Am I overreacting about my husband going to a strip club with his friends?

Point 1
If you trust him, you don’t have to trust others. You should trust him as long as he has not given you any reason not to.

Point 2
It does not matter where he gets his appetite, as long as he comes home for dinner. (most strip clubs have a strictly enforced “don’t touch” rule.)

Let him know how you feel, and how strongly you feel about it.
I wouldn’t go, just because you are so unhappy about it.

My prediction based on my experience is that he will be bored and dismayed, and will not be able to wait to leave.

It’s a bachelor party.. that’s just what guys do during bachelor parties. Based on the fact that you trust him and that he’s expressed no desire to go (and never has been), I think you’re pretty safe.

Only two things caught my interest in your details: You said he’d never been to one before (I find that hard to believe) and “And I also dont trust the people that he is going with. One of them cheats on his wife all the time and I dont want anyone to have some sort of influence on him.”

If he is so easily influenced, I would be more concerned about cheating. That has nothing to do with watching girls strip. No-one cheats with a stripper.

I think you have issues much deeper than over-reaction.

Side: Strip clubs degrade women. They should be banned.

I don’t want my husband to forbid me to do anything so I won’t do that to him. But as it was said above, let him know how you feel and then step back. If he decides to go anyhow, I would be annoyed, but the power of the peer group is strong and there isn’t much you can do except make yourself unhappy.

I find it sad that there are women who have so little self esteem and self worth that they make a living turning themselves into pieces of meat.

I think you are overreacting. It’s just a stupid ritual, the strip club bachelor party thing. I think it is fine to let him know it makes you uncomfortable, but I think you shouldn’t be concerned. I have no desire to go to a male strip show, I mean NONE, but if my girlfriends wanted to go for a bachelorette party I would go.

I completely agree with @JLeslie

Saying “I trust him I just don’t trust other people” is basically saying that you don’t trsut him. If you believe he is so easily influenced then how can you trust him?

This question has inspired me to post another question on Fluther. Than you.

@Zen Don’t find it hard to believe that her hubby’s never been to a strip club. My husband & I have been together over 40 years & I know for a fact that he’s never been to one. We jokingly talked about this a while back, & he said the same thing as @pdworkin said. He’s be bored out of his skull. You are right…it cheapens women big time.

@hondagirrlx Let him go. If, in fact, you trust him as you say you do, no harm should come of it. He’ll probably never want to go again. Let this cheating friend go & make a fool of himself. That’ll just fortify the silliness of it.

You need to trust your husband. If he loves you he won’t let a stripper or immature friend influence him to cheat on you. Don’t get me wrong, I can’t stand the idea of married men going to places like this, but unfortunately this is a ritual that many men like to experience.

side- I love the fact that some men are doing different things such as camping, climbing and hiking, whitewater rafting, wakeboarding, dirt biking, parasailing, skydiving, hang gliding, bungee jumping, skiing, snowboarding, hunting and fishing for bachelor parties now.

Also, as others have mentioned, some men find strip clubs to be boring. Luckily my husband is one of these men. I went with him and some of his friends one time and my husband actually started to fall asleep. I’m sure all the beer he drank that night didn’t help The only time my husband wasn’t bored was when the guys paid for me to have a lap dance. ;)

I went to one strip club, one time, because my friend had just started to dance there, and she wanted me to see her work. She was very good at what she did, but the overall feeling I came away with was that I wished she had been able to find something else that was just as lucrative but didn’t involve a bunch of drunk strangers leering at her.

What’s not to trust? Those women are after his money, not his junk. Just don’t let him go with more than $50. ;-)

Besides, either he’ll be revved up when he gets home, or he’ll be longing for you when he gets home. Win win.

woo,hoo. Hes gonna go look at some titties… He can do that on the internet all he wants and you cant stop him…. Hes a grown man, its a B party, hes with his friends. Let him go, tell him to have fun and to watch his spending. You gotta realize that he loves you, not some stripper. Looking at them and looking at you have 2 totally different meanings. if you dictate the things he can and cant do, then youll only add stress to both your lives and youll have nothing but problems… just let this one go, and when he comes home, make him make leaving you home all alone up to you. I promise you if you do stuff like that, hell never stray. I.g. when he comes home, put your arms around his sholder and ask how it was, when hes done talking respond accordingly and give him that look and say, well you left me here alone all night, what are you gonna do about it. Then while things are happening, just think that hes with you, and just you. Itll make things 50X better, promise. ( my EX did something like this, and every time we had sex there after she was pulling 4 to 6 high notes. No joke)

And you dont feel the need to see guy strippers because youve never seen me ;-)
lol jk jk

Two of my friends and I threw each other bachelor parties over a period of a few years. Our practice was to have the party in one of our homes and we’d hire a stripper/dancer to come in to entertain. In all cases, the stripper offered other “services” at additional cost. That would not happen at a strip club. Things can get much more out of hand (or actually much more in hand) in a private home than in a strip club, so between the two, you are better off letting him go to the club.
I have to agree with what others have said about the cheating friend influencing your husband. If you feel your husband could potentially be influenced by this guy, you can’t completely trust your husband. Trust is not based on the fact that one has not done anything to remove trust. If that were the case, you would have the same level of trust with all the other people in the world that have never cheated. But you don’t really know them. Trust is established in a relationship through open and honest communication and knowing someone very well, including their thought process, behaviors, morals, desires, and actions in responses to all kinds of situations, in addition to obviously never crossing the line which is your only stated discriminator for trusting your husband. You either trust him or you don’t. In my opinion, you don’t fully trust him to behave if opportunity were presented to him, and that’s why you received backlash from him.
See ya….Gary/wtf

“It’s a bachelor party.. that’s just what guys do during bachelor parties. ”
Not all. It is a childish ritual, especially when mature responsible married men are involved.
Single guys. All bets are off. Go for it. You can afford that “luxury”

It is a tough call. I would say he should respect your feelings. He is your husband, you are his wife. That is #1.
Do not argue. Have a sincere conversation.

It is not about trust. It is about being in a situation that you have to let go of some self control. Or why go at all? Is that risk worth it? Those few hours, if gone wrong, will not take a few hours to fix.. But your marriage is for ever.
It is about sleeping on a train track will eventually get you run over. Even if you do not do it all the time.

I feel that if he knows how you feel about him going, he shouldn’t go out of respect and consideration for you. If not, something’s wrong.

let him go if you trust him, if you can’t trust him however it’s another story. I’m sure he wants to be with his friends for the bachelor party and would rather the party be elsewhere, but it’s not. I say deal with it, let him go, he wants to be with the men (his friends) that are going, not the women that are dancing.

@ChazMaz – I didn’t say it wasn’t a stupid ritual. But it is a ritual, it’s what guys do during bachelor parties. Women do it, too.

I personally have no desire to watch strippers or go to a strip club. Some people I know can’t fathom the fact that I don’t find it sexy in the least, actually, I find it pretty gross. I don’t find it that hard to believe that a guy would see the same things I do and find the whole thing to be unappealing. As JLeslie said, if my good friend was having a bachelor/bachelorette party and they wanted to go to a strip club, I would go to celebrate with them, but it wouldn’t be my first choice by a long shot.

MissAnthrope- Understand :-)

The primary and much bigger issue from your husband’s standpoint is your lack of trust, not your shared dislike of strip joints. If I were your husband, I would be very hurt you didn’t trust me going someplace I don’t particularly care for but happened to be the location of a friends party. Sorry.
See ya….Gary/wtf

This is not a trust issue. It is about being in a situation with risk.
Naked chicks, booze, and hanging with the boys. That pack mentality thing.
It is about give and take and sacrifice.
The husband has a wife. What ever ends up happening to him, affects her too. If you cant understand that. It is best to stay single.
The risks he takes or the risky situations he puts himself in, she is in it too.
It goes both ways.
So he goes to the strip club, gets a stiffy, no harm no foul. Has a few drinks. Just a night out drinking with the guys.
That in itself can be seen as an issue. It is a risk. Say he gets in a car accident because of the drunken friend behind the wheel?

In this case, using the trust line is just an attempt to use guilt to manipulate. Everything has risk. Is the risk worth it?

@Chazmaz
Get a friggin cab. they arnt that expensive….
or have a DD. That was the dumbest arguing factor you could have chosen. So many people have figured out how to get around that one.

and overall your right, everything has rick. But in this case youre making it sound like peeling a potato, will almost certainly lead to slicing ones hand off, and invoking nuclear war.

Look, Just let him have fun, and tell him to make smart decisions. Thats all it takes. Dont make this more than what it is.

“Get a friggin cab. they aren’t that expensive…. or have a DD. ”
“That was the dumbest arguing factor you could have chosen.”

Tell that to the families of the 15,387 fatalities due to Drunk Driving (2007 stats)

“this case you’re making it sound like peeling a potato, will almost certainly lead to slicing ones hand off, and invoking nuclear war.”

Glad YOU have not been on the sharp end of the blade… Yet.

I have no problem with it not being a big deal to you. Cool! Really.
But shit happens all the time. Don’t be ignorant to it. Don’t bring others (like a wife) into what you freely want to do. Not how a relationship works.
I have been around the block too many times, there is always a pile of shit looking for the bottom of your shoe.

Sounds like @hondagirrlx trusts him from what she wrote, just might be disgusted by the behavior, might be disgusted by people who like to go to these places, and might be feeling insecure herself. I think she is actually making a judgement about strip clubs, and does not want to wrap her brain around the idea that her husband might like to go to one, because she has always thought he was the type of guy who wouldn’t go. Makes me think of Elisabeth Hassleback (she is an extreme) saying her husband would never cheat, never look at porn, etc. It is important for her to think of her husband in a certain way. It is less about trust and more about her own identity. I cannot speak for @hondagirrlx though.

Yes, you’re over-reacting somewhat. Nothing happens at strip clubs, except for bad music, and girls with ugly facial expressions dancing against poles. (Or on laps, for an extra fee, and I can see why you’d not like that… so tell your husband to go, but not get a lap dance).

And for the record…. men who frequent strip clubs, probably have less sex, and less romance, than your average human being. There’s nothing there that could threaten you in any way. Not even a little bit. There’s nothing even interesting about those places really.

I think your husband has the right attitude, in that he does not normally go to places like that. But to visit just once, for a bachelor party, is really no big deal. My brother had a bachelor party at a strip bar in Germany. We had drinks, we watched a girl strip, then that was that. There was nothing even remotely seedy, dangerous, or tempting. (Some clubs, i’m sure are indeed seedy… but again… nothing there would be tempting for a guy like your husband).

You asked a similar question in May. What came of that situation?

I think you’re over-reacting. Men are far more visual than women, and they are essentially made to desire a wide variety of women.

He married you. He’s trustworthy. Who cares if every once in a while he wants to go out with the guys and look at another woman’s boobies? If he’s really a good guy he won’t listen to any friends who want to influence him to cross a line that’s not ok in your relationship. Remember, you are his wife, not his mommy.

Tell him to have fun, and trust your own judgment in the worthiness of the man you married.

@ChazMaz Dude… if you slice your hand peeling a potato, stop cooking. Yes, ive cut myself before, cleaning a blade, sharpening knives, and ive even been stabbed. But take your damn time and pay attention to what youre doing and youll be fine.

The only thing i have to say to those familes, would be sorry that the driver/your (insert status) was stupid. Im a college kid and i have enough sense to have a DD, or call a cab (yes, broke college kid, 40g’s in debt, and i pay for cabs if i need them). Drunk driving is in no way something you can project on to someone like that. Not everyone is “CARTMAN!!! DURRRH” retarded….

And all of what you just said is easily voided by the people who arnt looking for problems. Yes, if you wanna cheat, a strip club is a bad place. Yes alc can make you do stupid stuff. Yes, you can get in a collision while drunk driving.
I can get mugged walking outta the house. I can get hit by a car walking down the street. I can eat contaminated food and die. Doesnt mean i need to stop doing it.
What is does mean is that i should check both ways before crossing, smell the milk before drinking, be mindful of where i am and when. IT MEANS I SHOULD STOP AT 2 OR 3, OR CALL A CAB, OR SECOND GUESS THAT NEXT LAP DANCE. doesnt mean i should stop looking girls, drinking beer, and having fun.

Accept responsibility for that you do, and make a system of checks for bad situations. Make good choices, and be aware of what youre doing. If you cant live by that and have fun, then you might as well stay at home and not have a life.

The sky isnt falling chicken little, stop acting like everything will cause the end of the world.

“Im a college kid”
Enough said.

I get what you are saying. Been there done that. :-)

No one is saying what a free wheeling college kid can do or not.
YOU seem VERY responsible. More power to ya.

But, get back to me in 20 years. You’ll understand.

@ChazMaz Really Chaz, a man shouldn’t go to a strip club because of the risk of being in a drunk driving accident? Should he not go to bars, sports games, cocktail parties… Drunk driving is a serious issue. But it’s really silly to use it as an argument against going to a strip club.

“Should he not go to bars, sports games, cocktail parties”
I go to all the above. I know the risks I will take.
I know the risks I will take when others need to be considered. That is all.

I did not say anything about what not to do. Some people are ok with it, some are not.
But a question was asked.
It is better when both sides of the coin are shown. Ultimately it is the decision they make.

But, a decision is best made when all the facts (and opinions) are on the table.

If he’s wealthy, yes, otherwise it depends on the club.

Glad it works for you, your Dad and the Scout Master.

But not for everyone. Some still need to be educated.

Like yourself.

I haven’t read the other answers but I wouldn’t like my hubby going to a strip club. I have no reason to distrust him either. It would take some convincing on his part to have me be minorly okay with it. And if his friends were cheaters and I thought they would encourage him to engage in inappropriate acts then I don’t think I’d give in on my opinion. But to be fair my hubby has always known I felt this way so I doubt he would even want to go or “ask” to go.

If you flashed your boobs more often then we wouldnt need strip clubs, now would we

@ChazMaz So im the one that needs education, but youre the one that cant figure out how to be out drinking and get home safely? Or is it because i know how to make wise choices, or is it because i choose to go to school? Or perhaps its because i know the meaning of moderation and have faith that other people arnt stupid?

Please, inform me of how it is that i need to be further educated. Please, i would love to see what the o holy judger and all knowing master of the universe has to say about me.

@Zen why is it hard to believe that a person may not have been to a strip club before? neither of my husbands, ex or current, have ever been…i’ve been plenty more than them, lol

I don’t think you should worry
but if it bothers you, he should consider your feelings
but after all, he’s a free person to do what he wants, no? you can’ t just force him not to

No you aren’t overreacting. Ask him not to go if you don’t want him to.

I’m up in the air about this one. From personal experience, I’ve been lied to about what goes on when guys go to strip clubs with their friends. Depending on the guys, of course, because not all men do fucked up things. But… It’s not black and white and it’s a rough situation. Sorry.

I just want to add that the more your husband resists, the more his friends will try to get him a lap dance. Yeah, it might be the bachelor’s night, but it doesn’t matter. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, multiple times. Especially when guys are getting drunk. The more the strippers see someone resist and notice that their friends are really trying to push a lap dance, the strippers get involved too, because they want the extra money.

I dunno. If you trust your husband – I would not trust his friends to be on good behavior – maybe you can compromise? Have him call you every so often, maybe? If he’s okay with it? Maybe he could step outside to call you, and be open about what’s going on – even if it means he has to admit that his friends are being stupid, but he is not? Bleh… Sorry. I hate being in situations like that. Good luck.

“So im the one that needs education, but your the one that cant figure out how to be out drinking and get home safely?”

Ok, let me get the crayons out for you.
First it is not about getting home safely. It is about getting home, and the risk involved.
This is about picking a percentage you can live with.
Chill out Junior.

I figure you go to bars. You have a DD or call a cab.
I am very proud of you. (pat on the head)
Next time you go. Look at the parking lot. See all those cars? Most of them were driven by people that are in that bar and drinking. They will eventually get back in that car and drive home.
Most of them will get home safely. Some of them will get pulled over and others will slam into your car or taxi.

The point I have been trying to make to you, that you seem to take so personal is.
It is still a factor of risk. You need to look at it.
You lowered the percentage by being so responsible. (another pat on the head)
It is a risk YOU want to take. Great!
Most people role the dice. It is what it is. On the occasion I do go out and have a drink. I drive home, never having a problem. But I do factor in the risk. The risk I alone will take. If people in my car , now I need to re think what I am going to do that evening because the risk I take can affect them too. Do you get that?
But to not see that, because you and your dad and cub master are so responsible. And, not share that possibility.
Is foolish. You are a minority. Just the way it is.

It being a a strip club or drinking or both. There is a risk it will go further then looking at boobies. There is a risk that, your impeded judgment due to alcohol will get you into a situation.
I am the lucky one. In my youth I have driven home blind drunk. Too full of piss and vinegar to asses that. Being king of the world and all. Plenty can relate to that.
I learned luckily with out harming myself and others that that was not the way to do things. I do not do that any more. Actually I do not drink much any more.
Some one else now carries the torch.

I know this from direct experience. So I can give insight as to what is on the road and my personal experience with others.. Your really do not need my insight, the statistics speak for themselves.
I was not being hostile to you. I was providing advice. Good advice, and you are coming off as a stereotype of how we see individuals like yourself as having no need to learn anything. You know it all.
Youth wasted on the young.

I see no reason why you should be concerned. Should you be concerned if you went to see male strippers? Now, if HE wanted to see male strippers, you should be concerned.