Well, I guess I can be odd man out in this thread. For the record, I share a very happy, monogamous, and incredibly possessive marriage with my lovely Lady Faeriebeth. There’s a very small window wherein I would not consider it rude, and an even smaller window in which I’d consider it okay for my wife to accept.
If these are casual acquaintances, I’d expect any invitations to include both of us- if only because they don’t know the extent of our boundaries.
If they are established friends, then it would not be an issue. Of course, the general ‘tone’ of the invite does have an impact. Under no circumstances would I scream, “Pure Balls!” and cut the guy’s head off (except in my head, if the disrespect was evident).
It may sound crazy, but thankfully, it’s reciprocated, so we seldom have jealousy issues. It also helps that we share many of the same interests/hobbies, and generally like hanging out together more than anything.
To answer the OP’s question, “yes”. It does show a lack of respect for a causal aquaintance to ask your wife or SO to a private, non-professional lunch or similar activity. I don’t think it’s all that appropriate even if it’s someone you know well. The correct response is “hey…why don’t all of us meet for lunch tomorrow?” That gives the appearance at least that you aren’t trying to secret her away.
Lunch is a relatively harmless activity as it is usually during work hours on the cheap. Now a nice dinner or quiet drinks on the other hand might be a bit shady.
Quite frankly, it seem very naive to say “I trust him/her”. Fact of the matter is that people make mistakes, make bad decisions or have moments of weakness. Part of trust is not creating situations that look suspicious.
Wouldn’t bother me a bit. I’m imagining that we’re all having a conversation, and then Other Dude and my wife find out they work near each other. “Oh, really?” he says, “Hey, why do we go get some lunch this week?” I don’t feel left out; if we ALL worked near each other, and he only invited her, then I might feel a bit slighted, but the fact that they work near each other (or they both love horror movies, as my wife does, or whatever) is what I would take to be the reason for her being invited and not me.
No problem as far as I’m concerned. Heck, this Friday evening, while I’m at work all night, my wife’s going out for drinks with a guy she’s known forever who (I think) has a bit of a crush on her. Doesn’t bother me; I know she’s not going to cheat on me. I’m glad she’s getting out and socializing a bit, since I’m working all week.
Part of that trust means trusting your spouse to make wise decisions about getting into (or not getting into) situations that might cause him or her to become susceptible to dangerous temptations. I respect your opinion, but I certainly don’t think it’s naive to believe that my wife knows her boundaries better than I do. I’m not going to make those decisions for her.
If my wife received such an offer, I’d be fine with it, for reasons that mirror Asimovian’s above post. I get the vibe that my wife would probably be more upset with herself if she cheated on me than I would be with her for cheating on me. Zero worry.
I can’t speak to how she’d react if the shoe was on the other foot. Probably 50/50 chance the wife would care, but I can’t see not bringing my wife along to a visit with friends. I always have more fun with more people around. Unless it was for lunch during the workday, in which case the whole thing would feel pretty danged benign to all parties.
Then again, most of the women I know wouldn’t put up with me unless we were dating. I’m peculiar.
No. You don’t want to be one of those “don’t talk to him” guys. But she should also not place herself in situations where you would have cause to question that trust.
Leme give you a few examples:
I’m pretty good friends with one of my girlfriends friends. We both happened to be representing our respective companies at an out of town job fair. Now it’s fine for us to hang out at the event, but I think it might be a little shady if we decided to get together for dinner afterwards.
It was pretty shady when my GF unexpectedly bumped into one of my fraternity brothers in a local McDonalds at 9:00 am on a Saturday, eating with another fraternity brother’s wife who lives at least an hour away. Maybe she was taking an early learning annex class at the local college. Maybe she’s a whore. (turned out to be the latter).
My girlfriend has a male coworker she often eats lunch with. They have worked together for years. I don’t have a problem with this because we are also friendly with me, has built up trust and if he invites her to do things outside of work, he invites both of us.
All I’m saying is that there’s a reason that people walk in on their SO getting busy with their best friend.
I’m curious if those who have a problem with this scenario would have the same problem if the women discovered they had a common interest & suggested a meeting without the men.
Jealousy is jealousy. If you can’t trust your SO, why are you with them?
I understand your examples, and I certainly recognize that these things do happen.
But as I said earlier, that’s not the nature of my marriage, and the OP asked for personal opinions. I’m not talking about hypothetical situations in my case – this is really how my marriage works. It’s not about me having jealousy issues but not saying anything about it because I don’t want to be “that guy.” That’s just not my reality.
For example, my radar doesn’t go off when my wife goes to a male friend’s house to watch a movie with him. They have a number of common interests and get along very well. The last time he was over our house, the two of them were in another room chatting for most of the time while I watched TV. It just isn’t an issue for me because of the trust I have for her, and the fact that she gets along better with him than I do.
As Mr. Slant stated, my wife would probably be more upset with herself about cheating than I would with her. And the same goes for me.
And I’ll re-reiterate that I understand not everyone’s marriage works that way. I suppose I’m just very fortunate.
Read more closely. He said “even if they have a penis.” (bolding mine) What I take away from that is that the diners in question are sharing said penis.
I wouldn’t have a problem with somebody asking my wife, because I know she loves me (I can think of no other reason why she’d put up with me.) I’d wonder about his motives, simply because my wife is really hot (even if she doesn’t believe that.)
But, my wife has a really “guy-like” personality. I can see being attracted to her in a friend-type way.
While I’d be concerned about her being dissappointed about him making a pass at her her when she was looking for a just a friend, I don’t think anything innappropriate would happen, so I wouldn’t be worried, overall.
Those of you who would be jealous in this situation-- does your SO have any friends of the opposite gender? How do you deal with that?
I am friends with lots of men, and a couple of them are even my exes. If I dated someone who wouldn’t allow me to hang out with men without him around, we’d have serious problems.
That said, I think a lot has to do with how and why the invitation was offered. If it was, “hey, you work right down the block from me, we should do lunch,” and he said it right in front of you and his own spouse, why would you feel threatened by that? It seems like a friendly thing to say when finding out a new acquaintance works nearby. It’s a stretch to think such an invitation would be a proposition without any other information.
Seems to me like jealousy in this situation would be incongruous and unwarranted. I can be jealous at times but I need a lot more reason than this. It’s not an emotion I like to let off the leash without a seriously good reason to do so.
Pretty much sums me up right there. If my husband were to disappear for a night and come back in the morning, with no explanation, there would be some words, unless I find out he’d been in a traffic accident or something.
I’m also not terribly concerned about being left out of something - if I’m not wanted, I’m not going to force my way into something I wasn’t invited to. Maybe I rubbed the other person the wrong way and my husband didn’t? Or maybe I didn’t, but she just hit it off with him more. So that whole deal doesn’t bother me at all. I love my husband, but he’s not my conjoined twin.
I trust my husband with anyone, even when I’m not there. This man jumped through hoops of flame to get me, and continues to do so even though I don’t ask him to. He’s above and beyond earned a woman who doesn’t keep a leash on him. We’ve both been through enough shit with the opposite sex.
I used to be a jealous girl, until I met a man I could trust. But I ramble. Let me sum it up:
Unless the person asking my husband out to lunch was all wink wink smile nudge nudge, “maybe a little nookie after coffee, sugar,” I don’t think it’s rude. Even then she’d probably only warrant a :dubious: from me, and a :rolleyes: from the husband. Any further attempts and we show our more unctuous side. We can be a pretty fulsome duo, us two.
In this case, doesn’t even sound like the OP’s theoretical person was being left out of the invitation for any other reason than that the spouse and this other person had something particular in common. In the OP, the thing they have in common is working near each other. In that case, where 2 people work near each other, why would spouses necessarily be invited? It’s not a big deal or a formal situation where everyone needs to be included. It’s just a friendly thing to say-- “Oh, let’s have lunch!”
If a woman said it to a woman, it would be nothing. Why does a man and a woman who are not married having lunch = infidelity or rudeness? I am failing to see what the big deal is. I would not tolerate this kind of jealousy from an SO. I would feel suffocated by it. YMMV, of course.
Totally depends on the body language and other nonverbals.
Something pretty similar happened a few weeks ago. If you could see the videotape you would realize it was so harmless that it just wouldn’t be worth thinking twice about it. But I could easily imagine the opposite.
I guess I could see where this would cause some people problems, but I don’t see it. Heck, I went out of town to a seminar with the boss’s wife and we definitely went out to dinner afterwards. Two people who know each other off in a distant town going off to eat separately so that there is no indication of impropriety? Just seems extreme.
The same with the OP. An invitation to meet for lunch (based on work day proximity and shared interests) seems sort of normal to me. I might raise an eyebrow if the invitation was for an after work event that deliberately excluded the other SO and me–although Deb would never go along with it–but I would not have a problem with a lunch that I could not attend, anyway.
