<p>I know there are sophisticated posters here who have had long-term careers. As for me, I have been a stay-at-home mom, and will be seeing my youngest off to college in the fall. I am looking for your collective wisdom about my problem. I have never given a second thought to the idea of my husband straying from our marriage. I have always had perfect trust in him. However, recently he seems to have become quite friendly with a female coworker (at least a dozen years younger than he is, by the way). I recently found out that he has had dinner with this person. According to him, the woman is not attractive to him (I have seen her–she is quite a bit overweight, but other than that quite attractive). He has even mentioned seeing a movie that I am not interested in with her, and taking a visit to a nearby museum which they are interested in (and in which I am not).</p>
<p>When I did work (many moons ago) I would never have given the ideal of lunching or doing anything else with a married man a second thought. To me, it is not appropriate. I wonder why this woman would do this. Doesn’t she have female or unmarried coworkers to lunch with? I have met her a couple of times, and I have found that I am now uncomfortable around her–I don’t doubt she feels the same. </p>
<p>What is going on here? Should I be concerned? I know social mores have changed since my day. Your insights would be greatly appreciated!</p>
<p>Lunch wouldn’t bother me so much; supper would. As a wife, the movie and museum would bother me a lot. I’ll clarify that I was a wife who had absolute trust in H1, and in hindsight, he had started talking about Ms. “x” often. Too bad hindsight is never foresight…at any rate, I think there’s a good reason when a spouse’s radar is going off. Being careful is always a good idea.</p>
<p>You asked why she would do things such as this (taking into account you’re not sure that “anything” is amiss). That is an age old question. You’d be amazed how many women have absolutely no morals or problem with the fact that the man is married.</p>
<p>The question is why your husband would do this, not the woman. He’s the one with the commitment. </p>
<p>IMO, lunch with a female co-worker is OK if it’s only an occasional thing, dinner questionable, a movie or a museum definitely not–unless he cleared it with you in advance.</p>
<p>I’m glad audiophile added “unless he’s cleared it with you in advance.” That seems not to apply so much in this particular case, but I don’t think there are a lot of universal absolutes here. (OK, most of us, including me, are probably against marital infidelity. I’ll give you that one.)</p>
<p>I’ve been a stay-at-home dad for about 50 years now, but when I used to teach, I did sometimes go to baseball games and such with a married female colleague of mine when her husband couldn’t go. Both our spouses were fine with it. I’m quite certain neither of us wanted to have an affair; I’m even more certain we never had one.</p>
<p>But IMO you should be the one who gets to say “yea” or “nay” here. If it bothers you, he shouldn’t do it. Because if he intends to be married for the long term, it usually makes no sense for him not to back the decision his life-partner makes.</p>
<p>When are these events happening? Not so much the lunches, but the dinners and museum and movie visits? </p>
<p>My h travels for work to conferences. He often goes to dinner or visits something (such as a museum) with women he knows. It’s often a part of the conference. Or, he has gotten to know people (men and women) in his same position who regularly attend the same conferences, and they are now friends. No concern with these outings.</p>
<p>If my h was going out to dinner, movies , museums on my time, in other words “Hon, I’m not coming home for dinner because…,” I would be very upset and suspect.</p>
<p>As someone else said, ask to go along-conferences or not. If there is hesitation, there is likely a problem or concern.</p>
<p>Also be aware, studies have shown, that the “other” person is often not better looking than the spouse.</p>
Forget about the woman - the issue is with your H, not her. It’s your H who’s invested in his marriage/family - not her, she’s an outsider. The lunches might be reasonable but if it was just the two of them, as opposed to with coworkers, and if he didn’t inform you of it, it’s questionable. Unless the dinner was part of a business function, which it sounds as if it wasn’t, it’s not appropriate. Neither is going to other events with just the two of them. When you say you ‘recently found out’, do you mean that he told you or that you found out some other way? If you found out some other way did he say why he wasn’t up front in telling you? The excuse of he ‘knew how you’d react’ isn’t adequate. The fact that he didn’t tell you is a red flag. Even if he can justify the dinner as a legit business function I don’t see how he could justify the movie and if he did it without telling you up front, it’s a problem.</p>
<p>Tell him how you feel about this. Assuming you’re not comfortable with it and you feel it’s inappropriate then tell him so and he should stop the behavior if for no other reason than the fact that he’s making you uncomfortable. Even if it hasn’t gone too far yet, with each outing with her they’re both getting more emotionally involved with each other. If he has a hard time accepting this ask him how he’d feel if he found out you’ve gone to dinner, to a movie, and to ther outings with some other man without informing him up front and making sure he’s comfortable with it.</p>
<p>Coincidence - I mentioned to my W and D last night about the stereotype of the ex/scorned asking if the ‘other woman’ is prettier than her and how the ex will get upset if she is and even more upset if she isn’t but upset either way. I don’t think the looks should be a factor in your view on this - just focus on the behavior.</p>
<p>I’m sorry you even have to think about or deal with this. You shouldn’t be put in that position.</p>
<p>I am a woman who worked in a male-dominated profession. I had lunch with a male coworker every single day. When we had to travel (which was a lot) I had breakfast, lunch and dinner with these coworkers. We’d go out for drinks. We had fun. But it was just work. </p>
<p>TainG - did you ever go out to movies or museum with your male co-worker 1:1? I travel extensively and I have co-workers visit my office often. It’s not often I have dinner with any co-worker alone, especially when in the home office. When traveling, it’s more approriate to watch a pay-per-view in a hotel room by myself. Nevertheless, if the spouse is uncomfortable then it is a very good reason for him to stop. Boundary is important with co-workers, a lot could be mis-interpreted and there could be potential of sexual harassment.</p>
<p>Looks often is not a factor in extra marital relationship. Two very senior people at our firm were just let go for inappropriate behavior. Everyone of those women were over weight, insecure, and young (it went on for many years), and we were all very surprised by the kind of women they preyed on.</p>
<p>No. I don’t believe I ever had time to go to a movie or a museum with a co-worker. Business trips are for business. We rarely had any downtime. But at conferences, I played tennis with co-workers (men), while others played golf. It just depends on the circumstances.</p>
<p>I think that lunch is fine. It’s part of the work day and coworkers eat together all the time.</p>
<p>Dinner, movie, museum, though, is different. My niece and her husband had something like this happen (husband spent time with another woman as just friends) and their counselor said that it wasn’t a good idea because he should focus on finding common interests with his wife instead. I know them well and I’m nearly certain that there was no affair, but I could see the counselor’s point.</p>
<p>I’m sorry, once again I can see I was unclear. I meant that he mentioned going to a museum and/or movie with her in the future. He did run it by me. This woman is new to the area, “friendless” etc. I have asked him why she has seemed to latch on to him for these outings, and not another man (married or not) and he seems to have no answer to this. The red flag went up for me just today, when I found out they had dinner (supposedly once). Now I am questioning her motives. Audiophile makes a good point that I should be more concerned with his actions since he is the one in a committed relationship. As for filling his emotional needs, I think I have been doing so, but then, who knows?</p>
<p>Frankly, I still trust that he would not have an affair. What bothers me more (and perhaps this is petty) is the appearance of it all. It seems disrespectful toward me, his wife, that he would do this. I know that if I saw a married man out to dinner with an unmarried coworker, I would wonder. I would even wonder about the lunches. I would probably lose respect for the man, his wife and the unmarried female.</p>
<p>bonniemom, I’ve been in a similar situation, and I think you need to nip this in the bud. Perhaps let your H know how uncomfortable you are with their relationship. My experience is that men aren’t always aware of the degree of intimacy they might be developing with a woman. </p>
<p>That said, I don’t think there’s anything necessarily wrong with a married person having single friends, but only if it were outside of work!</p>
<p>Exactly. She is meeting your husband’s emotional needs. This is how affairs start. The office is one of the most common settings for affairs because co-workers naturally spend a lot of time together. Two people start confiding in each other and spending time together alone. And then they discover they have a shared interest (that the spouse does not share). Before you know it, they have developed an emotional attachment and one thing leads to another…</p>
<p>A good friend went through this about 8 years ago. Her husband was going out to lunch with one of his staff people - just the two of them. She was having martial issues and was confiding in my friend’s husband. As far as we know it never got to the affair stage. My friend put her foot down and asked him to stop. At first, he refused, didn’t think it was a problem. Friend persisted and eventually told him she would leave him. He did stop after that and the woman left to go work at another company.</p>
<p>People can engage in ‘emotional affairs’ where they start confiding in someone else and start sharing more with the other person than their spouse. Even though there isn’t (yet) a physical affair, an emotional affair can wreak just as much havoc on a marriage and often leads to a physical affair. I would nip it in the bud. He has no legitimate reason to be spending time with this woman alone. Going to a movie and dinner seems very much like a date to me.</p>
<p>A lot of people trust their spouses not to have an affair but the truth is most people don’t plan to have affairs, they get drawn into it, little by little. And before they realize it, they have developed an attraction to the other person and believe they have fallen in love. My personal opinion is when a married person is suddenly spending alone time with a member of the opposite sex, that’s a big, big red flag. Trust has nothing to do with it.</p>
<p>Thank you all so much for your responses. Some very good advice here. It seems pretty clear that most people think this relationship is not appropriate. I’m glad I found out about the dinner thing, because if I had thought it was just lunches I might have continued to see no problem with it. As it is, I am going to nip it in the bud if I can. Perhaps I’ll have to bite the bullet and take part in some activities that I normally don’t care for (my kids used to fill this roll), but that’s okay.</p>