Do you think it is okay for a married person to arrange to meet a colleague of the opposite sex alone outside work hours?

I wouldn’t do it alone because I’ve seen how gossip starts. But sure I would if I could bring another person or co-worker (of either sex but preferably mine) to the meeting.

No.

No, I agree. I have some good male friends that I have meals alone with, but they are married and I know their wives well.

It depends why they are meeting and what the married person’s partner thinks but generally speaking, no, it isn’t okay.

This is an implied lack of trust in your spouse. You don’t come out and say this, but the underlying theme is “I don’t trust my husband.”

So you have way bigger problems than the two of them meeting socially.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I think it is unfair to not include you. And he should be sensitive to your feelings, no question.

But suppose you were working that day – they would have included you but you couldn’t go along. Is it still improper? I would say “no”.

But the deep down issue is that you don’t trust him. Because if you did, this wouldn’t bother you at all.

I think you should go with your gut. First instincts are usually more right than if you think too much about it.

I don’t see what’s wrong with it, at least not in principle. Due to my wife’s work schedule, I almost always have to visit my hometown alone. Every time I’m there, I have lunch or dinner with a friend of mine who happens to be a woman. This person is one of my two best friends. I have known her for almost 20 years, and she only got married in May. But my wife has never made any objection to us meeting, and there has never been any reason to object. If we were going to have sex, we’d have done it when we were teenagers.

That person isn’t a colleague, of course, but I’ve hung out with female colleagues on Friday nights before while my wife was working. One of my fellow grad students tried getting a bunch of people together to go to a sporting event, but we were the only two who didn’t back out at the last second. When she called to let me know it was just us, she suggested that we just go on our own. We did, and again my wife had no problem with it. Two people of the opposite sex can just be friends. It’s really not so difficult.

It’s also worth keeping in mind that not every member of the opposite sex is heterosexual.

Jeez, I sure don’t see anything wrong with it. It’s called trust. I’m not going to rule out 50% of the population as potential friends because my partner doesn’t have the self-confidence and/or trust to believe that I am faithful.

It depends greatly. Does your spouse know and is ok with it? That has to be respected if it’s not the case. What are the circumstances surrounding the meeting? Is there any “tension” between the two individuals? You have to be honest with yourself on this one, if there is any attraction from either direction it’s not a good idea. No. It’s not a good idea. I know what you are going to say, the answer is no. Bad idea.

In the end you have to be the judge but it’s easy to know, you just have to be honest with yourself and your feelings.

Yes. Definitely. I would have a hard time being with a partner who polices who I’m allowed to be friends with.

Yes. Though I don’t know what it’s like to be in a committed relationship, I don’t think it’s fair to assume there’s a sexual relationship between every potential human of the opposite sex, which seems like what this would be doing.

I would be fine with it. My husband would be fine with it. It all depends on the individuals involved.

I’M WITH @Mariah. Jealousy is wasted emotion. Everyone deserves trust in marriage until they prove otherwise.

Of course. Marriage doesn’t give you dominion over your partner. You cannot tell your husband or wife what to do. If you are jealous about it, that’s about you. Jealousy hides and is a product of many relationships.

Not OK! Do it only if your significant other attends as well!

@Kritiper Why? Doesn’t she need to work on her self-esteem issues rather than curb his freedom?

It’s not evident this is about you maybe meeting someone, or you husband.

The one question I’d ask either way, since this would be a “new” relationship, not old friends or college buddies, is why? Maintaining an old friendship is one thing, leaving a spouse behind to go initiate a friendship with the opposite sex seems a bit beyond the bounds to me.

@zenvelo I’m not sure I see the difference. When my wife and I moved to Virginia for school, we didn’t know anybody. One of the first friends I made was a female graduate student in the philosophy department. We spent an entire afternoon touring the parts of the city accessible by bus (which we get to ride for free). I didn’t leave my wife behind, she just wasn’t available. And sometimes we would hang out on our own because my wife just isn’t all that into what we do for a living and doesn’t want to be stuck talking about it all night. Should I not have been allowed to make female friends in this new city? Should my wife not have been allowed to make male friends?

@SavoirFaire Out of curiosity, I’d beg the question, does your wife go out with her male friends in the same manner as you go out with female friends? I’m totally with you, and agree a male and female can totally be friends. But I tend to wonder with those statements of yours if it’s a one way street or if your wife does in fact enjoy time with other friends (male or female) in general away from you, in the same manner that you can enjoy your time away from her. The reason I ask is because of a story I once read. It involved a couple and one thought everything was ok, while the other one was just biting their tongue the whole time trying to be strong for the relationship.

And no I’m not suggesting this is how your wife is feeling! Just genuinely curious if she’s on the same level as you of comfortably hanging out with others away from you.

Actually I totally agree with the “I should be able to go out with friends of the opposite sex” argument. But in some situations that’s not a good idea because of gossip. I’ve seen people’s lives destroyed for less. For that reason because of my own personal situation, I would avoid it without another witness.

I’m amazed at the people that want to control their spouse/partner’s lives.

@snowberry My mother was very friendly, however, extremely loyal. One day the neighbor told my dad she was flirting, just because my mother loves to laugh and talk to people. My dad, tried to hold onto the traditionalist values of the 50s and was raised Jewish while thinking he had it all figured out when he decided to get my mother in the Philippines pregnant and bring me into the world. Navy imperialists I tell yah…

No, with many exceptions.

If there is a specific reason they are getting together that is work related that’s fine.

If the person is new to the area and the spouse has not moved yet to join them then a coworker trying to help the new employee not be lonely on the weekends it might be ok, but it’s best if the coworker is married and it’s actually going out with the couple. When this has happened in my marriage my husband was always happy to introduce me once I finally made the move also. There was nothing secretive.

There are rules. It can’t be a secret from the spouse. It can’t take time away from the spouse on any sort of regular basis. Usually, if people are friends outside of work they know the spouse also and everyone should be invited.

Being friends with the opposite sex when you are young and single is very different than 15 years into marriage and making friends with the opposite sex. The dynamics change over time.

I agree with you, @chinchin31. Between camera phones, social media, and society’s penchant for gossip and instant judgment-making, I think your concerns aren’t exaggerated at all.

@anniereborn That’s what I keep thinking, reading some of these responses. I am not married, but would never tell a partner who they could be friends with. And in the same vein, I would think very little of a friend who told me our friendship was over because it made their spouse uncomfortable. To me, that sounds like a relationship between two very insecure people.

I Have lots of male friends & even carpool with a male co-worker, freedom in marriage is a beautiful thing.

So many people in relationships get hung up on stuff that is “okay” or not, running around like headless chickens, farting in every direction, desperately searching to do “the right thing”
If it looks, tastes & feels okay to a certain individual, then go with it, no need for pussy footing about.

I just want to say that it isn’t about telling a partner who they can be friends with. In good marriages it is a natural part of the marriage to not do things that might cause the other to be uncomfortable. I still flirt with men and have male friends, but I wouldn’t plan a date with one for dinner on Saturday while my husband sat at home uninvited. I would do that with a girlfriend, although typically I try not to take time away from my husband in general.

I used to go to dinner with male friends when my husband was out of the country, my husband sometimes was out with women probably. It was all fine, but if he was seeing with any regularity a female work colleague on the weekends and I was excluded that would be unacceptable. He would never do it. He would never want to. Not just for a lunch or dinner date. Maybe if they were tennis partners or something like that it might make sense, but I still would not be excluded.

@SavoirFaire I don’t see any questions raised as you describe, that is different from the circumstance described by the OP. That makes a lot of sense and helps you build a community of friends.

I absolutely support opposite sex friendships, a friend pointed out to me just this week I have a lot more women friends than male friends.

There is a lot of nuance in evaluating this question; circumstances, motive, availability, opportunity. The situation as I read the OP is that one of the people is, without much discussion with the spouse, stepping out on the other.

@pleiades Good question! My wife goes out with friends more often than I do. I’m usually stuck at home working, which is probably why she encourages me to go out when I can. Now, most of my wife’s friends are women. One of her friends has mostly male colleagues and associates, however, and the two of them would go out together with anywhere from three to five guys sometimes. They also like to go clubbing together on weekends. This has never bothered me.

And just for the record, my wife has been reading all of my responses to this question and agrees with them. Her response upon reading the question title was, “Why wouldn’t it be okay?”

@zenvelo My response to you was prompted by your distinction between maintaining old friendships and initiating new ones, and by your contention that the latter was not acceptable. That is what led me to ask what the difference was, and thus why I presented cases of starting new friendships. The bus tour was not a case of leaving my wife behind, of course, since she was unavailable at the time. But it was a case of meeting with a colleague of the opposite sex alone outside work hours (and a single one at that). I also mentioned cases where I was leaving her behind to do the same thing (though in part because my wife didn’t really want to tag along).

@JLeslie I agree that people in good marriages try not to do things that make their partners uncomfortable. But I also think a good marriage involves people who are emotionally secure enough to not be uncomfortable with their partner having friends of the opposite sex. I trust my wife, and she trusts me. If we didn’t trust one another, that would be a bad sign.

If I had answered this question years ago, I would have answered that there is absolutely no problem with meeting a married friend for a meal. Since then, however, I have lost a best friend because his wife was jealous of our friendship (and the time that we spent together at work).

The loss still hurts… years later. I never had inappropriate intentions, interest or interactions with this man. I still wonder, though, if there was a hint of attraction from his end that his wife picked up on. Mostly, I think she was insecure and using me as an excuse to have an emotional affair.

I would be fine with my husband meeting a friend… but I would hope that he would invite me to come along.

@SavoirFaire I have that trust also. If your wife started regularly spending time with a man from work your trust would wane, don’t you think? When a woman my husband became friendly with while he worked in Colombia came to the states for vacation I was fine with her staying over night with him in our condo when I wasn’t there. I could tell my husband I was going to lunch with a male friend and he would not think twice about it. But, if it was coupled with me changing my behavior around him and other “symptoms” of infidelity then things begin to fall apart. A spouse can be doing nothing physically, but if they become emotionally removed from their primary relationship the spouse feels the change in affection. It’s all about how things are being done as a total picture. Most of the time when a spouse has an uncomfortable feeling they are right. Once in a while some people are just ridiculously jealous or they themselves are not trustworthy or extremely controlling and they project onto their spouse.

@JLeslie No. If all she was doing was regularly spending time with someone, my trust would not wane. There would have to be other changes, like the one’s you added in later in your response. But those were not part of the question, and they certainly were not part of my answer. If someone starts acting like they are cheating, then of course you’re going to get suspicious. That’s almost too trivial to even mention. But spending time with someone, or even having a close relationship with a person, is not a sign of cheating (at least not on its own).

@SavoirFaire I think spending a lot of time with another person besides your spouse is a reason to get suspicious that something is wrong in the primary relationship. I can’t imagine having dinner with someone else on a regular basis on the weekend assuming my spouse and I both work M-F. Once in a while would be different. I think married couples know when the line is being crossed for them, within their relationship. There is no hard and fast rule, which is why I said there are many exceptions.

It’s an individual thing. My husband and I are both okay with it, because we’re honest with each other and we tell each other when we’re going out with friends regardless of what gender those friends are. I couldn’t tolerate a partner who dictated to me who I could and couldn’t be friends with.

However, if my husband started being all secretive about it, then I would be concerned.

Trust is trust. You either do or you don’t. Trust is not about circumstance, but about your belief that your spouse loves you and would never do something to hurt you.

If you don’t have that trust something is wrong with your relationship.

I have one or two coworkers who I sometimes run into at Sam’s Club or something else equally exciting. If it were dinner time and we wanted to grab a hamburger at a fast food place, I wouldn’t see a problem with it, but I’m not the married one.

When a group of us would go out after work, it’s always a group, never just two. I don’t meet married coworkers solely for the purpose of having dinner with them. If I meet any married friend of any gender, it’s assumed that their spouse was invited and I always verbalize that so it’s clear. “Ask Pete if he wants to come, too.”

I was right in being cautious.

My husband actually came home one night and told me that she told him she has had relationships with married men in the past.

So HA!!

Actually when she met me face to face for the first time… I noticed she felt a bit uncomfortable.

So no I wasn’t being too cautious.

If I was single I would never meet a married man outside work hours. It doesn’t matter how friendly I am with him.

Just to be extra cautious I would not.

I think if you had a parent that was unfaithful like me, you would be extra cautious.

So I don’t think I was wrong in having issues with it.

I think it was my spidey senses.

In my opinion, your “spidey senses” are nothing but a strong generalization enforced by confirmation bias.

lol