Girls Night Out. Again.

[demrea]

I agree.

 

But there is a big difference between having time to oneself away from your spouse, and making it an all too frequent habit to go out and party not coming home until the wee hours of the morning.

 

only if it includes lies and deception.

[Gunny376]

If women married and not ~ find it acceptable for them to have a GNO going to dance clubs, seeking attention, flirting with guys? Then why do so many women ~ married and not ~ get SO upset when their husbands / SO's go out alone with their buddies for a couple of beers to strip clubs?

 

Nothing happens there except watching a couple of women parade around topless. You can't touch them, most of them (the ones that aren't lesbians anyway) have big old boyfriends already. The only thing they're really interested in is your stuffing dollar bills into their bikini's

 

But yet so many women get upset if their husbands / SO's go to strip clubs its almost "classical"

 

Oh Right! I forgot? The old Double-Standard

 

Then there's the infestation of the "disgrunted married women" into the group dynamic. Insert one "disgrunted married woman" into a group of married women ~ and look out. Don't tell me I'm nuts about this as well, because I've seen it way too many times during my time in the Marines living in base housing. It starts on one end of the street and spreads like wild fire.

 

At his basis is that there's really ~ truly no such thing as a Happy Woman. If the man works all of the time? She'll bitch, moan and groan that he's never around, never spends anytime with her, is gone all of the time! If he doesn't work all of the time? She'll complain, bitch, moan and groan that he's crowding her and up underneather her all of the time?

 

If he makes more money than she does? She's going to tell him sooner than later that she doesn't need him, that he's not her "Daddy" that anything he says or does is controling. If she makes more money than he does? Then he's a lame azz too sorry, lazy, 'good-for-nothing and needs to get off his azz and get a real job and be "a man"

 

If he wants sex more than she does? He's some kind of pervert? If he wants sex less than she's does? There's still something wrong with him ~ must be cheating ~ or at least gay.

 

Its like the guy that opened the "Husband Store" It had seven floors. One could advance from one floor to the next going up ~ but could never go back to a previous floor except to exit the building.

 

The first floor had a sign that read ~ "This floor has men who have jobs"

Excited to find what was on the next floor, the woman went to the next floor. Which had a sign that said "This floor has men who have jobs and are attractive!"

 

She then goes to the next floor ~ the Third Floor ~ and it had a sign that said "This Floor has men that have jobs, are attractive, and earn good money." She then goes to the next floor ~ the Fourth Floor ~ and it had a sign that read "This floor has men who have jobs, are attractive, earn good money and love the Lord!"

 

Excited even more? She goes to the Fifth floor which has a sign that read ""This floor has men who have jobs, are attractive, earn good money and love the Lord, and help around the house!" Undaunted ~ she goes to the Sixth Floor and finds a sign that reads ~ "This floor has men who have jobs, are drop dead handsome, are filthy rich and love the Lord, help around the house and are hopeless romantics!

 

She goes to the seventh floor which has a sign that says ~ "There aren't any men on this floor ~ It exists solely to prove that women are and can never be satisfied!

 

Due to popular demand? The owner had to open a "Wives Store" It to had seven floors, but no one had ever been past the second floor which had a sign that said "Here you find women that have jobs and love sex!"

[karnak]

 

Its like the guy that opened the "Husband Store" It had seven floors. One could advance from one floor to the next going up ~ but could never go back to a previous floor except to exit the building.

 

The first floor had a sign that read ~ "This floor has men who have jobs"

Excited to find what was on the next floor, the woman went to the next floor. Which had a sign that said "This floor has men who have jobs and are attractive!"

 

She then goes to the next floor ~ the Third Floor ~ and it had a sign that said "This Floor has men that have jobs, are attractive, and earn good money." She then goes to the next floor ~ the Fourth Floor ~ and it had a sign that read "This floor has men who have jobs, are attractive, earn good money and love the Lord!"

 

Excited even more? She goes to the Fifth floor which has a sign that read ""This floor has men who have jobs, are attractive, earn good money and love the Lord, and help around the house!" Undaunted ~ she goes to the Sixth Floor and finds a sign that reads ~ "This floor has men who have jobs, are drop dead handsome, are filthy rich and love the Lord, help around the house and are hopeless romantics!

 

She goes to the seventh floor which has a sign that says ~ "There aren't any men on this floor ~ It exists solely to prove that women are and can never be satisfied!

 

Due to popular demand? The owner had to open a "Wives Store" It to had seven floors, but no one had ever been past the second floor which had a sign that said "Here you find women that have jobs and love sex!"

 

LOL

 

So true.

[pteromom]

If women married and not ~ find it acceptable for them to have a GNO going to dance clubs, seeking attention, flirting with guys? Then why do so many women ~ married and not ~ get SO upset when their husbands / SO's go out alone with their buddies for a couple of beers to strip clubs?

 

Nothing happens there except watching a couple of women parade around topless. You can't touch them, most of them (the ones that aren't lesbians anyway) have big old boyfriends already. The only thing they're really interested in is your stuffing dollar bills into their bikini's

 

But yet so many women get upset if their husbands / SO's go to strip clubs its almost "classical"

 

I don't care if my husband goes to a strip club, but it isn't the same thing. A direct comparison would be a husband who goes out dancing to clubs with his friends.

 

The difference is at a strip club, the purpose is sexual excitement. That isn't the purpose of a bunch of women hanging out together at a bar. (I don't think I have EVER gone out "seeking attention". Actually any attention received is usually annoying.)

 

Your joke was funny though and there is definitely truth to it. Except you forgot "hot" for the guys. The girl has to like sex and be hot.

[pteromom]

Let's broaden the issue from just a perhaps unfair assumption that women frequenting GNOs are more prone to cheat.

 

Ok... I don't think women frequenting GNOs are more prone to cheat. All the (male AND female) friends and friends of friends I know who cheated were with someone from their work.

 

If someone is trustworthy, they are trustworthy. If someone is gonna cheat, they'll find a way, no matter what you "allow" them to do.

 

Now of COURSE, there is a spectrum. If you talk to cheaters, there's a lot of "I never meant for it to happen." There are people who never intend to cheat, but fall anyway for whatever reason. But whether they dance or not isn't a factor. As I said, it's typically at work. But it could be a neighbor, their best friend's hubby, a kid's teacher. Just look at the infidelity boards here at LS, and pay attention to where people met.

 

You can't go through life worrying that your spouse will cheat, or trying to control what they do. Trust them until you have a reason not to trust them, then act accordingly. It's really not that complicated.

 

Look at the issue as to whether going on GNOs helps to improve a bad marriage or is merely an escape from it.

 

Sure, it's a temporary escape. But the escape isn't about chatting up other dudes. It's an escape from problems in general to just hang out with friends and be silly.

[pteromom]

FYI - some GNOs are:

 

- book club

- spa day

- hanging out at someone's house having margaritas

- poker night

- sushi and wine

 

GNO is not always about dancing and clubs, and often, men aren't even present at all.

[pteromom]

Clearly the type of GNO being addressed as toxic is the drinking/dancing/partying/flirting with strange guys type, not the Great Books society, the Julia Child cooking club, or those evenings singing the Hallelujah Chorus with the church choir ladies.

 

Correct, but realize that to HONEST wives who are not looking to cheat, they are the same thing. It's about hanging out with the girlfriends, not the men.

[Untouchable_Fire]

Again, thanks for insulting me when I'm asking for help. I'll say it again: "husbands/fiancé's/boyfriends who have it INGRAINED IN THEIR PSYCHE'S to not be a wimp about their wife letting down her hair a little." Just like you called me a controlling nenderthal, men in my situation are cuckolded to just accept it or be labeled a jealous freak. I've read it on other posts. Wives that come home from GNO's a LOT worse than my wife's (questionable friends, no communication while out, no sex at home, obvious lies about what they've done and where they've been, home at 6:00 the next morning because they just needed to "sleep it off" at some guys house they just met) coming on these forums asking if they shoudl be worried.

You are the perfect wife. I'll give you that. But can't you accept that you may be the exception and not the rule?

 

Asking all these strangers what they think and feel isn't going to fix this issue.

 

You have two problems as I see it. One you somehow feel it's bad to be jealous and a touch controlling. You have to be. If you are not then it's going to seem like you don't care and are a pussy. Both of those are death sentences for a relationship. Two, you let your wife control the situation and treat you like a chump. She clearly has no fear of losing you.

 

Here is what I suggest you do. Sit her down and explain that this has been bugging you for 2 years now and that you want complete disclosure... at least enough to make you feel comfortable. If she kicks up a fight... walk away. Don't come back until she apologizes and gives you what you want. I'd be prepared to go nuclear and divorce her.

 

Until you show her that there is some cold steel in your spine, she is going to continue treating you like a wimp.

[demrea]

What need do you think a spouse is fulfilling if he/she insists on going to clubs and partying to the wee hours without his/her spouse?

 

That doesn't require lies and deception.

 

independance? a life not defined by her spouse and children?

 

even if its just for a few hours, it means something to have some self direction.

 

like another poster said, it may be a bar but it could also be a swimming pool, library or coffee shop.

 

i dont decide what my wife does with her free time. most of it is spent with me and the kids, some of it is spent just her and I and sometimes she goes out with her friends.

 

many times, i have met up with them and danced but really who wants to be the 1 husband amongst her and her friends? they all love me, but its akward just as if she came with me and my buddies.

[nofool4u]

FYI - some GNOs are:

 

- book club

- spa day

- hanging out at someone's house having margaritas

- poker night

- sushi and wine

 

GNO is not always about dancing and clubs, and often, men aren't even present at all.

 

Correct, but in this thread it is about clubbing, other men being present, and coming home well after the club has closed.

[nofool4u]

independance? a life not defined by her spouse and children?

 

True. People need to have other things to do.

 

Life is not defined by staying at home all the time.

 

But this wife's life is being defined by her need to go out partying all too frequently and coming home at unacceptable hours of the morning. Not to mention her all too suspect behavior.

[nofool4u]

But she's not "independent." Neither is her husband. They're interdependent.

 

I tend to agree here, as long as ones definition of "interdependent" doesn't mean neither spouse can have some time with friends here and there.

 

But this isn't the case in this thread. His wife needs to act like a wife, and not some partying floozy. If she wants to act single, then she needs to be single.

[Gunny376]

I personally no longer go to clubs. Drinks cost to much ~ much cheaper just going to the package store and getting a fifth or whatever. There's that, ~ and generally speaking if a man meets a woman in a bar? He's most likely to lose her in a bar.

 

I've never goine home from a bar with an ugly woman ~ but Lord knows I've woke up with more than one or two.

 

Back when I was going to clubs/bars/beer joints ~ especially when I was still in the Marine Corps ~ I went home many a Saturday night with a "Ten" at two, and woke up the nnext morning at ten with a "Two!"

[demrea]

But she's not "independent." Neither is her husband. They're interdependent.

 

If her life is not defined by her spouse, children, and career if applicable, then if she chooses to define it by frequently partying until all hours, what does that indicate about herself?

 

 

 

 

Excuse me but she's not spending those few hours practicing to be a concert pianist or coming up with a cure for cancer or working in a soup kitchen.

 

She doesn't gain "self direction," that kind of compulsive, purposeless partying is the opposite of self direction. It's an attempt by a person who is unhappy with their life--with their spouse, their children, their job, their perception of their future--to "lose" themselves for a while. It's not an effort to find an identity, it's an effort to lose an identity that she doesn't really like.

 

 

 

Could be, but isn't. Not in this thread.

 

 

 

Sure you do, at least to the extent of having input into it, since you're her spouse, it has to be that way.

 

It doesn't have to be explicit--when you acquiesce you are "deciding" what you are willing to tolerate in your marriage.

 

It sounds like you don't understand what marriage as a true partnership even is. Or maybe you understand it but are so afraid of your wife that you don't even think you have any right to have an input into what she does with her spare time, regardless of the effect it might have on you or the marriage.

 

 

 

 

 

And you obviously have input into that by accepting it. That's fine, but why would you even talk about your own wife as comparable to OP's wife who goes out flirting and partying and drinking til all hours of the night? If your wife's doing what OP's wife is doing then my friend your marriage is in trouble.

 

 

 

 

 

Obviously they're not doing anything to make you feel welcome among themselves.

 

Did you ever wonder why your wife and her friends have a need to make you (and I assume the other husbands) feel uncomfortable or like outcasts? It's not just you, obviously. None of the husbands are made to feel welcome.

 

You're beaten down and don't even realize it. You've bought into this mentality because you feel you have no choice, you probably don't want to be perceived as "controlling."

 

And by the way...why on earth is she going out partying with her friends and you are also going out separately "many times" running into them by coincidence? It would be one thing if you were working or taking care of children and couldn't go. What you're describing is a marriage that is either in trouble or soon will be. You just don't realize it or maybe you do, you're afraid, you don't know what to do about it, and that's why you're posting on this thread, in defensive denial of what is happening in your own marriage.

 

 

 

 

 

Look, why did you marry her, and why did she marry you, if as it sounds like you both choose to spend the vast majority of your recreational time with other people?

 

mate you are making many leaps of logic that i dont agree with. good luck to you!

[nofool4u]

Actually, no one ever specified what time the clubs where they are located close.

 

True, but coming home well after 2am is unacceptable as a married woman. No reason whatsoever to come home that late.

 

 

So really defining 1 or 2 am as "late" is silly, and leaving out a lot of information,when depending on where you live, people don't go OUT until 11pm.

 

Not silly at all. Its ridiculous. Only reason to stay out that late is to go off and F someone.

 

Obviously the time she gets home from her frolicking is a problem for him, and his wife knows it. She just doesn't care.

[NervisPervis]

This all happened many (many) years ago. I haven't been obsessed about it all of that time. But it would bother me every now and then. When a set of triggers set me off on it again 2-3 years ago, I figured I'd do something about it. Of course, I handled it wrong and never got closure. It has bothered me daily since. This thread was my latest attempt to throw up another trial balloon looking for help. As you can see, I'm still handling it wrong. Please don’t judge me for doing it the way I did. My fear always was that if I handled it as an old, old issue, all I'd get were "get yourself into therapy" responses. Maybe that's what I need. But for a while, I'm going to try a different route.

 

Let's just look at the last 100 years. There have been, what, 2 billion marriages? Add to that other committed unions (broken engagements, long term partnerships, etc.). Going by even conservative estimates, there have been hundreds of millions of cases of infidelity. From minor flirty emotional affairs to full blown physical ones. As we all know from being on these sites, a HUGE majority of these affairs that are caught or suspected are denied, and answered with gaslighting and lies. And as we also all know, some of these unions continue w/o resolution to those issues. THAT's what I should have been concentrating on. That's what I need to do now. My wife rug swept and gaslighted back then and she continues to now. How do all of these other relationships continue with unresolved issues like this? How do other couples continue to live together with these unresolved fidelity issues hanging between them? I don’t know. But I need to find out. I need to work with a woman who said even bringing it up again is a deal-breaker.

 

It's not another "GNO: are they OK?" thread that I need. It's not about that. I know my wife. I know how she acted back then. I know what I lived through back then. I have some (circumstantial) evidence. I know the character of the woman she played wingwoman to, and how SHE behaved in HER married life (she's now divorced). I know how my wife handled my "accusation" three years ago. I know the inconsistencies in her stories as I tried to deal with it then. I know how my wife acted at bars before I met her. In short, I DON'T need to hear people's opinions on whether or not a regular partier at meat markets can be faithful or not. I am as positive as I can be without photographic evidence that my wife was not. It's not the TYPE of infidelity I need to concentrate on. It's the unresolved issues with it I need to deal with.

 

I don’t know if she screwed anyone or gave handjobs or BJ's. I'd actually be surprised if she did. But I have NO DOUBT her intent was to go out and party with the boys. I have no doubt there was a lot of intimate time spent with a lot of men I'll never hear about. People have different boundaries, but doing that while lying about it by omission is infidelity to me. I have almost no doubt she made-out with men she met there (she liked doing that before I met her). I need to stop the "I need people to confirm what I already know" questions and start the "How do I get over this?" issue. I need to know how to close this in my life and in my marriage.

 

You all can continue this "GNO, is it OK?" thread without me. I'd apologize for starting it and walking away, but it looks like I've struck a nerve with a few people. I'll close out my comments on THIS thread with a little advice to the men out there. Ignore other people that say you are a jealous control freak for being uncomfortable with it. It's your life and you know your partner. Talk to your wife/girlfriend/fiancé. If it doesn't add up, there could EASILY be something going on. Probably is. It is SUCH an easy issue to gather evidence on. You know (or SHOULD know, unless you're an idiot like me) where she's going. Have someone she doesn’t know trail her (friend, PI if you can afford it) Get cell video footage. I wish to god I did.

 

Trust, but verify. Ignore the rationalizers. It's YOUR life. Do what you have to do for closure.

 

And to some of the women who said "I go dancing all the time and this is how I act, I don’t cheat". You may be surprised to find that some men wouldn't want their wives out there acting like that at all. There are some men out there that would consider it infidelity, and rightly so. ESPECIALLY if there is not full disclosure to your partner.

 

Thank you to those that commented. I wish you all the best.

 

NP

[nofool4u]

I need to stop the "I need people to confirm what I already know" questions and start the "How do I get over this?" issue. I need to know how to close this in my life and in my marriage.

 

Easy. Only 2 answers since she can't be trusted.

 

1) she starts acting like a wife and refrains from going out and partying all the time and coming home when the rooster crows.

 

or

 

2) get rid of her.

 

Those are your only 2 options. Because if you stay with her, you will never get over what she did and is doing as long as you don't have #1 happening.

 

 

 

You all can continue this "GNO, is it OK?" thread without me. I'd apologize for starting it and walking away, but it looks like I've struck a nerve with a few people.

 

 

No nerve, but you did title the thread "Girls Night Out. Again" This would indicate that its a problem. If you didn't want to know if its ok, then you should have titled it something else.

 

 

I'll close out my comments on THIS thread with a little advice to the men out there. Ignore other people that say you are a jealous control freak for being uncomfortable with it.

 

Oh believe me, I know there is NOTHING controlling about expecting a spouse to act like a spouse and not act like a party hungry single person.

 

 

And to some of the women who said "I go dancing all the time and this is how I act, I don’t cheat". You may be surprised to find that some men wouldn't want their wives out there acting like that at all.

 

And again, if there are women out there that would say they'd go clubbing and dancing if no men were allowed in the club are lying. That wouldn't be any fun to them and they know it.

 

 

With all that said, the 2 options I wrote above are about it for you. If you don't have a wife that wants to act like a wife, then you should take the necessary steps to ensure she is no longer a wife and can be someone elses problem.