Some people here are talking about having friends of the opposite sex over for tea and whatnot, and I suppose that’s fine, but the man in the OP does not sound like a friend. He sounds like an infrequent acquaintance at best and one with whom the wife has not interacted in quite a long time.
There is some missing or ambiguous information in the story. The wife gave out her phone number…Ok whatever. The wife told the guy whereabouts the new house is…Ok fine. The wife let the guy in the house while her husband was at work? If a line hadn’t been drawn by now, it probably should have been drawn there. It’s not that the OP doesn’t trust his wife, it’s that he doesn’t trust the guy. And rightfully so.
I have been in a relationship for over 10 yrs and the day my SO tells me who I can have over at our house would be the last day of our relationship. The idea that it is remotely a concern to you is, frankly, disturbing to me.
Poor guy, they chatted, he came over (totally normal, she is new in town he comes over to see the house, have a coffee etc.) he has a crush on her and inappropriately texts her in a moment of poor judgement. So what. Maybe he came over because he has a crush on her, maybe he liked the visit and wanted to see more of her. The important thing is that your wife gave him a good clear “no”.
And honestly, rape?! He visited the house and had a crush. Jeez, overreact much? If you start living your life thinking that every visiting acquaintance (he was an acquaintance!) is going to rape you, that’s not really a life worth living.
Over the past 10 years, plenty of people have developed crushes on me or my SO (he works in primary education research, he’s surrounded by young teachers all day, haha!) and plenty of people have visited the house with the other person not there. I have had the neighbour over for coffee, I didn’t know him when he first came over. He kindly refrained from raping me, strangely enough.
Would it be appropriate for your wife to a have a lesbian over?
I seriously think it’s bizar to say that it’s not appropriate for your wife to have opposite sex people over while you’re not there. It reeks of abusive control to me. The terms of a relationship are: if you have sex with another person I will terminate the relationship. They are not: I will prevent the possibility that you could have sex with another person by not allowing you to interact with them.
And so? I trust my GF to make decisions about who to spend time with and she does the same with me. Are you saying that if this person who came over was a woman that it would change things?
This would require that my husband be a hotheaded asshole. I deliberately avoided marrying one of those for just that reason.
I wouldn’t think twice about showing a coworker I’d interacted with reasonably frequently around my new house; everyone I work with is interested in real estate and I can easily see it coming up. That the guy went all weird on her is in no way her fault unless she is totally socially clueless and knows it, in which case she should probably be more cautious than normal. The only thing I’d have done differently was probably mentioned to my husband that the guy was coming over, just because we always tell each other when anyone is visiting.
But no, just having an opposite sex friend over is not a problem.
(Just for the record, my husband and I have been together for 13 years and married for 6. I don’t entirely buy the “when you’ve been together as long as I have, you’ll know better” line of reasoning, because longer relationships are going to skew older and have a different generation’s view of opposite sex friendships. For example, my mother and father have both been together for a long time and would find it inappropriate, but the idea that I should be taking marriage advice from them is laughable. )
Really? So if your husband said “I’m not comfortable when you invite strange men over to our house. If you’re going to invite an unknown man over, please let me know so I can be there.” you’d divorce him? Why is your need to invite a man over to your house stronger than your love for your husband?
Part of the success to a long term relationship is making reasonable compromises to make your partner happy. If your attitude is, I can do whatever I want whenever I want with whomever I want, that’s not compatible with a long term relationship.
I don’t see it as unreasonable or controlling to not want your spouse to have same-sex friends over to the house one-on-one. Especially when it’s an unknown person to the other spouse.
I’m still gagging at “thoughtful wife of substance.” Barf. Double-barf to controlling who your spouse hangs out with on their own free time, and quadruple-barf to determining that by gender.
OP, are you OK with your wife hanging out alone with a gay guy? What about a group of lesbians?
It’s not “need[ing]to invite a man over”:rolleyes: it’s needing to be married to someone who’s not a control freak with trust issues and a healthy dose of sexism thrown in.
Inviting yourself over to someone’s house is rude, even if you’re good friends with them. If you’re just casual acquaintances, it’s extremely rude. Someone asking me where I lived so they could stop by would set of all kinds of alarms.
So I don’t know who’s socially clueless here, but the creepy guy certainly is, and she should have been more cautious because of that.
Well, for one thing it sounds like you’re more casual about people visiting your home than some people are. Some people have a relatively open house, with friends, family, and even casual aquaintances dropping by all the time, just to say Hi or hang out for a bit. For other people, their home is more of a private sanctum, where people who don’t actually live there enter only occasionally and by invitation. (And of course, it’s a continuum, with lots of people somewhere in between). I don’t know if this is at all relevant to the OP’s issue, but it may have something to do with the different ways people are reacting to it.
Heh. That’s true. You’re right that it’s weird. I didn’t really notice it because it seems less weird in the context of being excited about a new house, which is something my coworker-friends would be; half our conversations are about things like renovations, contractors, and home ownership woes.
Under what pretext did this casual work acquaintence suggest it was necessary to get directions and come over to your house in the first place, especially above and beyond what could be discussed at the previous get together?
I would not invite someone over without clearing it with my spouse, but that’s because it’s our house, and we both get the veto in terms of who we have as company. This has nothing to do with fidelity and everything to do with personal space.
In the abstract, I wouldn’t want to be married to someone who worried about me being alone with a member of the opposite sex, but I do understand people have random insecurities and sometimes it’s okay to indulge them. In the specific, if my husband were to suddenly ask me to cool a particular relationship, I’d honor the request simply because he’s never shown any sign of jealousy, and if he was made uncomfortable by someone, I’d trust his instincts.
Okay, so, I think I need more information, because I can imagine different scenarios with different answers as regards appropriateness. Assuming I’m the wife in the OP:
Scenario 1: Man I was friends with several years ago says he’ll be in the area around 2pm for other errands and would like to come over to drop off a housewarming present. I think, oh how nice, and give him my new address. He comes over and proffers the gift. Since I am a friendly person, I invite him in for a glass of water and show him the house. We end up swapping anecdotes for twenty minutes. He then leaves. Neither my husband nor I would think this was at all inappropriate (until the lewd texts started appearing, anyway).
Scenario 2: Male acquaintance whom I don’t know very well says he would like to come over and see the house. I think this is a little odd but say, sure, and give him the address, saying weekends are good times to visit both me and my husband. He comes over at 2pm. Okay, at this point I am kind of weirded out and don’t invite him in; if I did, my husband would probably think that was a little weird but understand that I felt a bit intimidated or something.
Scenario 3: Male acquaintance whom I don’t know very well wants to come over right now and see the house, during the day when my husband is at work and I’m not. Why isn’t he at work? Why can’t he come see the house when both of us are there? In this case I say, Sure, feel free to come ON THE WEEKEND when BOTH MY HUSBAND AND I would love to receive you. If I instead said to come over and the events of the OP happened, it’s not so much that my husband would think I was being inappropriate so much as “uh, what were you thinking?”
(Married 6 years, been with mr. hunter for 11; almost all our co-workers are male; we are fairly private people.)
Of course my SO is more important to me than random people coming over. But part of the reason I love him is that he would never ask me something like that. If he ever said he didn’t want me to invite men over, I don’t see how I could love him. I would see that as abusive and controlling.
If he had some specific and relevant reason not to want a specific person over, then of course that person would not be invited over. Hypothetically.
Thudlow, we do have a house where we always have people over. People know they can show up unannounced and get a meal or a cuppa anytime But I don’t see it as very significant to allowing your wife to have people over. If you own the house together, she can decide who you have over when you are not around and you have no right to tell her what to do.
Fwiw, my parents have been married 30 years and my mother would laugh my father out of the house if he tried to tell her who she can see. Just to dispel that idea…
I believe it would make a difference to the OP and to myself, yes. Clearly, a woman inviting another woman into the house leaves a lot less room for misunderstanding as to the purpose of the visit. As I said before, the issue is not mistrusing your wife or girlfriend.
Why does the OPs trust of “the guy” matter? Assuming he trusts his wife, then barring instances of actual rape - and frankly, I’d hesitate to assume that I’m a better judge of that sort of danger from a distance than my perfectly intelligent wife is from up close - nothing will happen. So who cares whether the OP trusts the guy? Why does it matter? Why do lines need to be drawn?
I’ve said this in the past, and I’ll say it again. My wife and I are faithful to one another because we choose to be, not because of lack of physical opportunity. If the only barrier to adultery were a refusal to ever be alone with an eligible person of the preferred sex… well, that’d be sad and strange.
So in your eyes unless there is sex, you are not allowed to have any opinion on the behavior of your spouse? I’m confused about how boundaries are “controlling”, if one spouse does something that upsets another, either sex, then the spouse doing the bad thing has to decide if they will continue doing it or upset the spouse. Simple IMO.
But I don’t see it as very significant to allowing your wife to have people over. If you own the house together, she can decide who you have over when you are not around and you have no right to tell her what to do.