Contribution to secular culture?

[06convert]

Hello everyone, I have a question that I’ve been contemplating.

I’m 26 and married. Before I became Catholic and answered God’s call, I lived a very secular life. Part of that was going out partying, going to bars, drinking, etc. Well, about when I turned 22 I realized that I didn’t enjoy that anymore, I grew up. I’m completely against that stuff now

My wife likes to occasionally go out to clubs or bars to dance and have a few drinks with her other female friends. This weekend she is going to a friends bachelorette party which includes a party bus, and bar hopping. She has told me that she just wants to dance and have a good time, have a few drinks, but not necessarily get drunk. She likes the idea of not having to drive everywhere.

For some reason I can’t stand this. I can’t explain really what I’m feeling. I trust her, but I don’t know if I trust her company. Or maybe I feel like she is going to go be part of a crowd that doesn’t care about moral actions, they are just there to drink and get crazy.

Ya know how it’s easier for people to do the wrong thing when everyone else is doing it too?

I almost feel like if she goes, she is contributing. Even if she does nothing wrong. The people that are there to drink and be crazy see her, and that helps them justify their actions.

My wife is upset, because I didn’t just say, “be safe and have fun” She said that’s what she would tell me if I wanted to do the same thing.

Am I being crazy? Should I just tell her to have fun?

 

[StCsDavid]

It’s difficult when one spouse is at a different place in their faith journey. It seems a bit scandalous for your wife to go bar hopping; however, she obviously sees it as innocent fun. If you trust her then I would let it go and I would pray for her. Instead of telling her to have fun, why not just say, “be careful, I love you” with a smile on your face. I would also encourage you to find more activities that you can do as a couple. Why not take her out dancing yourself some evening if that’s what she enjoys, and then another evening she can join you for something you enjoy? Maybe you can talk her into joining Teams of Our Lady. or some other group dedicated to the success of marriage.

 

[06convert]

Good advice. We do a lot of things as a couple (still newly weds), although I very rarely consider going dancing, because I don’t like it and I’m horrible at it.

Although we do a lot as a couple we are free to take 1 or 2 nights a week where we go out with a friend, and do our own thing, which is never an issue with either one of us. It’s usually just going to a friends house and watching a movie, or going somewhere to have a quiet drink. Nothing wild and crazy.

She also doesn’t go dancing or go bar hopping that much. Dancing a few times a year and maybe bar hopping twice since we’ve been married. So it’s not a huuge problem that’s getting in the way of our relationship.

Still though, just the very few times she does it, I just feel like my conscious is trying to stop her from going. I suppose it’s mostly because I want to help her do things that will get her to heaven, and the fact that I consider her such a wonderful person I hold her at a very high level in my mind, so it’s hard when she does something that I consider below her. If that makes sense?

 

[chevalier]

Hmm… I think women are wired in a bit different way when it comes to dancing. While some men do go to bars and even clubs where you dance just to hang out with friends and they might be fine dancing on their own, I think women are much more into it, i.e. forming a group with female friends and dancing and having drinks within that group. It used to give my friends and me some trouble when we wanted someone to dance with, although admittedly, I’ve been the one that doesn’t see the logical point of everyone dancing solo if the company is mixed, not like I won’t sometimes, but it’s weird anyway. So perhaps we guys associate bar hopping and clubbing with efforts at finding company and socialising, while for women, it’s centred around the company they go with. I honestly don’t get it why women who have husbands or boyfriends still need to go to parties where you dance - on their own, and some prefer to go without their men. I think it’s a part of the secular culture and something is wrong with it, but in this day and age few people are free from the secular culture and probably you and I have contracted some of that influence too.

Maybe you’d do well to take your wife to a place where you can do some polite, old-school dancing, or sign up with her for a dancing class. Just be careful with that since some people react panically to being faced with the “mediaeval” like this.

 

[06convert]

Yeah, I guess when I hear “party bus” or “bar hopping” I imediately think that most of the participants are going to be like some of my high school friends and are going to get compley smashed, try to pick up women, and are taking this bus because they are planning on being soo drunk they can’t drive.

However, my wife insists that the people she is going with aren’t like that, they are taking the bus because yes some will drink and it’s safer than everyone driving, and they all want to go together.

You’re right though, I think we are wired different.

 

[maryjk]

I honestly don’t get it why women who have husbands or boyfriends still need to go to parties where you dance - on their own, and some prefer to go without their men.

Good advice. We do a lot of things as a couple (still newly weds), although I very rarely consider going dancing, because I don’t like it and I’m horrible at it.

That’s why. Thinking back to the last wedding I attended, I can remember a group of youngish, but married or dating, women all dancing together. No man in sight. As the song went on, they pulled a number of older women into the group as well. All of the husbands and boyfriends were sitting on their collective butts. The ladies wanted to dance. The men didn’t. What are they supposed to do, give up dancing because the men did?

Now I am an old married woman. I don’t get invited to bachelorette parties anymore. But if I was, my husband would have no problem with me going. He knows I do not drink to excess, I will not go home with some other man and when you get down to it, he trusts me.

 

[Em_in_FL]

I think it’s just personality differences.
I’ve NEVER been one to enjoy bar-hopping with the girls. But DH really enjoys his guy-time. He rarely gets out like that anymore - actually only on business trips when he visits towns where his best friends live - they’ll get to go out for a beer or two… not really “out on the town”, but more guys catching up over a beer.
Maybe your wife views it like that?

Like I said, I don’t think it’s about women being wired differently then men… just personality differences.
I think it really has more to do with your marriage and how your particular personalities can mesh and love each other.

 

[bluerose]

Good advice. We do a lot of things as a couple (still newly weds), although I very rarely consider going dancing, because I don’t like it and I’m horrible at it.

Wipe that smiley off your face; you sound like my husband!

For twenty years, I’ve sat by and sat out dances, even at weddings (personally, I’m not into that girl group dancing stuff… but then I’m 41, if that makes a difference.) I’ve told my husband, don’t worry, just loosen up, who cares if you’re not Fred Astair? But he does and so we sit unless it’s a very slow song where you mainly just sway back and forth. It’s when he has to move his feet that we run into problems. I’ve come to accept it as long he accepts I ain’t gonna sit around all Sunday afternoon and watch the NFL or MMA or whatever he’s into (at least not EVERY Sunday!)

You might consider taking dance classes WITH your wife. You might find you enjoy it if you feel you know what you’re doing. I tried that with my husband but maybe 20 years was too long to get it going. But if I can sit and watch Tony Romo and the Cowboys getting creamed six or seven days out of the year, then I figure it’s only fair he scoots his boots with me at least once every three months!

FWIW, I don’t go out “with the girls” on a regular basis, since I prefer my husband’s company (even if he is being a fuddy-duddy about the dancing! ) but as long as she’s not out “acting single”, let her have some fun.

 

[chevalier]

That’s why.

That is partly so, of course, but my point is, while is going to a night club or some other place where one is surrounded by strangers and strange music and people who don’t really dress or behave properly, so important to people that they must have it?

Thinking back to the last wedding I attended, I can remember a group of youngish, but married or dating, women all dancing together. No man in sight. As the song went on, they pulled a number of older women into the group as well. All of the husbands and boyfriends were sitting on their collective butts. The ladies wanted to dance. The men didn’t. What are they supposed to do, give up dancing because the men did?

Nah, why? I just don’t understand the point of one or two women going to a party at a night club to dance in circumstances like I described above. I’m not saying it’s wrong, but it feels rather… pointless maybe? This doesn’t apply to a situation where people know each other, the party is respectable, as is the music, and so on.

Well, I stagged this New Year’s Eve and I danced (80’s, especially Latino, Abba, Polish chansons with impressive vocal and so on). Almost every other person came with someone and the only one I know to have come alone was married and left early. So I’m hardly a wet blanket or a guy who doesn’t get the thing about dancing. But hey, if I had a girlfriend, I wouldn’t really feel like going to clubs. Surely would go with friends on some occasions, but I sometimes don’t understand why it’s such a big part of life for some people, especially given the kind of music that is played in clubs these days, that feels so alien to our civilisational roots to me. I look around, I see women with bare bellies meandering, I hear psychodelic music, I wonder where am I, in a Christian country or in a sheikh’s seraglio? And the could-have-been archaeologist in me says this kind of parties is as old as the human world itself, it only has a new guise.

Now I am an old married woman. I don’t get invited to bachelorette parties anymore. But if I was, my husband would have no problem with me going. He knows I do not drink to excess, I will not go home with some other man and when you get down to it, he trusts me.

Some issues are different from this kind of trust. Say I had a modern worldly girlfriend who wouldn’t cheat on me. I could know I could trust her not to do anything like that, but I would most likely still have a problem or two with the choice of clothes or dance moves at a party. I may be sensitive, but on the other hand it’s not like modern dancing is typically perfectly decent. I don’t feel comfortable looking at it.

 

[chevalier]

Wipe that smiley off your face; you sound like my husband!

Aww. The dearest person in your life, you mean? Sorry, cheese is my second name.

For twenty years, I’ve sat by and sat out dances, even at weddings (personally, I’m not into that girl group dancing stuff… but then I’m 41, if that makes a difference.) I’ve told my husband, don’t worry, just loosen up, who cares if you’re not Fred Astair? But he does and so we sit unless it’s a very slow song where you mainly just sway back and forth. It’s when he has to move his feet that we run into problems. I’ve come to accept it as long he accepts I ain’t gonna sit around all Sunday afternoon and watch the NFL or MMA or whatever he’s into (at least not EVERY Sunday!)

You might consider taking dance classes WITH your wife. You might find you enjoy it if you feel you know what you’re doing. I tried that with my husband but maybe 20 years was too long to get it going. But if I can sit and watch Tony Romo and the Cowboys getting creamed six or seven days out of the year, then I figure it’s only fair he scoots his boots with me at least once every three months!

I so completely second that! Especially as a guy who’s been refused so many dances he can’t count, not all of it having to do with not being cool enough. I know how it feels, you know, having so many times been there with friends and no, no mademoiselle would dance, they all had a headache or a brooding mood being sunk in a tall glass of beer. It feels like a kid no one wants to play with. Awful!

FWIW, I don’t go out “with the girls” on a regular basis, since I prefer my husband’s company (even if he is being a fuddy-duddy about the dancing! ) but as long as she’s not out “acting single”, let her have some fun.

Perhaps acting single is how I see some such clubbing habits then. But I can’t blame anyone, really, having a rather single hobby myself, i.e. playing computer games. I do less of it since discovering litigation, but I still do.

 

[Joseph_L_Varga]

I so completely second that! Especially as a guy who’s been refused so many dances he can’t count, not all of it having to do with not being cool enough. I know how it feels, you know, having so many times been there with friends and no, no mademoiselle would dance, they all had a headache or a brooding mood being sunk in a tall glass of beer. It feels like a kid no one wants to play with. Awful!

Chevalier, have you tried going to dance classes or an organized dance club? The girls come there with the express purpose to dance, and no one will refuse you when you invite them. Moreover, and this is part of the curriculum, dancing partners should be changed after every single dance, so that one learns to dance with various partners, short and tall, beginner and advanced, etc. At a typical 2-hour session you will end up dancing with 10-15 different girls.

06convert, let me tell you that I didn’t know how to dance and I HATED dancing. Then, once at my parish youth group I somehow got persuaded to go to some dance lessons because there were too many girls and not enough boys. I only went to help out with the gender balance. The funny thing is, after about 5 or 6 occasions I started to get a feel of the rhythm and I started to enjoy it, however it still took a great effort to step just at the right time and not to mess up. By the end of the full beginner course (12 occasions) something happened and essentially the rhythm became so much a part of me, that it was totally automatic by this time and I only had to pay attention to the correct sequence of steps, since by this time we were dancing some of the longer and more complicated dance standards and choreographed dances. And of course when you no longer struggle with catching the correct split second when you should step, or stepping on your partner’s foot which also happens with beginners, your motions suddenly become natural and you REALLY ENJOY IT, BABY! Then you will start to get the natural feel and “personality” of each dance, because the English waltz is ethereal and otherworldly, samba is full of fire, cha-cha-cha is playful, rumba is a delicate and romantic Latin dance and so on.

I went on for a full advanced class (another 12 occasions) and I became a dance club member. I was sticking with them for 2 more years in the dance club, and I only stopped attending because my work took up too much time. And believe me when I say, I was shy, awkward, didn’t have the rhythm, and loathed the whole dance thing before.

Now if you find some dance classes and go together, your wife will thoroughly enjoy them because they teach a bunch of different dances, and you may also come to love dance as you learn it, just as I did. In my time (early 1990s) this is what we learned: rock and roll, jive, saloon dances including Viennese waltz, English waltz, Polka, and Latin American dances including samba, tango, mambo, cha-cha-cha, rumba. There was even more, but I have forgotten some. My favorites were the Latin dances and I LOVED cha-cha-cha and rumba. I may yet go back to some dance classes if I find the time!

 

[chevalier]

Chevalier, have you tried going to dance classes or an organized dance club? The girls come there with the express purpose to dance, and no one will refuse you when you invite them. Moreover, and this is part of the curriculum, dancing partners should be changed after every single dance, so that one learns to dance with various partners, short and tall, beginner and advanced, etc. At a typical 2-hour session you will end up dancing with 10-15 different girls.

Maybe that’s where you live, because here people go to dance classes with the express purpose of learning to dance. They come with a ready dance partner and if they were single romantically, they’d probably have no reason to want to learn to dance. The only time I went to a dance class was when a female friend of friends’, also single, wanted to go. That was when I was 19 and for all the wisdom I didn’t have then, I had energy I don’t have now.

The funny thing is, after about 5 or 6 occasions I started to get a feel of the rhythm and I started to enjoy it, however it still took a great effort to step just at the right time and not to mess up.

I was worse, I assure you.

By the end of the full beginner course (12 occasions) something happened and essentially the rhythm became so much a part of me, that it was totally automatic by this time and I only had to pay attention to the correct sequence of steps, since by this time we were dancing some of the longer and more complicated dance standards and choreographed dances.

Yeah, stuff gets better when you stop thinking about it.

And of course when you no longer struggle with catching the correct split second when you should step, or stepping on your partner’s foot which also happens with beginners, your motions suddenly become natural and you REALLY ENJOY IT, BABY!

And practice your charming “I’m sorry, ma’am” smile.

Then you will start to get the natural feel and “personality” of each dance, because the English waltz is ethereal and otherworldly, samba is full of fire, cha-cha-cha is playful, rumba is a delicate and romantic Latin dance and so on.

I messed up English waltz steps with tango steps once. You know what was the funniest part? That no one noticed anyway.

Now if you find some dance classes and go together, your wife will thoroughly enjoy them because they teach a bunch of different dances, and you may also come to love dance as you learn it, just as I did. In my time (early 1990s) this is what we learned: rock and roll, jive, saloon dances including Viennese waltz, English waltz, Polka, and Latin American dances including samba, tango, mambo, cha-cha-cha, rumba. There was even more, but I have forgotten some. My favorites were the Latin dances and I LOVED cha-cha-cha and rumba. I may yet go back to some dance classes if I find the time!

Erm, do you need any further recommendation, dear Opening Poster? Try!

 

[Sillara]

I sympathize with the OP. I am a girl, and I would NEVER go clubbing without my husband, bachelorette party or not!

Now, I like to dance. I’m actually not too bad at dancing. My husband HATES to dance and never does. So I don’t dance. And that’s ok. I’d rather spend the time with him anyway. I agree that the whole “clubbing scene” does seem “off” in some way. The clothes, the atmosphere, the music, everything is conducive to randomly gyrating with whomever–not my idea of a good time.

My husband goes out with the guys every week. In fact, he’s out right now! But he is not clubbing. He and his friends go to a pub or two to drink a few beers, talk, and hang out. That is a much different thing, and it does not bother me. If he wanted to go clubbing, I would have more of a problem with it. Clubbing seems to me to be a very “singles” thing to do, and it is important (even–or especially?–as newlyweds) to work on forging shared bonds and interests.

I second (or fourth or whatever it is by now!) the suggestion to take dance lessons with your wife. I know I would LOVE to go dancing with my husband. By now, as we near our 12th anniversary, I know it will not happen. But that is all right; we have developed many shared hobbies over the years, and he is my favorite companion. I would rather spend time with him than with anyone else.

 

[Simon_X]

Hey 06Convert…hope I am not chiming in too late, but wanted to respond. I am a bit older than you, but I certainly remember my 20’s (I was single till I was 29). I would suggest you trust your wife, she sounds like a great gal and pretty level headed. I am thinking she just wants to have some fun with her friends and that’s not a bad thing. I am with you on dancing, not really my thing, but I hear occasionally how my wife wishes I would do this more with her. Sounds like you do have fun together, but again, it’s not necessarily a bad idea to loosen up a bit. God did create us to enjoy each other and friendships. Praise God you’re looking out for your wife and yourself in respect to proper behaviors, that says a lot about you as a Husband and as a man. Anyway, take care…

ps, I think we share the same town…

 

[maryjk]

I sympathize with the OP. I am a girl, and I would NEVER go clubbing without my husband, bachelorette party or not!

Now, I like to dance. I’m actually not too bad at dancing. My husband HATES to dance and never does. So I don’t dance. And that’s ok. I’d rather spend the time with him anyway. I agree that the whole “clubbing scene” does seem “off” in some way. The clothes, the atmosphere, the music, everything is conducive to randomly gyrating with whomever–not my idea of a good time.

My husband goes out with the guys every week. In fact, he’s out right now! But he is not clubbing. He and his friends go to a pub or two to drink a few beers, talk, and hang out. That is a much different thing, and it does not bother me. If he wanted to go clubbing, I would have more of a problem with it. Clubbing seems to me to be a very “singles” thing to do, and it is important (even–or especially?–as newlyweds) to work on forging shared bonds and interests.

I second (or fourth or whatever it is by now!) the suggestion to take dance lessons with your wife. I know I would LOVE to go dancing with my husband. By now, as we near our 12th anniversary, I know it will not happen. But that is all right; we have developed many shared hobbies over the years, and he is my favorite companion. I would rather spend time with him than with anyone else.

I see what your husband is doing as clubbing. I think it is just what you see it as. Clubbing is something singles do, what your husband is doing is just going out with the guys. I see both as clubbing, and neither is a problem. The wife here just wants to go out with her friends.

 

[06convert]

Thanks for all of the replies. Saturday has come and gone.

My wife went out and returned home safely.

I’m not sure why I worry so much, I guess like I said I know I can trust her, but I’m not sure if I can trust others especially the bar crowd.

Anyways. We went to mass before she went out, which really helped, she went from the sort of whatever happens attitude to a more “I have Christ inside me, I need to be a good example attitude”. Which I guess is what I wanted all along.

So she went out, said she had a good time, I kept myself occupied so I wouldn’t worry too much and all was good.

I’ve thought about dance lessons, I suppose we might do that someday, I’m not opposed to it. I do slow dance with her at weddings and stuff. (I can shuffle around with the best of them). It’s just the faster music I feel ridiculous hopping around to.

Simon, a fellow Nebraska man, nice to meet you!

 

[chevalier]

I’ve thought about dance lessons, I suppose we might do that someday, I’m not opposed to it. I do slow dance with her at weddings and stuff. (I can shuffle around with the best of them). It’s just the faster music I feel ridiculous hopping around to.

Get over being funny and you’ll start enjoying it too. BTW, the faster music can be danced with a lady too, not just hopping around on your own like you’re a rabbit on steroids. In fact, it’s very exciting that way. It takes more skill, but it can be far more exciting than slow dancing, too, so it pays off well.