How often do your spouses go out without you? Perhaps as a girl's night out or guy's night out.

Does your spouse give you a time he/she will be home? Does your spouse actually come home around when they said they would?

Going out single choice
	2 or more times per week
	1 time per week
	2 or 3 times per month
	once per month
	rarely
Votes accepted starting: 07/30/10 10:53 PM
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Spouses should not be going out without each other. That is an invitation to an affair. Spouses should be spending their leisure time together, not apart.

This is not a practice to be encouraged or tolerated, but a problem to be corrected.

Hey MelodyLane,
I suppose you may recognize my handle. Some level of going out has to be ok. My mother plays bunko a few times a year, and hosts it one of those times. Women go eat together all the time. Of course, my wife is currently at a bar downtown, allegedly in the karaoke room that's a part of the same bar she's met up with her OM before, and the same one that several couples including us went to one night early for just karaoke then left. I was under the impression that she'd be home around 9:30 or 10:00pm. It's 11:30pm and counting.

A month and a half after the EA and I'm still a little stressed by this sort of thing. This is one of the later nights she's been out. Often it's more innocuous: comes home sooner, eats with a girlfriend, ends up hanging out 3 hours longer than planned.

Anyways, I don't want to derail this thread into affair talk. I'm just curious about how often healthier married people do there own thing. (B/c obviously my situation is messed up.)

Healthy marriages protect themselves from affairs by NOT going out without their spouse. They spend all of their favorite leisure time together. It is unhealthy marriages that don't.

I NEVER go out without my spouse in the evening. That is OUR TIME. If I spend any time with a girlfriend, it is at lunch during the week.

You have already discovered in your own marriage that this leads to an affair.

A healthy marriage takes precautions to prevent an affair and spends their leisure time, especially in the evenings, together.

It sounds like one of the biggest problems in your marriage is that you have separate leisure lives. That is what leads to affairs. A happy, healthy marriage consists of INTERDEPENDENT lives, not independent lifestyles with separate friends.

She should not be going out at all without you, obr, that will greatly hamper your recovery and harm your marriage. The solution to a bad marriage is to create a romantic lifestyle and that can only be done by creating interdependence and eliminating indepdendent behavior.

As far as my wife and I are concerned, my wife has after work supper with her nursing coworkers maybe 3 times a year. She's always home within 15 minutes of saying what time she will be home.

I go play indoor soccer late at night after the family is asleep on Fridays and Saturdays. I this so I'm not missing any family time or UA time with my wife. But I also scheduled it on these nights because these are the days she works 13 hour shifts and usually crashes pretty quickly after getting home.


A few times a year I�ll go over to my friend�s Jon house and play beer pong. But usually my wife comes because she likes to hang out with Jon�s wife.

The other day my wife did go on a party bus with her nursing friends as it was one of their birthdays. But she was gone maybe 2 hours before she was texting me asking me to pick her up from the bus as she�s not much of a drinker and got bored.

So for my marriage it�s not very common that we go out without each other. We really enjoy each others company and would rather spend time with each other than other people.

We very rarely go out without each other either.

I have been out in the evening without my husband precisely twice since my second daughter was born 2y4m ago.
The first time was to a new school year parents meeting at my older daughter's school, and the second time was to a La Leche League evening meeting, I was out for 2-3 hours both times and home before the time I said.

Not getting home when you say you will, without a phone call explaining and checking in is not acceptable to me at all, no matter where you are. (Altho I make allowances for when my hubby's flights are delayed and he can't call cos he's in the air )

My wife doesn't go out with the girls. She goes to a church circle meeting once a month at someone's home, which is different. Sometimes, during the summer, she and her sisters, or a few friends, will go on a day trip to some small town, antique shopping for the china they collect, or something like that.

I don't go out with the guys, with one exception. Once in a while, if it just happens to fit, I might go to the VFW after work or the officer' club for a beer after pulling duty with some others, all over 60. There are almost no women there, and if there are, they are with their husbands.

Girl's night out and men going to bars or whatever is for singles who having figured out that is no place to meet anyone worth marrying.

obr, one of the first steps in recovering from an affair is changing the environment that made the affair possible. Apparently that has never happened in your situation?


You should always be stressed out as long as your wife continues to take foolish risks with your marriage. She shouldn't be going out without you AT ALL. Did you ever read any of the material from Marriage Builders?

Requirements for Recovery

In other words, when you get hit by a car [an affair] the solution is not to become a better chicken player, but to get the hell out of the road..

OBR3-
You ask a question which is ENTIRELY dependent on the matrix formed by the x-axis of the character/fidelity of the spouse in question, arrayed against the y-axis of the environment to be visited. A "girl's night out" by a former WW to a known pick-up bar is NOT a good idea, but if her posse is visiting an art museum, it would possibly be okay. Your mother going out to play card games with her female aquaintances is likely a safe excursion, but if that same group were planning to visit a male-stripper show in a seedy motel bar, your dad might reasonably be expected to have some misgivings. (Excuse me while I work to erase the image of MY mother at a male-stripper show!)

But to the real issue here: You are evidently unwilling to set (or enforce) boundaries on your fWW, and are looking for support here. Okay, you have it, or at least as much as can be provided by us out here in cyberland. Now your job is to tell her, clearly and directly, that given her previous documented history of failing to maintain fidelity to you marriage, you do not want her to participate in these events. Her reaction will be very revealing about her commitment to your joint recovery.

To speak to the general issue - rarely to never. In fact the only time I can think that I had a 'girl's night' was a couple weeks ago when I went with a girlfriend to watch Twilight (for some reason he just couldn't get enthusiastic about going - apparently Taylor Lautner's abs have little affect on him, go figure). This in 5 years of marriage. I occasionally go to women's meetings at church, but I don't think that is what you're asking about. DH has never had a 'guy's night'. All our friends are mutual friends. Instead of a guy's night or girl's night, we just all get together as couples/families for a BBQ or Game night.

And yes - when I went out with my girlfriend, or when I have a meeting or other activity, I let my husband know when I'm leaving, I call him if I'm going some place else, and I call him when I'm on my way home. I rush home ASAP because I'd always rather be with him.

From His Needs, Her Needs (this is on Conversation but equally applies to RC):


Now to you, specifically, Obr. I agree with everything Melody is telling you regarding infidelity. I get the idea that you wanted to poll us to get a feel for what is 'normal' in a relationship on this issue. This is a dangerous standard to hold for your marriage. Normal is irrelevant. What other couples do is irrelevant. Each couple and relationship is unique, but I believe the general rule that Recreational Time should be filled as a couple, almost exclusively.

Now each couple can use POJA to more precisely determine their limits. For example, see KTs description of how it works in his marriage. However, as you are dealing with infidelity - what works for him should NOT be applied to your marriage.

You must insist, as part of recovery, that your wife NOT go out partying with her friends. It is disrespectful to you and your marriage, and as she has already demonstrated abysmal boundaries it is incredibly destructive and unsafe. She would be playing Russian Roulette with your marriage, and were you to acquiesce you would be handing her the gun. Some day that bullets gonna come out.

Here is the bottom line. Having separate leisure lives is about like drunk driving. Some are better drunk drivers than others, but it still doesn't make drunk driving SAFE. It is bad for everyone because it makes the marriage vulnerable to affairs.

obr's marriage is a demonstration of where this practice leads.

The notion that this would be a good practice in a "healthy marriage" is the same as believing that it is safe to go drunk driving. Drunk driving is not safe for anyone.

My marriage could be made BAD right now if my husband and I developed separate lifestyles.

here

I would say that there is no AFTER the EA....because she is STILL haunting the place of the EA.

What I cannot figure out is why you are posting a poll when you should be at that bar seeing what your WIFE is doing.

Get your head out of the sand man...quit with the poll posting....and find out what is happening!!!

committed

I had hesitated at first about posting because my wife and I do have the very occasional occurrence where we are without each other, and I didn�t want to give the impression that he should give his wife leniency on going out partying. My wife and I have certain boundaries in our marriage. For example, when she is at the rare supper after work, it�s with all women. I�m more than welcome to come along or drop in�but it reminds me of a bunch of cackling hens talking about work. When I�m at Jon�s house, my wife is almost always there because she likes Jon�s wife. There are no single women, it�s all married couples that are there. With the soccer team, it�s an all male team. We might have a beer or two after the game together and watch another team play; however, it�s an all male team. My wife and I are never alone with the opposite sex. It�s not an EP we set with each other, it just doesn�t seem right for me to be hanging out with women alone or her with men alone. It�s not that my wife and I couldn�t engage in an affair. But we don�t want to and we don�t put ourselves in situations which would tempt that fact.

The fact that his wife would even want to go in a situation which has led to where they are now is ridiculous. And I can�t believe that he would be okay with her going. Invariably he�s telling her it�s okay to keep throwing gas on him while he�s on fire. There�s no way I would have been okay with her going. I�m surprised he didn�t drive up to the bar and demand that she leave.

That's what I was saying.

Silly to be home posting polls when your wife is at it again....or never stopped to begin with.

committed

This is why I wouldn't be good at Plan A. I think I'd end up causing a scene when I went in there to get her. Of course, I'd have gone with her whether she wanted me to go or not.

Obr, remind me again why you didn't go with her. And remind me again why you were okay with her going to the same place the affair began or even in a situation that lends itself to the same environment in which the affair began?

Believe me, sitting at home twiddling your thumbs is not Plan A. Plan A involves causing as much conflict in the affair as possible. What you suggested, KT, when you said you would be going in the bar and getting her is more in line with Plan A.

This is why the conflict avoider betrayed spouses never make it. They either end up divorced or they end up with years of on again, off again affairs in horrible marriages.

Hey obr3,

Am online doing several things this afternoon, and saw your survey post. I did look at some of your thread and I get the jist of what your situation is.

I am not going to even comment on your nonsensical questionnair except to say that the times when my W and I engaged in RC with others was rare. This is in regard to 40+ years of marriage. For me, a few times to baseball games that my W agreed I should go to. Probably 6 times with male friends over 40 years. For her, a few lunches and shopping trips with female friends maybe counting them on one hand.

IF I were a pro-marriage counselor, which I am not because I I am in finance, or if I was your FIL I would advise you two to separate until you grow a pair and mature, and that your WW has recgnized that you have grown a pair. Ya know what, my W and I didn't need boundaries thru out marriage because we both felt and knew and still know we wanted each other. Period.

You are kind of insulting to the people here who are committed to M and who do believe in it. That does not mean I do not hope the best for you two and your marriage, but cut to the chase I wonder about you and your W.

If you remember one thing at all from your stay here, that should be you do not do anything to harm, dissrespect, or or cause your spouse to feel in any way uncomfortable. I suggest that your W is violating the latter two concepts and that you are okay with it.

By way obr please look up igrip thread. He has greatly grown -your's seem do be diminishing. btw, I do not prefer references to sex or masculinity, or feminiity but somehow I don't mind using that with you.

Regards,
Tom