Since the thread has had some worthwhile debate, I thought I’d throw in another vote to get some clarification from the OP about the meaning of the original question.
Emilio, two questions, actually:
Did you mean “would it bother you” in terms of possible sexual connotations, as most of us have taken it to mean? Or were you simply asking if it was rude to exclude the two non-invited spouses, showing a lack of courtesy? (Or some third meaning I haven’t thought of?)
Are you asking this question from a perspective of personal experience? At this point, some background from you would be very interesting to all, I’m sure. If, of course, you’re willing to share.
At the very least, thanks for posing such an interesting topic.
I just don’t ‘get’ this sort of attitude, I’m afraid.
I don’t believe that lust is so overwhelming that it overrides all other brain functions or that you can just be so swept away by passion that you are totally unable to control yourself.
Cheating isn’t a " bad decision" or a simple “mistake.”
You know exactly what you are doing and you deliberately choose to break your vows.
I’ve been married since the Paleolithic era and despite my advanced age, I still have men flirt with me on occasion.
I don’t let it go beyond the harmlessly flattering stage and I expect the same from my husband.
In my book, there is no excuse for taking it further.
None.
I also don’t want to spend the rest of my life acting as his sexual guard dog.
It’s up to him to remain faithful and if he is so attracted to someone else that it could jeopardize our marriage, then he has decide which is more important to him-a fling or 22 years of being together.
I can’t do that for him.
Everyone has the opportunity to cheat at some point-no amount of jealousy on my part can prevent that.
All good responses so far- while the approaches of some couples don’t work for my wife and I, I understand them. As I said, if if the feelings were not reciprocal, it’d likely be fairly unhealthy. generally, we play together, or not at all. That goes for hobbies, social events, etc. We do get out separately, but that’s always either with family or mutual friends. As I said earlier, if I already know you and consider you a friend, it’s a much different scenario than with a near-stranger.
There’s never a situation wherein I don’t trust my wife, especially with anything so mundane as a lunch out. But, if the gentleman that offers the invitation takes it as a ‘go’ signal to do some heavy flirting or, Og forbid, make a pass at her, I’d likely have to respond in some way.
That’s an expectation my wife and I share, and I know that if the situations were reversed, the lady in question would, at the very least, need a serious hair transplant. And probably burn treatment.
How long have you been married? You don’t have any friends separately? I can’t imagine that. I don’t want or need to share all my SO’s friends (I often don’t have enough in common with them to get close to them), and I spend plenty of time with mine without my SO, including my male friends. I would certainly never, ever hang out with someone that I felt wanted to undermine my relationship or do something weird. Likewise, I wouldn’t date someone who couldn’t trust me to pick and maintain my own friendships.
Why couldn’t she respond to it with a solid NO? Why would you get involved, and in what manner? It seems odd that you would feel you had to intervene on her behalf, unless the man in question was physically inappropriate, of course.
Stonebow, don’t take this the wrong way, but that’s crazy talk, unless I’m being whooshed here. I hope you’re being hyperbolic. I would think a resounding refusal would be sufficient. Jealousy that reaches the level of violence is excessive and unwarranted. The only situation in which I might contemplate hurting someone would be infidelity, and then it would be directed toward my cheating partner, not the other person, who made no vows to be faithful. If the other person’s interest is not reciprocated, and that person is not a psycho, “no” should resolve the situation nicely.
I myself have jealous tendencies, so I hope I’m not coming across as condemnatory here, but I have made a concerted effort over many years to overcome the jealous impulse and not allow it to cloud my thinking, because it’s often irrational and destructive. If you have trust, jealousy is rendered unnecessary. If you don’t have trust, you should just break up. That’s the philosophy I have tried to follow and it seems to be the best use of my thinking and energy.
We’ve been married 5 years, and dated for 3 before that. Separate friends? Nope, not unless you count work and hobby acquaintances. I have a fairly rigorous definition of friend, though, and any time I spend separate from my husband tends to be with my extended family.
I believe you are.
Gee. I suppose I should start the divorce proceedings now. I never realized how horrible and unfit my marriage was. :dubious:
FTR, Ruby, we have a very happy marriage. It is exciting, comfortable, interesting, crazy, and calm by turns. I trust my husband implicitly. Do we have the occasional twinges of jealousy? Yes. We both do. Do we tease each other about it? Yep. Do we have enormous amounts of fun and fabulous sex? Yes, to all. In fact, I consider my husband to be my best friend, and it happens that we agree on what constitutes appropriate behavior for each other. If we agree, we are the ones married to each other, and we are happy, then where exactly is the problem?
I should have noted that I was responding to the questions directed at Stonebow, but felt qualified to answer since it was, after all, my marriage, too.
I didn’t say YOU didn’t have trust. That’s your call to make. However, what is the root of such admittedly pervasive jealousy, if not mistrust? I find it hard to fathom what positive thing would cause such jealousy. I also cannot imagine having no friends separate from my SO, but hey, to each his/her own.
FTR, it’s Rubystreak. There’s another user named Ruby.
Hey, uh, no one is questioning that. Don’t get all defensive. I don’t know you, all I know is the descriptions of your jealousy that you describe, which don’t quite make sense to me.
I have no problems. You obviously have a problem with my questions. I’m sorry about that, but your husband’s post made me wonder about your philosophies on jealousy. It’s not a personal attack, it’s just me, wondering about how other people think. Your views are very different from mine, and that’s the extent of it for me. I couldn’t deal with the way you guys run things, but fortunately, I don’t have to, and different strokes being what makes the world go 'round, that’s cool with me.
Pervasive jealousy? Pervasive how? We’ve already established that my husband’s comments were tongue in cheek, and I was quoted as saying “occasional twinge”. My husband would rather I not go out to lunch with men who (on my friends and acquaintances scale) rank lower than acquaintances, and I wouldn’t dream of doing that at any rate. I guess I don’t understand how that translates to pervasive jealousy in your view.
My apologies, I was simply shortening the name, as is often done, and no offense was intended.
I’m not defensive, rather amused, actually. Message boards are a unique medium in that a text comment can incite complete strangers to fill in with their own experiences to make a complete picture. Suffice it to say that it’s similar to the old blind men and elephant scenario.
I’m characterizing what your husband has said, in my opinion. It seemed excessive to me. That’s all.
It’s not just that, though that is a little weird. Seems to me who you go to lunch with should be your decision, and he could trust you to handle it. If you said you’d prefer not to do lunch with people who aren’t ranked higher on your scale, that’d be one thing… but he prefers it. I just think that’s a bit much. JMO!
You don’t sound amused. You sound defensive. If you’re amused, the tone could lighten a bit.
That’s not really necessary. I don’t think I have a complete picture. In fact, I think I was very clear in saying that I don’t know you and am just asking questions based on your husband’s posts. Informing myself as to what other people’s worldviews are. I don’t know you and I don’t know about your marriage. Never claimed to. Asking questions and giving my admittedly uninformed opinion hardly makes me a blind man or your marriage an elephant.
Okay, let me see if I can find a different way to approach this. It is my descision, and he just happens to feel the same about it. This was not a behavior I engaged in even before marriage. I can understand that, if lunch with varying people was something you enjoyed before, having someone try to curtail your activity would be unwelcome.
In a similar vein, my husband doesn’t like octopus. I have an historic dislike for octopus and refuse to cook it. Two different people, agreement on a subject, no harm, no foul.
Would excessive use of smilies help? Honestly, I was a bit snarky with the divorce comment, but everything else has been answers to your questions and further explanations.
I was. Posting to the SDMB with a rum and coke in hand is far more enjoyable than fielding parents’ phone calls about the report cards I sent home today.
That could be problematic. Many of yer finer dining establishments charge a fee for a shared entree. And of course, it’d have to be one hell of a large penis, or you’d both be left wanting.
As for the OP, my wife’s a pretty jealous type. A lot of my friends ARE ladies and a few years ago, I used to have dinner with A. and J., old college gal-pals. ( neither were “ex’s” ). She wasn’t thrilled, but trusted me and them. She doesn’t have friends that she’d want to go out with that way, she’s fairly anti-social. OTOH, I wish I had more folks to hang with. Hmmm. :dubious:
Sorry about the delay in getting back to my own OP. Kids, work, you know the drill. The OP was, as they say in Hollywood, “based on a true story.” There was another couple we have known superficially for a while, we did have them over for dinner, she and I do work near each other, and I did invite her out to lunch…a week later. Do I have sexual deisgns on her? None of your business
When I composed the OP I was thinking of the “sexual connotations” interpretation, but as I wrote it I realized the behavior we are discussing could also be consisdered rude, so I tried to include that as well.
Since I was on the other side of the fence, as it were, from the OP, I hadn’t considered how I would feel in that situation, but now that I’ve thought about it, my response is as follows. My wife and I have learned through hard experience to understand that we are sexual beings, and we do live in a wold with people other than ourselves. So if a man asked her to lunch in front of me, I would feel a twinge of jealousy, not because I don’t trust her, but because I know she’s not just hot as hell, but a great lay, too. What man in his right mind wouldn’t want to sleep with her? I wouldn’t do anything about it, but she knows that my jealousy is an acknowledgement of her attractiveness.
Likewise, sometimes after we’ve been hanging out with another woman, my wife will say to me: “yeah, she wants to fuck you.” She’s telling me that after all these years, I’ve still got it. And if she bellieves it, thats enough for me. Anyway, thats mostly worked for us through these years, and its certainly gotten us through some problems that could have been troublesome otherwise.
Since it came up in the discussion between Rubystreak and FaerieBeth, I thought I’d make the point that, in my opinion, jealousy and distrust are NOT the same thing.
Having a twinge of jealousy because your spouse maybe is giving someone else more attention than you at the moment, or because they notice another person is attractive does not mean (to me) that you distrust him or her.
FWIW, I tend to agree that if you don’t trust your spouse, there’s no point in being in the relationship. I used to work for a PI who refused to do cheating spouse surveillance cases for that reason. Anytime someone called to ask about that, he’d tell them to save their money and just get a divorce. I realize that sounds pretty harsh without knowing the details of anyone’s particular marriage, but I happen to think the general theory behind it is sound.
And Rubystreak, I’m sorry if I came off as ‘excessive’ in my remarks. I was engaging in a bit of hyperbole, though, truthfully, I stand by the sentiments expressed re: my discomfort level and my thinking that it’s somewhat rude (on a scale of 1-10, maybe a 4). Of course, I am very antisocial and generally mistrustful of other people (another reason why my wife’s such a good match).
My wife and I don’t lead very separate lives…it suits us, and our family works pretty well. I don’t ever feel the need for ‘space,’ or ‘time away,’ and given the funny looks I get from her when I ask if she ever feels that (in my more lucid moments), I assume she’s okay with our arrangement as well. We don’t set limits on each other- but we have a fair idea of what makes the other happy, and I think that we do a good job at that. Am I obsessed with her? You bet. Is she obsessed with me? I like to think so.
I’m sure a lot of this belongs in a separate thread. As far as the OP goes, I’d not be comfortable with it, and I try to tailor my own behavior to avoid situations where people could be made uncomfortable. I think I’d rather get to know a couple together before approaching one member or the other for social interaction, and I appreciate the same courtesy from others.
