Hmm.
They’re teenagers. They will probably not end up married.
Now if they were ENGAGED, and he pulled a stunt like this, and it were me, I’d be giving back the ring, pronto. No use in staying with a man who has no respect for your feelings.
At any rate, this kid she’s dating is obviously weak when it comes to dealing with his family (who apparently aren’t the most decent people in the world) and plus he’s apparently not above lying to get what he wants. Not good husband material.
IMHO.
First of all, the lying part. It is never right. If this young man can lie to his SO once to hide his activities, he can lie a second time. The trust is breached.
Secondly, he knew she would be upset, but he didn’t care. Strip clubs are seedy places and this rite of pasage thing is such a load of bull. What if this “rite” is to sleep with a prostitute, what then? At any rate, he didn’t even talk it through with her, so this seems he has little respect for DDG’s daughter.
Well, it really comes down to her being upset. It’s not a matter of whether she has a ‘right’ to be upset or not. Her boyfriend knew it would upset her, he did it anyway, he lied about it.
She needs to decide whether to continue the relationship. The power is hers. If it’s a deal breaker then it is and she should move on.
And maybe the BF learns that lying to a woman with whom you are romantically (however serious or non) involved is wrong.
And frankly, if more young men learned that the world would be a happier place. And young women, too, I suppose. But I’ve only ever been a young man.
now, wv_woman, just because they’re going to strip clubs doesn’t mean that they’re “not the most decent people in the world.” i don’t think the strip club is even the issue here. it’s her reaction (and his knowing her reaction to it). at 18, i would’ve been really insecure about that. five years later i think i wouldn’t be thrilled, but ok with it. so i can totally understand an 18 yo being weirded out.
the big thing is the lying. he could’ve been trying to spare her feelings, or spare himself a chewing out, or both. but lying most always hurts. i broke up with someone in the past and then found out he’d lied to me about something (not something big, but something anyway), and that was what made me upset, not the actual breaking up.
with maturity i’ve gained the realization that you need to talk about your feelings or your relationship is screwed (and talking doesn’t mean just ranting about the other person’s behavior and then not listening to them). so that’s what i’d suggest for this couple…listen to each other and try to come to some kind of agreement about stuff like that.
If I were in her shoes, I’d be plenty mad too. Lying, and then giving me a smarmy “but we were only trying to protect you” excuse would be enough of an excuse.
The whole issue of strip clubs gets under my own skin quite a lot, too, but I think that’s a standard she will have to come to on her own.
What the hell is an 18 year old doing in a strip club anyway? Is he old enough to drink there?
<eyes 15 yo son with a particularly forbidding look>
Well, I’m fine with my husband going to strip clubs, but really that’s because the only time he does is for another rite of passage, bachelor parties. I’d have a problem if he were dropping in for a drink after work on a regular basis.
Again, there’s two issues here:
#1- The Strip Club Rite of Passage- Each and every couple needs to make their own decisions about whether attendance at these sort of things is acceptable. She can tell him that she is uncomfortable being involved with someone who goes to strip clubs, and he can agree not to in order to save the relationship. However, family and friends are important; you don’t just give up your support system when you get into a relationship. She runs the risk of alienating him from his social circle when his cousin turns 18, and when his friend turns 18, and when his other friend is engaged and has his bachelor party. He could buck the tide and seethe with resentment that he’s missing out on the fun, or he could run the risk of lying to her and sneaking out anyway. Then, what happens in a few years if she is a bridesmaid, and her friends are planning to hire a male stripper for the bachelorette party?
She needs to know that the rite-of-passage thing is all about the male bonding. As the guest of honor, her boyfriend will probably be on stage tied to a chair while strippers rub themselves all over him. He will not be enjoying it. The people having fun will be his friends and relatives, who will be laughing at him.
#2- The Lying- Not cool. On the other hand, he is only eighteen years old, still learning how to be in a grown-up relationship. The lie may have just been a foolish, spur-of-the-moment decision because he felt pressured by both sides. It could be a sign that he is a selfish ass, but it could be a big benchmark in their relationship as they work out their own set of rules.
Our local strip club first has women doing their thing & then men doing theirs. i suppose
it would depend on which one got him more excited & if when he got home, if his
wife/GF got the benefit of that excitement.
I know that in Pennsylvania, some strip bars function like all ages nightclubs do. The nekkid women and the hootch are in seperate rooms, and you show your id and get a bracelet in order to go fetch your drink. They tend to be very strict in enforcing this because they come under so much scrutiny. They will throw you out and ban you if they catch you giving your 19-year-old buddy the beer you bought.
Hubby described one popular place- the nekkid room was all long tables. The women would dance on the tables and the big bouncer guys would literally carry them from table to table and out of the room on their shoulders. Meanwhile the beer was in the basement- your refilled your paper cup from a keg of like, Natty Ice. I know that all strip clubs can’t be that skanky, but I couldn’t believe the seediness that men would go through to look at nakkid women. I am sure that there are crack houses out there with more ambiance.
The main problem is that we are discussing the attitudes of persons whose views are probably not fully formed or mature. Seems as though the female feels unsure of her hold over the BF, and needs to demonstrate it by displaying extreme offense.
Nevertheless, count me amongst those who consider the lying issue to be of considerably greater importance than the “going to the strip club” issue.
Add to that the absurdity of the “rite of passage” excuse. Why is it so very, very important for the BF to go to a strip club on his 18th birthday anyway? Like the whole batchelor party rite, what an utter load of crap. Personally, I would never expect my friends to go through ludicrous humiliations of that nature just to symbolize their loyalty to me, and I sure as hell would not submit to same just on their say-so.
They need to be honest with each other if they expect to make a success of a long-term relationship. If they can’t be honest now’s the time to find out.
Thanks, everyone, this has been completely fascinating.
Welllll…I just wanna say, in defense of the BF’s family, that, while they aren’t exactly what I, from the Fightin’ Fundie point of view, would consider “producers of husband material” (meaning “Militantly Born-Again Christians who don’t smoke, drink, chew, or go to strip joints…”), still they are what most people would call “decent people”. There’s a whole clan of siblings and in-laws and cousins-by-marriage, they’re all Catholics who actually go to church (as opposed to “people who say they’re Catholics but who never actually go to church”), they do tend to have rather more relaxed standards when it comes to the Young Folks’ behavior and what “looks right”–but they’re still what I think most everybody on the boards here would instinctively identify as “Decent People”.
And there are lots of Decent People out there who don’t have any problem with strip joints, who consider it harmless fun, especially for a young man just turning 18, out on the town doing the “male bonding thing”.
P.S. The gal would like to clarify (I told her about this thread, but she hasn’t looked it yet) that the BF didn’t actually “lie” to her himself, personally. Apparently the group of guys, giggling, told her collectively that they were “going to go look at a Pepsi display”, and he stood there looking sheepish, avoiding her eye, and when she suspiciously taxed him with, “What are you guys going to do tonight, exactly?” blurted it out.
She seems to be mainly angry that she told him not to do something, but he did it anyway. I sense a power struggle, something which I suppose every maturing relationship has to go though eventually. Girlfriends and boyfriends have to learn that they can’t boss each other around.
Also, she found out last night that there’s yet another “male rite of passage” coming up. When she came home, she asked me, in slight disbelief, “They told me that when he turns 21, it’s also a tradition to take him out and get him drunk?”
I said, “Yeah, it’s called ‘puking drunk’, and to some people, you’re not a real man until you’ve experienced that, the same way you’re not a real man until you’ve watched strange women take off their clothes for money. Go figure.”
Hehe actually it isn’t really a thing based on fun, it’s based on torturing the 18 year old. :). Most eighteen year olds guys are going to be intimidated as hell by hot nekkid women coming up to them, and the girls play it up big time. The guys usually just blush and squirm around uncomfortably and look they just want to run away.
Well, as an 18 year old male with a girlfriend, I’m gonna throw a curveball here and say I would never do that, and I think Natalie would have every right to dump me if I did.
It would have been one thing if he’d sat down with her and said “Look, it’s a right of passage for my family for us to go to strip clubs on our 18th birthdays. Are you cool with me going?” But he didn’t. He lied about it, and that’s a serious breach of trust for any couple that’s been going out for a year. I know it’s all cool right now to just sleep with as many people as possible, but I guess I’m an old-fashioned fuddy duddy that thinks that once you’re going out with someone, you don’t go to anyone else for sexual gratification. And if that’s the way she feels, she has a right to forbid him from going, just as he would have the right to keep her from going to a bachelorette party. My advice would be to dump him and wait until she can get someone mature enough to see the error in all of that - though she’ll have to know it might be a while.
She is concerned about her BF and their de facto fidelity to eachother. From what I can tell, family comes before a hell of a lot of other things, even semi-committed relationships. If this is a rite passage and he isn’t doing this every other weekend, I see it as okay. Try rationalizing it to her as a bonding experience for him and his brothers, i.e. their little bro is finally an adult. The thing about a rite of passage is that you don’t do it more than once! Explain to her that maybe, just maybe, there might be strippers involved with her fiance’s bachelor party. Somehow she seems to be blowing the whole load of this out of proportion and demanding more power from him.
But DDG, those are all beautiful answers you gave to her, things that wouldn’t throw fuel on the fire by saying “how dare he! You should tear into him!” You gave, as always, rational, thought out answers.
I disagree with that. Any relationship that involves ‘forbiding’ is not a mature relationship, and isn’t likely to be happy. All you can do is tell the other person you wish they wouldn’t. And alot of the time they will do it anyway. And if it’s important enough to you then yoiu cut bait and break up. The last thing I would ever want is to go out with a girl who would let me forbid her from doing something she really wanted to do.
All right, then, but do you agree they should have at least sat down first and discussed it?
I’d like to repeat what !ceQueen said; the motivation for lying (IMO allowing someone else to lie for you is the same as lying for yourself) was not to protect her, but so he wouldn’t have to deal with the issue at hand. This does not make him a sleeze though, it just makes him a kid/guy (plenty of grownups do this too) who doesn’t think he’ll be doing any actual harm, so why cause trouble by bringing it up.
As to whether your daughter “should” be upset about her BF going to a strip club… I say (contrary to popular belief, I know) that it’s perfectly understandable. Some people have real moral issues with strip clubs and the like. This ain’t a trip to Wal-Mart, it’s a moral statement, and a sexual statement, and something that should be discussed.
That being said, I think ultimately she should “let” him go. It doesn’t mean she has to like it, and is free to voice her concerns, but if it’s really something she can’t handle at all (I mean, it is just this once for his birthday, and maybe occasionally later in life) then she should leave the guy. Otherwise she should re-evaluate her feelings about this sort of thing and the sort of people who go there.
The lying, though, was not cool. They should also talk about that, and he should make a commitment to talk about issues instead of hiding from them; that’s a recipe for disaster right there.
They both could have handled it better, and if the aftermath is spent figuring out ways to do that, rather than having a power struggle, they’ll both be better for it, and so will their relationship.
The lying was a very minor thing that was obviously done out of embarassment and a juvenile sense of honor (his friends were trying to protect him and embarass him at the same time).
Going to a strip club isn’t so much the issue, as how DDG’s daughter and her boyfriend dealt with unfamiliar and contentious territory. DDG, you should tell your daughter to sit down and talk to him about it, so they can figure out what boundaries they’re both comfortable with. Your daughter should probably relax a little bit, and her boyfriend should be a little more considerate about his girlfriend’s feelings about notional competition.
So he didn’t lie to her, and he told her the truth when she asked him directly? I think they both need to reflect on whether they want to stay involved with each other. They both need to recognize that a relationship shouldn’t be about power in the first place.
And I do think you’ve done a good job with your wise and loving counsel, DDG
Some thoughts:
The “rite of passage” thing: OK, maybe strip clubs don’t tickle your fancy, but from what I gather from DDG, in this young man’s family it really is a tradition to take the young man to a stip club on his 18th birthday. Whether you approve or not is, in many ways, irrelevant unless you are part of his family. Other families have traditions like the First Hunting Trip, Drinking Until You Puke When 21, and so forth. Presumably, once he is past his own “rite of passage” he may be expected to participate in other instances of this family tradition. So the question is likely to come up again.
Facing questions like this is part of early adulthood. The young man is being put in a spot to either keep his girlfriend or keep his family traditions. He needs to figure out his position on this, preferably before he gets married to anyone.
The lying issue: Lying in a relationship is not cool. Period. However, I’m not surprised that someone of his age would be tempted and not surprised he would do it. Understandable, but not to be condoned. Girlfried has every right to be upset about being lied to. Girlfriend and boyfriend need to sit down, exercise a little honesty, and work out this lying issue in particular.
The Power Play: As has been pointed out, this is girlfriend and boyfriend, not man and wife, or even a pair of fiancees. Either party enjoys a great deal of freedom outside that relationship. There are some limits - dating other people, for instance, if there is an understanding of a “steady” relationship - but neither controls the other. Girlfriend can certainly state her feelings and opinions, but she has no authority to limit boyfriend from going to a strip club with his family (and just how far is this young man going to go with his family looking on?), particularly if it is a family tradition. She may decide she wants nothing to do with a man from such a family – this is called a “life lesson”. She will encounter many more in years to come. The strip club/porn picture/male lust practices are items she needs to think about, her feelings about them, what she will and will not tolerate, and consider those feelings when making long-term relationship decisions.
Boy Lust and Girl Lust: Men like to look. This is not news. Actually, men often like to do more than just look, but they will often settle for just looking. Even men who don’t look still feel the urge to look This is part of being a male human being. Now, some men look whether their women approve or not, other men will not risk the wrath of their women, and some men feel it is wrong to look when you’re committed to someone else. Note the wide range of actual male behavior that comes from this basic urge. Women need to consider the behavior of a man when considering long-term relationships, and it does help if the man and woman discuss some of these hot topics early on. Maybe not the first date, but some exploratory questions along the lines of “how do you feel about strip clubs and porn?” about the same time you’re determining stands on “sex - before or after wedding vows?” is a very good idea. If a man has a habit of hitting the clubs on a regular basis she should not expect much change after marriage (it’s possible - but could also become covert, leading to much erosion of trust and other ugliness)
Now, we should consider women and THEIR urges - women’s urges and feelings in the past have not always been taken into account. Just as there is an urge for men to sow their wild oats (whether they actually do so or not, the urge is there), women have an impulse to Deep and Meaningful Relationships, sometimes called “romance”, but really (I think) connected to getting a loyal mate who won’t desert when she gets down to makin’ babies. (Note: This does not mean I feel that’s what a 19 year old young woman should do, or that that is the only function of women, just that it is one of many impulses that affect behavior). Thus, young women are frequently insecure about their relationships, even if they don’t conciously know why. They’re afraid - nay, terrified - of dersertion which, in the bad old paleolithic days, could mean disaster for her and death for her offspring. It’s biological baggage. Heck, nowadays male desertion is still a bad thing for mother and her babies. A result of this insecurity is that young women ask their young men to do things to “prove” their love, committment and loyalty. Such as “don’t look at other women” and “choose me over your family”. If you think about it, on a certain level, that’s exactly what girlfriend did - ask boyfriend not to look and to choose her over family. Now, a wife can ask her man to choose her over mama - a girlfriend can’t. She may want to, but they aren’t at that level of commitment (yet). Young women can become very possessive and jealous, and quite a bit of it comes from this desire to achieve a permanent pair-bond. Just as we expect young men to control their lust and not attack every human female they encounter, young women need to control their urge to control young men. She may want to be the sole focus of his life, but most likely she isn’t. If she is, that could be a very unhealthy situation, to be honest.
So… young men need to learn that it is not acceptable to lie to young women, and that many young women do not approve of certain activities that young men are strongly attracted to. They will also learn that many women demand tests of loyalty and love, and young men need to decide how far they will go with such requests.
Young women, whether they approve or not, need to understand that certain activities are strongly attractive to young men. They need to decide how they feel about said activities, and consider their tolerances when choosing to date young men. Young women also need to understand that young men are not playthings but also human beings (even if they don’t always seem to act like it, from a young women’s perspective) and there are sharp limits to what a girlfriend can ask/demand of a boyfriend. There are limits to what a wife can demand of a husband.
Both parties must understand that lying is extremely uncool. They need to discuss even the bits that are uncomfortable to discuss. In fact, it’s the uncomfortable bits that most need to be discussed. A longterm relationship might require compromise - for instance, if we were talking husband and wife, might be that wife allows the strip club adventures ONLY in the family tradition context, but husband agrees to stay away otherwise. But that would only apply to husband/wife or extremely long-term relationships (I have a cousin who’s lived with the same man for 50 years - they’re not married, but obviously many of the issues of marriage apply).
DDG - I applaud your approach to the daughter’s plight. You seem like a reasonable parent, and goodness knows, we need more of these.
Yes, she had a right to be mad about the lying. But a guy going out with the guys for his 18th birthday to a strip club? Nah. Pretty innocuous, esp. since the club will undoubtedly be very careful not to serve them drinks or risk losing their license. If my husband were to go out to a strip club for say, a bachelor party, I’d be more upset at the thought of him driving home shit-faced than the strip club thing.
If your daughter is insecure about him, then a strip club would undoubtedly be less risky than a regular bar. Regular bars don’t hire bouncers to prevent un-monetary related contact between the men and women, you see…
That being said, if he starts to go to strip clubs every weekend, then I might start having a problem with it. Aside from the “ick” think, it’s a pretty damn expensive way to find amusement.
I’d advise her to chill.