around the shops while he has a half hour to 45 minutes catch up with her, and join them for 20 minutes afterwards and have a coffee myself. They are work colleagues (well, they were for 3 years til she left) and I wouldn't have much to talk about to her.

So as far as I'm concerned this is fine.

Conversely, one woman used to work at DH's place (mid 40s, divorced, 2 DC aged early 20s,) was very touch feely with him, called herself his 'work wife' (vom!) and when he had Facebook too, I would @ him in on photos, (she had him on her friends list but not me.) And if there was say, 25 photos of one day trip (10 scenic ones, 5 of me, 5 of both of us, and 5 of him,) she would just 'like' the 5 photos of just him, and put silly 'totes hilaire' comments on them, completely ignoring me and the photos of him with me and all the scenic ones. Just responded to the pics with him on them only.

When we bumped into her in town, she would started laughing and joking with DH, and say stuff like 'we have a right laugh don't we Steve?' 😆She would shove him (gently) and said once 'some of them think there's something going don't they? hahahaha.' DH was like 'do they?' She carried on LOLing and guffawing, and tapped the side of her nose and winked at him, like she and he were party to something that I wasn't, and secrets were being kept. DH was like WTF??? She pretty much ignored me whenever she saw me and made a beeline for DH.

Call me naive if you like but when he said 'I haven't got a fucking clue what she was on about' I believed him. I can tell when he's lying. Anyway, if he had said he was going to meet her and her alone, I would be like 'NO.' (And he would be the same if the shoe was on the other foot.) It's not a matter of trusting or not trusting him, I just couldn't bloody stand her, and she would probably have told people at work that 'something happened...' Horrible woman. I was glad when she left a few months later! She deleted DH off Facebook about 3 months after she left.

So yeah, tl;dr it depends.

Why?!

Similar things -he always goes in a strop for ages my friend says it’s controlling but she’s single so thought it was just her used to freedom but actually after all your opinions I see this in a different light. Things like talking to other people-women mainly if we go out and leaving him by himself for all of 10 minutes at the bar-he’ll ring me to come back over. He says I should cut down having drinks-I only have a drink Friday in bath-two vodka tonics while phoning my friend and then my mum- and a couple Saturday and that’s it.

You need to stop bowing to his every drmand, he's got you well trained!!! Your birthday and he punishes you by ignoring, making you cry and apologise endlessly! And now you think there's something wrong with YOU ! Where is your self esteem. Rhetorical questions you need to ask yourself. It sounds like he's ground you down and got you trained to run after him when he starts with the moods and have yourself in bits trying to fix it
How about dropping the rope... say nothing... be normal totally.. crack on with your errands and birthday... let him come to you.. you're not a dog at his beck and call.
Re centre yourself in this relationship

I've been known to eat two, even three courses with men and not have sex with them. Weird I know.

Recently I've made friends with a bloke who shares a hobby with me. There have been other bloke friends and many female friends but DH felt a bit uncertain about this one after we went to an event together that DH had forgotten about, and that I got home late from. DH hasn't met this friend.

DH handled this by picking a calm moment and saying "I feel a bit odd about Friend, you seem to be talking to him a lot and I was expecting you home much earlier the other night". And I confirmed it was all innocent, apologised, asked what had given him that impression, and we agreed some very reasonable steps for the future.

And that is how good relationships work. No sulking, nobody begging forgiveness, open adult and safe conversations.

To put it mildly.

Tell him to grow up and stop sulking.

🤣🤣🤣🤣 Quality

Gross yes, but as such I thought it was a fairly effective reductio ad absurdum.

I feel really angry with your husband. First because it was entirely fine for you to go out to this meal. He knows this. He knows that nothing disloyal would have happened, but he feels that it is part of your job to protect him from irrational and uncomfortable feelings of jealousy by restricting your own life and freedom.

That's a failure to take responsibility for himself. We all have uncomfortable preoccupations from time to time that stem from our own hang-ups. We don't make it other people's responsibility to prevent them from occurring.

Secondly the sulking and silence.That is a completely dick way to express anger and to punish you. He probably knows that if he were to speak up and actually try to explain what your alleged wrongdoing was, he would have to use sentences that make him sound like a controlling and jealous sexist prick. He isn't prepared to sound like the bad guy so he is relying on silence.

The silence corners you into doing all the emotional work -- again, a failure on his part to take responsibility for himself.

Be bold, be firm. None of this is your doing.

Wow your husband is horrible and cruel. How on earth do you feel bad as you didn’t pander to his jealoosy and insecurity, and fhey he treated you like shite and on your birthday too.

why are you all crying and being apologetic to this loser, you did nothing wrong, you need to tell him to grow up, this behaviour is unacceptable and if it happens again you’re out.

quite frankly you should leave now, he’s abusive and controlling.

Thanks to you all really appreciate you taking the time to comment and I feel on the right tracks now thank you all for being there ❤xxx

Ludicrous over reaction from him. Sounds like it’s not the first time either, I would hate this.

Your friend says it's controlling, your friend is right.

Absolutely not an issue. It's a group fgs. Your husband needs to get a grip.

I'm taking it they weren't all, to be absolutely crude, taking turns at the dinner table so I think he's being completely ridiculous.

I used to do this without a thought until my ex who made it into something. My ex is an abusive idiot. My husband would joke that as long as I didn't go to bed with them at the end of the night he wouldn't care.

Edited to add: Apparently my husband would actually say "Did you have a good time?". He felt it was important that this is what yours should be saying.

This is about him .. why is he punishing you by ignoring you.
HE needs to address his insecurities grow up and communicate in a positive way.

He's controlling you op, he's decided unilaterally that you were wrong to go out with your male gym friends, that you deserve to be punished and that the punishment will go on for as long as he sees fit, you being upset about it is the icing on his cake. You can either be upset until he decides your punishment has ended, or you can ignore him, let him see you're not bothered and get on with your own life. As mumsnet often says, read your post as if someone you love was telling it to you, what would your advice be?

You need to de-escalate. You are saying they are not hot, if this is true, why not bring your husband to the gym to see for himself? He doesn't have to meet them, he just has to look at them. None of them are as handsome as your man, right?

It may be that going out with those men made him feel bad about himself. And/or is he ascribing to you what he would do, how he would feel, if he were with a group of women?

If you want to fix this, walk around in lingerie, or a towel, in front of him and bend over often to "clean." If that doesn't work, your problem with him is pretty serious, self-esteem issues, maybe. That's a long time to be silent for a lunch. Good luck! Fingers crossed.

Bluntly, it's not the OP's job to 'de-escalate' her DH's rampant insecurity. She doesn't need to take him to her gym to show him how much more fuckable he is than her gym buddies. That's pandering to his bullshit.

FragrantPalms Bluntly, it's not the OP's job to 'de-escalate' her DH's rampant insecurity. She doesn't need to take him to her gym to show him how much more fuckable he is than her gym buddies. That's pandering to his bullshit.

Untrue, because SHE is the one who wants to put this back to where it was, so yes, as long as she wants to return to normalcy the ball is in her court. She can't go on in a silent household. That's abusive. De-escalate, or at least try so that she can move forward with whatever the next step will be in that marriage.

My husband has a sport which involves him spending a lot of time with very fit (as in physically energetic) females . He is top of the sport and I really don’t worry about it because I am confident that he doesn’t stray and is a very uncomplicated person.
Your husband is controlling OP .