Ugh! So mad at my husband!

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My husband is a hard worker, good man, not a cheater, etc… but today I am so angry with him I could scream. He had a perfectly good job in my hometown, and elected to take a new position here in Philadelphia. I agreed to the move, but did place certain conditions on the acceptance of the position, which he accepted in writing. (we are both compliance people in the securities industry, so contracts, agreements, etc… are pretty much just part of our nature) He has disregarded most of them, or they are no longer applicable, but today is the final straw.

One of the items on my list is that he would not go to lunch or dinner with any single or unhappily married woman at any time, unaccompanied. He has hired a new secretary, and yesterday he told me that he would need to use my car, “because his was out of gas.” It didn’t click at the time, but he has a 1 mile drive to the office, money in his bank account, etc… so being out of gas really isn’t important.

So today, he went to work, and called me 15 minutes ago to let me know he was taking his new, unmarried secretary out to lunch. I told him that this was a violation of our contract and he said, "yep, but I thought you could join us for lunch Uh… I work from home and he knows that most days I don’t shower/dress until my work is done and the apartment is picked up and he was leaving for lunch right then. Obviously he knew he would be going, and he wanted my car because it is nicer, cleaner, etc… He always takes my car when he has a business meeting or people to drive.

I ended up hanging up on him. After thinking about this for a while, I decided to call him back and tell him he could do whatever he wanted, but that because he has broken the conditions of our moving agreement, I am breaking the conditions of our marriage agreement, namely, though I will be faithful, friendly, etc… I will no longer do the pain in the neck things for him that I do now like running his dry cleaning on an emergency basis to the cleaners or ironing a shirt at the last minute, or fetching him a “treat” even though he is 3 feet from the teeny tiny kitchen in the teeny tiny apartment. But here I sit still seething with anger. I guess expressing my anger didn’t do the trick.

Here’s the deal. I am an insecure wife. I had 3 previous, serious boyfriends cheat on me. I don’t actually think that my husband would cheat, but it is troublesome to me if he has new female friends (not the kind he grew up with but new, attractive, work friends) and he spends time with them rather than with me. I’ve lived here for 2 months and despite asking him to lunch several times, we’ve never gone. He knows how all of this bothers me but repeatedly just chooses to ignore it.

I guess this is mostly a vent, but I would appreciate thoughts about how you handle these types of feelings and if I am just being totally out of line here. I am PMS’ing pretty badly, and although I wouldn’t admit it to him, it could just be that I am on edge. I’m not going to call and yell at him any more today, or email him (though both of these thoughts have crossed my mind more than I’d like to admit) but I have a feeling that I’ll still be angry by the time he gets home.
 
+JMJ

Here is my small but ignorant suggestion. I would actually get up and get dressed and go meet your husband so you can meet this new unmarried secratary. That way it would resolve two issues one the insecurity that you feel would be alivated by meeting this woman and it would be a way to emphasise to your husband how important this contract is and maybe even explain it to the new secretary what this contract is. She may not even know you feel this way and most likely the new secratary doesn’t even know about it and doing this innocently.
 
In my business experience, it would be impossible to avoid lunch with unmarried people. There are times when lunch is part of work culture,

As for “unhappily married”, well, I learned a long time ago to keep business business and leave personal lives out of the picture. Aside from light conversations about kids grades or ball scores, we leave our internal family issues at the front door. I have no need or desire to know if my employees, boss or coworkers have marriage problems… in fact, there are some HR guidelines to that effect.

Perhaps learing what your husband’s company policy is about fraternization, they work that into your “contract”. Do not bring up your personal contract to his co-workers, bad bad idea.

Also, you might think about the idea of making your husband pay for the sins of your other boyfriends… That, and pray LOTS and LOTS!
 
Good ideas everybody.

I should clarify that my husband is only not allowed to go to lunch ALONE with single females. I’ve worked in his industry for 10 years and have never had a time when I would have had to go to lunch ALONE with a single male. I would never bring the contract up to his coworkers. Most of what is in the contract had to do with the period of time when we were separated regarding me getting phone calls, notes, anyway.

I wish I could say that I’m punishing DH for the sins of my ex-boyfriends but unfortunately I think I’m punishing him for his own sins. This situation would not have been a big deal if he had explained to me yesterday that he would like to take his new secretary out to lunch and that he would like to know if I would join him or if he should find another work friend to accompany them.

Instead, he made me feel betrayed by lying about the reason he was taking the car and waiting until the last minute to call me. He also makes me question his motives by doing this sort of thing. He tends to lie when he feels that I won’t be happy with what he has to say… I’m not sure why, I usually have a very calm voice, direct manner, and quickly simmer down even when I’m really mad. I’ve never hit him, called him names or anything else like that. Today for instance, I’m almost done being ticked off at him.
 
Keep praying for him - and maybe you can dress up and pop into his office tomorrow, surprise him by bringing lunch 🙂
 
I think lying is always wrong (okay, we aren’t talking about Gestapo asking where the Jews are…) and probably always a sign of a bigger problem. I don’t think your husband has something bad in mind, since what kind of man would borrow the wife’s car to impress a single young woman?

However, of course, there’s always the wondering why the choice to have a lunch the secretary. Then again, I don’t know what the work looks like, so maybe it’s just some kind of natural eating with the most immediate coworker? I can tell you I wouldn’t have a problem with my wife acting like that if I were married and she showed me enough affection and devotion. But if she didn’t show me that or if she gave me any reasons to be jealous, I certainly would have a problem with such lunches. As a rule, I’m a bit like you: no problem with old friends, not comfortable with new friends taking up a lot of time.

Maybe you could explain to him how the situation is making you feel, even along with the PMS? A good guy should be understanding of his wife or even girlfriend in such a situation. I don’t think making him sign things he doesn’t feel like signing or keeping solves anything. It only breaks his character by making him sign things he will break, I think. Additionally, with all respect, do you make sure that the conditions are proportional for both of you? Or is it a list of don’ts for him? Maybe he doesn’t want to hurt you either way but the situation is unbearable to him? If I were in his shoes, I think I would feel somehow oppressed or demeaned, I honestly have to say. Note that I don’t have a shade of a problem with having a lunch with a single person for non-romantic purposes, so maybe I just differ here from your society - although my own is pretty conservative as well (we’re talking Poles…). I tend to think that trust between spouses builds them both up and adds to them, makes them both better persons. Granted, I’ve never been married, but I’ve been through a host of jealousy problems. The best I’ve felt has been with a girl whom I could trust, but well, I trusted her.
 
Chovy said:
Good ideas everybody.

I should clarify that my husband is only not allowed to go to lunch ALONE with single females…
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Sorry…but I have to wonder whether you feel you are this man’s mother or his wife. This wording makes you sound like either a) an over-the-top control freak or b) wildly and irrationally insecure.
This situation would not have been a big deal if he had explained to me yesterday that he would like to take his new secretary out to lunch and that he would like to know if I would join him or if he should find another work friend to accompany them.
Instead, he made me feel betrayed by lying about the reason he was taking the car and waiting until the last minute to call me. He also makes me question his motives by doing this sort of thing. He tends to lie when he feels that I won’t be happy with what he has to say…
Click to expand...
THIS sounds like a much more rational explanation of why you were both hurt and made to feel suspicious. I think if you can CALMLY explain this to your husband as you have here, he would have a chance to consider his own behaviour and its consequnces instead of reacting like a school kid who’s been caught skipping class and is about to be grounded. The habit described in the last line quoted above would be of concern to me too,* unless* you are not being completely honest with yourself about the magnitude of your negative reactions to him.
 
If my wife presented me with a contract telling me who I could and couldn’t have lunch with, I’d have a hard time not rolling around on the floor laughing at her temerity while at the same time being offended at her lack of trust.

– Mark L. Chance.
 
I have been married 34+ years. Yours sounds more like a business arrangement rather than a marriage.

Most of the problems we have had in our marriage could probably have been avoided if we had heard the Marriage Prep talks given by this priest… trueteaching.net/Other/ (down the page a little)

I recommend you and your husband listen to hem together and, after each one, DISCUSS them as they apply to you and your situation!
 
I think your anger and expression of it is premature. It does sound like you have issues of insecurity that are your’s to deal with and not your husband’s.

He deserves to have a wife that is not bringing her baggage to the marriage - though it is hard to do, I understand. But this is your demon to fight. Ask God to help move you out of your past pain and hurt.
 
Ok ok ok I should explain the contract. I just moved from Omaha, Nebraska, where I have lived my entire life, to Philadelphia for my husband’s job. My husband desperately wanted this job. We were foster parents at the time we were making the decision and hoping to adopt, so we chose to have separate lives in separate towns due to the fact that we could not both move out of the state and keep our foster baby. This was for an indefinite period of time. It could have been for a week, or it could have been for 5 years, it could have been for 10 years. It ended up being for 3 months and our foster baby is now back with her birth parents and not getting adopted by us.

My husband is a “Grass is always greener” kind of guy. Before I agreed to move my business, sell our house, live in separate and very very distant home for an indefinite period of time, parent by myself, leave my friends, family, parish, and everything I’ve known for the past 32 years, I asked him to be certain that this is what he wanted, and asked if he would agree to certain conditions.

He asked me to type them up and said he would agree to whatever I wanted. Some were material items, like a ring upgrade for our 5 year anniversary. Some were other types of things like that we would pay off some debt. Most were things like him agreeing to have a one hour phone call with me each day with no interruptions, and that we would write each other once a week. He didn’t have anything he wanted of me other than for me to let him take the job, and it wasn’t my idea to type something up. I did want something said beforehand though because I didn’t want either of our expectations to be vague.

As far as the lunches went, I know myself well enough to know that I would have been having a pity/jealous party for myself back in Omaha if we were separated (by distance, not our marriage) for a year or more and he was regularly dining with ladies, or going to their homes for dinner and I was caring for a house and a baby by myself. I guess whatever a couple agrees to is what they should do, but for us, it has caused problems in the past when he was dining out with a friend who was female, a knockout, dated married men previously, and sent him gifts. I didn’t want any problems like that, and especially not cross country.

Long and short of the whole darn thing is I called him back today. We spoke generally about some things. Then, I told him I was still angry and that I was unhappy that he had lied. He said he didn’t lie but that he understood why I was unhappy. We are back to being happily married.

He took someone else with the girl to lunch. He understands my insecurities and frustration. He also knows, which I didn’t mention on here, that I am in our temporary housing with a washer and dryer that can handle 3 items at a time and a dishwasher that sounds like a freight train 3 feet from the table on which I run my business with no car and nowhere to go. I’m also in a pretty dark mood due to losing our foster baby, having to pay $10000 for surgery that our insurance should have paid for, being permanently infertile, requiring more surgery that our insurance doesn’t want to pay for (another $40-50,000), moving across the country, having no friends here, no parish that I belong in, and nowhere to go. Oh, and did I mention the PMS?😛
 
If my husband did what yours did today I would not only be very hurt but livid. I think it all boils down to: RESPECT.
He is not respecting you EVEN IF he “lies” to avoid hurting your feelings. Because in reality he is really just avoiding truly dealing with the issue at hand.

It seems to me from reading your posts that you and your husband have a communication problem. Sometimes the tendency is to focus so much on the “issues” that the real problem of communicating to DEAL with those issues is lost.

I would highly recommend you get Dr. Laura Schlessinger’s book, “The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands.” And her new one “The Proper Care and Feeding of Marriage.”
Both of you should read each of them.
You will be amazed at what comes to light for you and your relationship with your husband.
It just might be that unbeknownst to YOU - you are not meeting his needs and he has no idea how to let you know that. It is VERY common. These books (especially the first one mentioned) are real eye openers and by the testimony of thousands of women - it has changed their marriage into a true love affair with their spouse again. 👍
 
Hello,

I understand the upset this has caused you. My husband of 15 years is in a management position and often will go out to lunch with people who work with/for him and sometimes an occasional potential new business associate. We have a clear agreement about not spending time alone with someone of the opposite sex. His best friend from high school happens to be a female and this is the only exception as she is a friend of the family and I trust my husband to the core. If he wants to reward a female employee for a job well done, he either takes her out with another person as well, or buys her something while out and brings it back with him. We both figure, “Why put yourself in an unnecessary position if it isn’t a matter of life or death?” I reciprocate equally, and this is more difficult for me. I work part time in a business that is 95% men. I have never once accepted an offer to have one buy me lunch, take me to lunch, etc. I am always gracious for the offer, but a simply no thank you works great.

I am not sure how this lunch was important as it wasn’t about closing a business deal and certainly the security of his job was not at stake. My suggestion is to do your best to let your anger dissolve a bit and let him know how this has hurt you. If you speak from pain and not anger, I think he’ll probably be more receptive.

God bless you for all the sacrifices it appears you have made for your family,

Kelly
 
I think it is perfectly okay for an employee to take a new employee with whom he or she must work closely out to lunch. Once. Maybe once month even. I wouldn’t care if my husband did that.

Have you perhaps created a situation where your husband almost has to lie to you?

My dear, I am afraid you really cannot forbid your husband to do anything because he is an adult, and he cannot sign his adult status away in your contracts. This bargaining thing seems a little odd. Counseling would surely be useful.
 
Thank you, Chovy, for clarification. It surely sounds less odd now, but maybe try to talk it out with him? Consider how things are making each of you feel? For example, you’re quite entitled to his support in a situation like this one and he’s quite entitled to some trust when he goes on a business lunch. I don’t think it takes anything from the dignity of the wife if the husband has a lunch with a single woman and I don’t think a wife or husband is in the position to allow or forbid something. With all respect and kindness (and I would really hate to hurt you), I would freak out if I were married and my wife talked about allowing me something. I would instantly think she saw herself as my superior, which would be very hard for me to take and impossible to accept. Maybe if you want him not to do something try to convince him out of it instead of laying down some law even in agreement with him? I think he will sign anything to make you happier, but he still wants some life. I know this may be hard for you, since I myself have been told I was suffocating my ex (not like I didn’t get the same feeling from her at other times), even if I don’t consider myself a controlling person. I’ll pray for you.
 
Good points everybody. I think I flew off the handle and my husband thinks he should have talked it over with me.

It was interesting reading all of the suggestions and some of you are right in that I need to look at this from a different perspective. Others made good points about improving our communication and some useful books or counseling, and I also appreciate those of you who could more easily see my side of the situation and just empathized.

Some of the words I used didn’t accurately reflect our arrangement but I think most of you get the gist of the situation. I am not generally a raving lunatic and my husband is generally a very loving man. Thanks again. I am in a much better mood now and am no longer mad at my husband. I always appreciate those of you who are more even tempered and rational than I am.

Oh- and about the parish, in our new Archdiocese we have to belong to the one where we live. It is more liberal than I generally like, and we are actively looking for a house. Most of our house search is based on parishes that we find that we like, and I have gotten some good advice here. Our current parish has no clubs/social activities for people who have no kids or who fit into the post-youth group/pre-senior citizen age group.
 
Okay call me crazy but I do not think a married man has any reason to take any other woman to lunch alone. As she is his secretary any business that needs to be conducted can be done at the office, this was a social lunch and not a business one. My husband had an affair 6 years ago and I can tell you that we BOTH learned alot from that and number one is you need to protect your marriage and not put yourself in situations that may lead to temptation , despite how much you’d think…‘Oh, I’d never do something like that.’ We now have a clear understanding about not spending time alone with someone of the opposite sex. If you want to affair proof your marriage, it’s important to draw a line and then stay a safe distance behind it. We have to guard our hearts.
 
I’m sorry for your situation…you sound like you’re sad, to a degree…and disappointed, and rightfully so. I think that it’s also very brave of you to share that you know you are an insecure woman. It helps when we don’t beat around the bush of who we are, and what our limits are.

All that being said, your request to not have your husband dining with unmarried women (frankly, there’s no reason to be dining along with married women, either…they cheat, too, don’t forget) is perfectly acceptable.

I have always admired Billy Graham. And he actually had a pact with himself and others in his office, that he would never be in his office with the door closed, or out in public with a woman, alone. Married or otherwise. He did this for several reasons…first, he was aware of his sinful nature, and men and women are human, and can be tempted to do things in vulnerable, compromising situations–why even put one’s self into a comprimising situation, you know? Second, he didn’t want to bring ‘scandal’ upon himself or his wife. Good advice, I must say!

I would calmly discuss things with your husband, and explain the Billy Graham example above. It’s not just you, it’s a moral way of thinking.

I wish you luck-but be careful. Don’t let your insecurities consume you. God made you special. Your husband loves you, and you love him. Trust in God, and just have a nice talk with your husband. Good luck.
 
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