My husband and I have been fighting about this issue for some time. He wants to go out with friends and co-workers after work, friday nights. Some of these people are divorced or single. The night out on the town starts after work, and doesn't include bringing spouses...doesn't matter if your female or male. I wonder if this is ok in a marriage. It's something that I've struggled for a long time with. I am at home watching our four kids while he is out drinking, relieve stress and tensions about the day. We seldom go out, and I feel that most of the time he is treating these people better that myself. I just wonder if I am in the wrong for not "letting" him go out without me, or is this something that I need to "just get over". I know that he will never cheat on me, and that has never been an issue...please advise.

<small>[ May 19, 2003, 09:29 PM: Message edited by: Me&Him ]</small>

No, you are not wrong, read the concepts on this site. Sorry you are in pain. I was in a similar situation. It was difficult for me to convince my H not to do it.

Its a TRUST thing, my dad went out every friday night all my life, and my parents have been married over 25 years,dont you TRUST him?? maybe YOU need a night out ALONE, with friends, will he be ok with that?? If not, ask him WHY.....I really believe I dont have time to worry about my spouse going out alone with friends, If you cant trust him alone ONE night, whats wrong with this picture?? If your mate cant be alone with single women and behave himself, who needs him...???

i don't think what you are saying has to do w/ not trusting him as much as that you need a break too and maybe the first person you would like to hang out w/ is your husband??
you are home w/ 4 kids all week?? he needs to understand and respect your need for a break. i went through this....all the feelings...guilt, mistrust, resentment. i would go out the girls once in while too...but what i really missed was time oi=ut w/ my husband.
you guys need to talk and communicate your true needs and feelings...maybe you need to have a date night...maybe every other friday?...and why no spouses? ever? i just don't like the way that sounds...that is just rudeand it would piss me off. it's disrespectful. it is immature.

I'm not sure that my feeling are of not trusting him, i know that is what he refers to it as. I do trust him completely, but i get this complete feeling of resentment, just thinking about the next time he'll call me up from work, and "ask" to go out with the group. My husband is supportive of me going and doing group things as well, but i choose to pick outings that won't put me into situations that might hurt my husband. I might go shopping at the movies, or catch a movie with girlfriend saturday afternoon, but seldom go out to the bar scene, unless I am with my husband. I don't want to be a jealous spouse, but I fear I am in this situation...don't know why??

think i understand what you are saying. i don't think you are a jelous spouse or insecure because you feel a little resentful when your husband chooses the bar scene and specifically says.."you are not permitted to join me."
you have nothing to fell bad about here as far as i am concearned.
read what dr. harley says about independant behavior.
that would have been my #1 complaint w/ my husband for years. but i didn't even know what it was that was bothering me so much...so, i ggot labled as jelous and insecure.
please talk to your husband about how it makes you feel when he chooses work freinds over you every friday night. maybe you need to gove a dose of his own medicine....if he won't pay any attention to you...tell him you are going clubbing w/ "your freinds" every sat. night...sorry no spouses...how would he react to that?

Nelly, you nailed it its an ugly LB Independent Behavior. After all we get married to the person we love spending time with, its hurtfull that after marriage you take back seat to his friends.

I do have to say, that my husband doesn't do this every friday night, but in most cases his outings with his co-workers out number our dates. I just have such a hard time letting go of my feelings.

you should not have to let go of those feelings...you and your husband should talk about them and work thru them. if it hurts you, tell him and tell him why and ask that he please listen to you and try to understand where you are coming from. then ask him to explain why he feels it is important to go out w/o you...talk about it...negotiate a resolution. but, if you are feeling bad bout this...you are entitled...think about, discuss it and try to stop feeling guilty.
i used to spend my whole life either feeling guilty or feeling guilty about feeling guilty... what a waste..lighten up on yourself....have you purchased any of harleys books? what does your husband think of the marriagebuilders concept?

My husband i recently shared a marriage encountered weekend. So we were thrown through some very emotional hoops. Alot of issues came up, and we are just now starting to deal with them. I came upon this site while search for chatrooms to visit about feelings. I'm not sure how he'd react about this....anything to better the relationship, or to get some other viewpoints...would be ok. I feel like once my needs and desires start to be met, this won't be such a huge resentful feeling.

JoLeYn,,,,,,, His behavior is most definately out of line. I would have never thought my W would have had an A either. She started going out after work with the "group" and I was never invited. When I would suggest that perhaps I meet her there and meet her new friends the idea was shot down. She ended up in a short A and pregnant (look up my history thru this site).

If he respects you and has nothing to hide then you should be able to line up a babysitter and meet him at the party place where he should be proud to introduce you to his friends. If this is to much to ask of him then he is not showing you the respect you deserve as his W. Especially if you have told him how uncomfortable you are with this.

It may not be an issue now but everyone is capable of having an A. Hope you can work through this with your H before things go south. pops

DANGER! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="images/icons/shocked.gif" /> This is the environment in which my H's affair with coworker started 3 years ago. It went on for two years before I found out. I felt unsettled at times with our relationship, but, after 25 years together, the thought that he could violate my trust was inconceivable! Even if your H is completely trustworthy, why have him put himself in a situation that could turn working relationships friendlier than they should be? You two need to POJA this activity. I'm sorry to be so strong about this, but ouch! was your post a trigger for me...

One of my husband's #1 complaints about our relationship, was the fact that he felt so imprisoned, so trapped. He would literally feel sick coming home from work at times because he felt that I was so controlling.

I have tried to explain my feelings of anxiety and fears, but am useually met with a great defensive person. I think he thinks I should just get over my feelings and let him enjoy his occasional outs with the group.

Really, the more I discuss this, the clearer my own feelings have become. I wouldn't even dread the outings if they weren't on weekend nights, and if the place seemed appropriate too...marrital boundaries and such. Like for example, fishing trips or bowling leagues seem ok. I guess I judge him because I try so hard to prevent situations that could damage our marriage, and his pursuit of freedom, seems so careless.

It hurts me when I have to wonder why, it would be such a big deal for him to say, "yea, I'll meet you guys at 6:30, but first I'm gonna pick up my wife...it's not like I can't have "office" adult conversation. I would just be in heaven to be there with him, I wouldn't mind not know what is going on. I swear I bounce back from one feeling to another on this, but yet I have to ask that if "why if a behavioral action bothered your spouse to the extent of making them depressingly sick, wouldn’t you want to stop your actions that was causing that pain. Does it matter how stupid you might think it is, shouldn’t you just stop for the mere sake of loving your spouse so much you’d do anything for that person?" Why does it have to be so cut and dry, why can't we come up with some compromise that both of us can live with.

these are the exact feelings my w said she was feeling. trapped and i was controling. she started talking if getting a sports car for 2. a women of 6 kids wants a small 2 seater?

after 20 years of marriage i never thought my w could fall into an a either. she never gave me any reason to doubt her up until the going out with friends started. after so long of marriage i gave her the benefit of the doubt and denied what i was seeing with my own eyes because i wanted to believe her and trust her so bad. now i will never again trust her like before.

pplease try and get your h to read some of the material on this site and get him into counseling as soon as possible. i know it is against the policy here to be dishinest with your spouse but even if you need to have him go with you to see what a counselor is telling you of your fears get him in there. he is probably like most men whose pride says i don't need a shrink. and he is probably also like most ws's here who thought they could control their emotions. but i see no reason he should be embarrassed to have his friends meet his w unless there is someone else he feels uncomfortable seeing you and him in a marital relationship that isn't as bad as he has let on.

Ok, but Pops, were you giving your wife what she desired, truely needed out of your relationship? I see my husband starting to reconnect with me on a different level after our encounter, and truly feel that his loyalty is true. I just wondered how many people struggle with the same issues that no one ever wants to talk about. You know?

joleyn,,,,, that's a given that i was not meeting all my w's en's thus the a. but then again she wasn't meeting mine either. i didn't go out and have an a. in fact when the opportunity arose on several occasions i ran back to my w as fast as possible.

my dad told me when we had our second child and our marriage was shakey " don't do anything to hurt that family". that is what made me refuse to allow myself to fall into the a trap.

when my w was starting her ea i told her to please not let us go down the same path as her mom & dad. her mom had an a that ruined her marriage.her grandfather had an a that ruined his marriage. please let us learn from the past and let's get into counseling. we did for 2 weeks then the pa started and she quit.

after all came to light, you know the infamous d-day, our relationship was great. but looking back i realize that she saw us not as the old us but as a new a. with the same excitement as her a.

joleyn
story sounds so familiar to me. good news....mine has a happy ending.....and no affairs. but, definately some tough times that we had to work through.
talked to my husband a little bit about your situation this morning to get his input. here is my story.... we moved from the eastcoast to the midwest, away from family and freinds w/ 2 small children for his job... first time i had ever been more than 40 minutes from family......so i had tons of adjustments to make,.... . and he could not understand why i just could not get over it. he felt he was doing the right thing for our family...the right career choice, so i could stay home w/ the kids and have a nice home and live he "suburban" life....which is what he thought i always wanted. we both made a lot of assumptions w/o realy talking about things, in his mind, he was kind of making a sacrifice for me.
he worked hard. long hours. sometimes week-ends and there were many times that he would call and say he was going out for drinks after work...and sometimes would come home qute late.
he felt as though he deserved this time for all the hard work he put in. he and the people he worked ith liked to get together and ***** about their jobs etc. he never said i couldn't join him, but he never invited me either.
he swears an affair was he furthest thing from his mind.....
but he said he felt trapped at home also. he realizes now that it was a selfish way to deal w/ it. he thought i was whiny and needy and he felt like getting away from me sometimes. all i wanted was his company....an adult to talk to etc...and a little break from being the mommy all the time. wen i complained... i was just venting, i did not want him to solve all my problems and i was not blaming him...i just needed my feelings validated...and so did he...but, neither of us understood that then. we could not communicate this to eachoter and when we tried...we would end up fighing becausewe were both defensive and ofcourse that led to other problems.

now, if we had found the marriagebuilder site back then...who knows if we would have been ready for it. i think we both would have skeptical and he definately would have found it too controlling.....but, it has certaily made us realize that true communication is the first step..we needed to talk to eachother and to validate what the other is feeling. there is a ton of goodinfo here.....if your husband was receptive to a marriage encounter week-end perhaps he will take a look at this site w/you. ask him to be open minded about it.....remember to take eachothers feeling into account when you do/say anything...because neither f you really want to hurt the other.
it is hard work, no question
my first advice to you would be to make it a priority to schedule a date night w/ your hub. 1 night a week...get out of the house, relax and enjoy eachothers company. we hardly ever went out alone togeher when the kids were little.....but, we sure should have. we have another one now, and we make it a priority to schedule time together...it can difficult, but crucial.
i am sure there is more i could add, but i feel like i already went on for too long i hope something i said may have helped. lotsa luck...stick around and read up on the basic needs...it is a good concept to understand.

i meant to say read about the emotional needs...under basic concepts. it was what i started with...but you really do need to do lots of backtracking...it is all very connected...and it gets time consuming....but, you sound like you and your hub have a good thing and there is just alot of "stuff" in the middle getting in your way. i know that feeling too well.

Nelly, I can relate to your entire story and I mean everything. Our family made a huge move away from our home town...which is about 5 hours away. I can relate because this move was huge to me...not such a sacrifice to me, but just a huge adjustment away from family and friends.

We too assume everything, and usually avoid the hard issues, or just ignore the hurt. Now after the encounter, we have started the dialouging technique, but have tiptoed around any of the hard stuff. Now more than ever is my little glass bubble starting to break apart. Everyday, something else comes up, that shows me what a horrid chain and effect relationship we are in and have created...I just see so much work and it scares me...

I just picked this topic to work on first because, I new it would be the first one to come up and I didn't want to continue in this vicous cycle that I've gotten into.

Thank you for sharing, because as read your story, every part of I was nodding my head in agreement. It's nice to see that I'm not the only one, and that their is light at the end of tunnel.