That’s a fair point, and my first thought would be to say that this is the sort of thing one ought to work out before marriage. I have a friend, for example, who will not do social events containing more than two other people without her husband present. This means he has to be present for every social event she attends (and she’s a reasonably social person). I’m fairly sure he never does any social events by himself; I don’t think she would be okay with that. This would drive both me and my husband absolutely crazy; both of us would consider it completely unreasonable, far more unreasonable than not wanting people of the opposite sex alone with our spouse in our house. But they both seem to be very happy with the arrangement.
If something like this develops after marriage, then there would have to be a whole lot of communication, and possibly some compromise.
That makes sense, and I agree, but as I said above I don’t know that that necessarily means the request shouldn’t be accomodated. Or, what jsgoddess said, only in significantly more words.
filmore, question for you. I just realized I have a strange man over to my house every week! I teach a sweet little boy violin. We’ll call him David; he is the son of a couple I know from church (I know the mom much better than the dad, though I’m not close friends with either; mr. hunter doesn’t know either of them, not going to my church). David’s dad takes him to my house and later picks him up – all while mr. hunter is at work – and he often stays for at least five minutes while I tell him about the things that we did in the lesson and what David needs to practice. I’m not even 100% sure I mentioned to mr. hunter that it’s the dad that drops him off and not the mom (although I imagine it may have come up, I’m just not sure). Would that bother you? I am not trying to be snarky or anything, I’m genuinely curious as to what different people think about this.
Would it make a difference that the dad always has three kids (including David) in tow, and we have one, so any hanky-panky would be pretty much totally impossible anyway?
Is he, though? Because it sounds to me like his “compromise” is in fact a situation where one partner changes their behavior to accommodate the other’s issues while the other changes dick all. That’s not compromise, a compromise is when one partner agrees to refrain from abc and the other agrees to get over (or at least shut up about) xyz. I’m not saying that capitulation/accommodation doesn’t have its place in a good relationship, because it absolutely does. I’m saying we shouldn’t represent it as something it’s not.
As for the situation in the OP, neither of us would think anything of it up until the lewd texts started coming. It’s not like the only thing keeping us from cheating is lack of time alone in a space with a bed, you know? If there was one particular person that made him uncomfortable and he talked to me like a reasonable human being, I’d be willing to accommodate him. But a blanket “some other dog just pissed on my favorite tree” hissy fit? Fuck that noise.
I suppose if you only look at this one instance you might think that. But there are many things that I compromise on because I know it makes her happier. Like, she doesn’t like mushrooms at all so I don’t eat them around her. I’d rather have mushrooms on my pizza but I do without. I don’t make her promise me something because I gave up mushrooms. I do it willingly because it’s a minor change and it makes her happy. There’s probably hundreds of little things like that.
I don’t see this as a problem at all. The dad’s not coming over to see you and hang out. For me the problem would be for situations which would be the start for affairs. Inviting strange guys over to the house to hang out is over the line to me. It’s not that I think she’s going to have an affair, but I’d rather not have to worry about that situation.
No matter how much you trust your spouse, it would be hard to be okay with the situation if they secretly invited their high school sweetheart over to drink beers and hang out in the hot tub all afternoon. If you trust them then it should be okay, but I imagine most people would not be okay with this.
Did she also secretly invite her high school sweetheart to hang out in the hot tub all day? Because aquaintance/20 minute visit does not exactly equal hot tub/former SO, and comparing one to the other is not going to help your cause with her, I wouldn’t think.
ETA: Nevermind, I thought you were the OP for a sec.
No, you don’t require some unrelated concession to make up for the mushroom thing. That’s not what I’m talking about as a compromise. What you have going on in that situation seems like a pretty reasonable compromise–what you describe as the solution to the OP’s issue is more akin to you never, ever eating mushrooms ever in any setting because she doesn’t like them. And while that situation may indeed work splendidly for some couples, it’s decidedly not a compromise.
Okay, thanks for clarifying – that makes things clearer (and makes your position sound a lot more reasonable as well). I do have a “strange guys” line as well – I don’t know that I would be comfortable with inviting someone in my house I didn’t know fairly well (though also for reasons of personal space, safety, etc.), though the situation in the OP, as I said before, could go either way. (I did recently invite a man in my car – we drove about ten miles to a restaurant – whom I knew only from a message board, but I feel that a car is much less invasive personal-space wise than a house, and I wouldn’t have gone in a car with him probably, though I realize that is probably a bit hypocritical.) However, I wouldn’t see anything wrong with inviting a male friend in, especially one I had known for a while, though I’d probably clear it with my husband first (for the reasons Manda JO cites – I like to tell him when other people are in our personal space, make sure he doesn’t have other plans to hammer nails at the time or something, etc.).
CrazyCatLady, I dunno, I feel that his position as I now understand it is a bit of a compromise. “Sure, it’s fine to see guys when I’m not around (filmore, tell me if this is not right – I’m assuming you wouldn’t object, say, to your wife having lunch with a friend?), and it’s fine to have guys over to our house who have a legitimate reason to be there, but I’m not comfortable with guys coming to the house you and I share with no good reason” is kind of the vibe I’m getting.
I never suggested to either of my wives that they couldn’t have male visitors or couldn’t go out dancing or whatever with their platonic male friends.
However I am male and my male friends are male and so, while never doubting either wife’s motivations, I deeply doubted the motivations of the non-gay males who wanted to hang out with a married woman without her husband around.
Sadly the first time around I was young and foolish and let the resultant affair fuck up my feelings about the marriage. The second time I was able to deal with it but the marriage foundered due to other reasons.
I liked this:
I think it is standard protocol for hookers who work from home too.
What it boils down to for me is not acting in a way that makes me wonder if there’s an affair. Secretly inviting a man over, as in the OP, is something that would make me wonder if there’s an affair. To avoid that misunderstanding, she could have told him ahead of time that she invited him or she could have invited him over when both of them were home.
If you suspect your wife is having an affair then either:
She is having an affair.
You have trust issues.
If my boyfriend is “wondering” if I’m having an affair, thats a HUGE PROBLEM that we need to work out right away, because trust issues are poison. If he is wandering around “wondering” if I’m having an affair, then there is no space for love or commitment in our relationship. How can you commit to someone you don’t trust? What you have there is something that will eventually eat the relationship alive, because if you fundamentally don’t trust someone, then you are never going to be fully satisfied that nothing hinky is happening and you will eventually let the whole thing self-destruct.
Every relationship will face tests. A professor and his hot young students, a professional travelling on business with male co-workers…these situations will come up. What makes a strong relationship is that you never have to worry when they do come up.
The point is, she did not secretly invite him over. There was no secrecy.
If my SO deliberately kept a visitor secret I would wonder about an affair too. But in this case she had a guy over, then told her husband when he came home.
I don’t understand things like “I’d rather not have to worry about it”; it still means that with everyone opposite sex person your SO meets makes you worry about an affair, which means you don’t trust them. Your slight worry then becomes a reason for them not to invite people over. That’s not reasonable: you’re the one with the problem.
Nothing in the OP gives me any hint of an affair. Does having someone over at the house when you’re not there imply a potential affair to you? Because I’m just not seeing it.
Damn but you take a few words and run with them don’t you? Being thoughful about placing your spouse in a dangerous situation is controling now? And you obviously don’t know my spouse if you think anyone on earth could control her or me if you think I would have it any other way. What an absolute laughable kneejerk.
What in hell would gays and lesbians have to do with letting a creep in the house? Are the gays and lesbians creeps?
I asked why would a thoughtful spouse invite trouble and you had to expose your prejudices with control freak and sexism jumping off you like nervous ticks. Well, it was amusing anyway.
I wouldn’t go so far as to call it secret either, but the OP is a little confusing on this point to me. Because, again, I can see it going one of two ways:
-Spouse and I have an agreement that (for whatever reason, be it insecurity, personal space, liking to be informed in general, whatever) we’ll contact the other at work if there’s anything out of the ordinary going on. In this case I would think it would be appropriate to call or dash off a quick email saying something like, “Friend X is coming over for half an hour, and then I’m going to the library – any books you want?”
-Spouse HATES it when I contact him at work about a non-work issue. (This is the case for my husband; work is for working, not for dealing with home stuff unless it’s very quick and on the order of “can you pick up some milk on the way home?”) I personally would not bother to tell my own husband if the events of the OP happened to me until he came home, because I’ve been burned too many times by him saying, “Can you please not call me at work about these relatively trivial matters?” In this case I would think the OP was being unreasonable, because he would be making two demands that were contradictory.
This is the wife of the firefighter…He did fail to mention my mom was here with me the whole time. I did NOT invite him in while alone. Nor would I have. He did ask me what to post, but that started another fight so we didn’t get very far.And by the way, I am in know way having an affair nor would I ever do that either. And my hubby/OP is fully aware of that. LOL
That does make a difference as far as any concern over your intentions (there should likely be none) but as per concern about your safety it does little. The thing that freaks a spouse out the most and makes them go overboard is worry the person they love most could come to harm. That worry shoots right past rational.
It may be sexist to say but not all guys have good intentions and most women are capable of being overpowered physicaly. My daughter picked up a stalker just being nice. She called the police on him and he still would not quit. I turned the tables on him by telling him where he lived, who his parents were, what he drove, where he lived, and other details. Then I told him what would happen next and why and luckily he believed me because it was true and thus it didn’t have to happen. He quit. It’s been five years now and I still have the information handy to locate him.
It’s a sad world sometimes and maybe my experiences have colored my view negatively.
If you think any of this is news to women, then I think you have very little idea of what it is like to be a woman.
Your daughter didn’t “pick up a stalker” because she did the wrong thing. A stalker picker her out.
There are a about a million things I do every day that could end in rape- from “going into a parking garage to get my car” to “using a quiet restroom.” I don’t take stupid risks, but if minimizing my potential to get raped were my main goal, nothing short of max-security solitary confinement is going to work. There are some societies that do lock up their women “for their own protection,” but we are kind of past that, right?
Anyway, you can get knifed. You can get in a car wreck. All kinds of terrible things can happen to the ones you love. You can’t let fear run your life.
It almost sounds to me like there’s been something going on between the wife and this man or there was in the past and now she’s trying to distance herself and reframe him as an inappropriate acquaintance.