SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Ozzy
To me the key factor in your original post is this sentence:
My W was out for a work dinner recently

WORK DINNER

Being harassed at work-related events is the same as being harassed in a meeting or at the water-cooler and is totally unacceptable.
If your wife were to make any change in how to prevent these situations then the solution is not by dressing down or staying in the shadows and corners, but to REPORT this coworker to her superior. Just like she might if he fondled her behind while she was photocopying.

BTW Ozzy – some of the replies on this thread really validate the title you selected…

BTW Ozzy – some of the replies on this thread really validate the title you selected… grin

Bigger, FTW!

I can honestly say I've never agreed with you more.

Mas..I've had to protect myself from a man. I've never needed a man to protect me. I carry. Legally, of course. I can protect myself. And my husband, if need be.

Wow, have opened a hornet's nest here while I was sleeping haven't I!

Too much to respond to individually but @Bigger I already mentioned the work thing has been reported so won't go further on that.
And agreed on the thread title!!!

@Maserati a very odd way to introduce yourself to the site. No posts about your own story and then to wade in like this won't get you far. I don't claim to be an old timer here but the way you have spoken to people is not on. There are people on this thread who have their beefs with me but it is generally respectful and I wouldn't ever speak to them you way have. Sounds like mods are dealing with this anyway.

So to the main point... this thread is NOT about my situation. My situation is getting better. @HF think you must be thinking of someone else, haven't commented on my direct situation for a while. Part of us improving is returning to normal life. Part of that is GNOs for her, gigs (generally) for me. Would love to do more together but we have kids! But we have had fun nights out together as well FWIW. She has, and always will be, allowed to do what she likes. She can dress how she likes. I have never, and will never, feel threatened by her going on a GNO. She is out to have fun. If she interacts with males (who make up half of the population) then that is fine. She has always known how to deal with the attention she gets, nothing has changed there.

The crux is in the past she would have thought it was playful banter for the most part (as I said, there are occasions where I chat to females on nights out, I also shouldn't have to avoid half the population). But the one outcome from our situation which has changed is questioning people's general motives (again note general, I am not trying to be specific here). To have 2 similar situations in a short amount of time is depressing, and it made me wonder just how commonplace it all is.

Thankfully it seems like my thoughts are mostly agreed with.

TLDR: People of both sexes should be able to enjoy themselves however the hell they want without feeling under pressure from anyone.

Ah the hypocrisy. Wife deserves the freedom to dress up, have fun and go to bars. But she can do that with no guilt taking away another woman’s freedom to be in a honest marriage. Damn, how you both sleep at night is beyond me. And yeah I agree people = sh*t!

[This message edited by Abalone123 at 5:43 PM, Thursday, March 21st]

https://www.survivinginfidelity.com/topics/662361/you-dont-have-to-post/

I'm confused Abalone.

Are you referring to women who go out and pick up married men and thus hurt the betrayed wife?

I think that is what you are saying.

No one here is saying that is ok. Trolling for married men is wrong. Whether it's in a bar or at work or at the mall.

HF think you must be thinking of someone else, haven't commented on my direct situation for a while

Mmm..no. It was you. I checked after I posted. I'm not going to break a guideline by getting specific. Anyone who wants to know, can look up your recent posts.

I think the problem here has not been recognized.

We have one person posting gender-based generalization after gender-based generalization getting support from people who aren't seeing or who are supporting the gender-based generalizations. We have another person saying she would not accept that from her H, which is about her, not a gender-based generalization.

Gender-based generalizations are violations of guidelines.

IMO, minimizing generalizing is a good way to go, because there are always variations that are best taken into account. Some decisions are, surprisingly or not, made by women.

Further, gender-based generalization are rarely valid. I've worked with people of varying levels of competence. Even though my field was always related to IT, I found that some women were more competent than some men, as impossible as that may sound. I believe I did well because I relied on competence as much as I could, and on prejudices as little as I could.

The 'one decision maker' proposition is pretty ludicrous. Any smart CEO knows they don't know enough about everything to make every decision. One of the keys to making good decisions is having good advisors and knowing each advisor's strengths and weaknesses (and knowing one's own strengths and weaknesses), so good CEOs rarely make decisions on their own.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 9:46 PM, Thursday, March 21st]

Sacredsoul33: Your wish is my command. I have heard that women dress to impress other women. I am not going to argue that point. But what also guides women's choice of dress (men for that matter) is the venue they will attend. A woman will dress differently if she is going to play bridge at a friend's house as opposed to going to a nightclub. Same with men.

Now, you might retort that women are still dressing for their female companions who are accompanying them to the club. That is PART of it, but I suspect there are other reasons such as wishing to fit in with the other patrons and the desire to be admired by both men and women. That is not a function of being a woman. It is human nature. An extreme but relevant example is the following: Assume you and your friends decided to go to a club dressed in sweats. Assuming they let you in, you would probably feel out of place and a little self-conscious about your choice of dress. You may have impressed your girlfriends with your choice of chic workout clothes to wear, but you also may wish you made a different choice of attire, given the circumstances.

I, personally, ponder what to wear when invited to dinner at someone else's home. I don't want to be a slob but I don't wish to overdress. My choice is not dictated by dressing for a particular gender but to look nice and respectable. Who hasn't gone to a wedding where someone is so inappropriately dressed that they become a spectacle? Who is that person dressing for?

But, the bottom line is that women and men who go clubbing generally dress to impress and it isn't just for their friends.

I do agree that what SRC wrote does apply to a subset of women. In my college days/ early twenties I did want to impress other people and have men look at me.

After I got married, my h and I would go out dancing. I wore some of the same stuff, but it was genuinely because I wanted to be sexy for him.

As time went along, I felt less comfortable in those places in general. But if I went out for a girlfriends birthday and that’s what she picked, I dressed probably more to feel good about myself. I can honestly say I had great boundaries, and was there only to spend time with my friends and let my hair down. I wasn’t ever one to really oogle guys.

I now go out in normal clothes, usually jeans and a nice shirt, though rarely do my friends pick clubs anymore. We are older. We might go out for trivia, an art walk, or listen to a band/karaoke, or some other thing like that. And I did have on sweatpants the last time I went. But I hadn’t felt well and I was just rallying so I could get some girl time.

I say to expand the idea some might have about girls night out. It’s not a one sized fits all term.

My affair started at work. The majority of affairs start at work or on the internet/social media or with someone you already know

Google it if you don’t believe me.

Why?

Because by and large, most women aren’t out looking for random penis. That’s not to say they don’t exist, or that no one starts an affair on a GNO. I can think of a few bs’s who are here because their wife’s GNO. Most women who are ws here that I have met over the last seven years had emotional affairs first or some connection with the person they cheated with. There are women who will cheat for sex purposes and will pick up a randoms but they are more rare than what a lot of people posting are claiming..

Keep in mind also most of us aren’t going to start an affair in front of their friends. While some women have friends that might condone their affair, I don’t have a single one who would. Which to me means that I would be more concerned about the wife getting rid of enablers than restricting her movements to be with friends.

Just some food for thought. I don’t think you are wrong, a lot of women in clubs like to go look hot and know they have still got it. I had an affair to feel like I still had it. But the scenarios that are floating in this thread is just a big ole generalization. There is no size fits all scenario. That’s why I think it’s up to the couple on what the boundaries are.

I was allowed to go out with my friends even in the early days after dday. I just didn’t go often because none of them knew what was happening and it was hard to pretend to be happy. I felt my time was better spent at home with him or working on myself. And to me that brings up the other true concern to have about GNO. There shouldn’t be a ton of time for those at least until your marriage has stabilized.

[This message edited by hikingout at 10:46 PM, Thursday, March 21st]

To say that they are only dressing for the other women in the group is total bullshit. You are in an environment that exudes a certain sexual vibe that you don't get at a Laker game (unless you are at courtside). That doesn't mean that married women go there with the express purpose to cheat and it doesn't mean that married women will necessarily succumb to temptation. But if women make it a habit of spending GNOs in such establishments, then there is a more likely chance that boundaries will be crossed eventually. Boundaries can be crossed anywhere, but the chance of that happening rises on GNOs at nightclubs.

You weren't speaking to societal norms of dressing appropriately for the occasion in the above post. You were plainly asserting that women who dress up do so to garner the sexual attention of others and that it's "total bullshit" that we're only dressing up to impress our friends. As the ones who are in possession of women's brains, women's bodies, many women friends, and women's (appropriate-for-the-occasion) wardrobe, how 'bout you let the women tell you men how many of us think?

ETA: Like hiking out just did. Well said.

Edited again because I'm exasperated and salty.

[This message edited by SacredSoul33 at 10:31 PM, Thursday, March 21st]

"This site as well as others is a clear reflection that relationships in western society are not in a great place, and something should be done to correct that."

This reads as passport bro speech to me. Very disappointing, and disconcerting.

Typically husbands aren’t out here dying on the frontlines of matrimony.

.

The best line ever!

I'm going to spend the rest of my evening trying to visualize the front line of matrimony. It would probably make an awesome video game!

Of all the types of explosive threads on SI, the "battle of sexes" threads are perhaps the most tiresome.

But since we're going at it anyway, here's my personal observation: the men who tend to be the most demanding of subservience from women tend be the least deserving of it, mainly because they have a poor concept of what the sacrifices of leadership entail and feel that respect is something to which they are entitled, not something they must earn.

One size does not fit all. But I will stick to the premise that married women who frequent clubs without their mates do not dress solely for their female companions. There are a number of reasons. Sacretsoul33: Unless you can show me reliable polling on the issue, I am not going to buy your premise. We can agree to disagree and I will leave it at that. But before I leave, I'd like to bring up a story on SI not too long ago about a married couple in their early thirties with two young children.

The wife is, according to the husband, a captivating (a former beauty pageant contestant) woman who loved to dress provocatively. She made a habit of going out to dinner and clubbing with a single girlfriend a couple of times a month while the husband babysat the children. The husband became quite concerned with this behavior, especially the mode of dress his wife chose to wear. To make a long story short, the wife eventually crossed a boundary that she should not have. It included slow dancing with strange men and finding herself as another man's "date" one evening. Her husband found out and was, understandably not happy. They worked it out when the story ended. The wife made some concessions but refused to change her style of dress. Unfortunately, the OP was barred from providing further updates.

Clearly, the wife in the story did not dress for the girlfriend when going clubbing. She dressed for herself and it would be a pretty good guess that she did it for the attention. Does this apply to all married women who go clubbing? No. But if a woman frequents these places periodically (not just one time), it is a good bet that she is not dressing solely for her female companions. Not to say she consciously is looking to hook up but, like the woman in the story I cite, other considerations go into the choice of dress. Secretsoul33: I am not going to dispute your intentions or the intentions of your girlfriends when you dress to go clubbing without your spouses. I'll take your word for it. But I am not willing to concede that this is a general principle that married women who frequent clubs without their husbands follow.

Are you referring to women who go out and pick up married men and thus hurt the betrayed wife?

I think that is what you are saying.

No one here is saying that is ok. Trolling for married men is wrong. Whether it's in a bar or at work or at the mall.

Hmm yeah you would think. There are women who think otherwise. The entitled selfish heart wants what it wants.

Honestly, it's as if we're being told..if a woman dresses in a way that a man perceives as sexy..then she's asking for it. "It" could be any number of things. At the very least..male attention. And men,some men that is, feel entitled to give it to her,because HE decides that's what she's after.

Ick.

[This message edited by HellFire at 2:48 AM, Friday, March 22nd]

Wow, this thread de escalated quickly.

First generalizations are frowned upon here. More importantly, they tend to be very inaccurate.

WTS, to the folks not female saying what women do and why we do it, maybe sit down and take notes from actual women. SOME women go out dressing for attention from men (or women if that's your cup of tea, zero judgment), but most women passed college age don't. I cannot speak for every woman, but considering I have several sisters and women friends, I can vouch for most of my tribe/us, we dress for ourselves. Sometimes, but more rarely, our women friends. Sometimes we'll wear something special for our special someone.

I went to the club from the time it was legal until my mid 30s. The majority of the time it was because I LOVE dancing and I loved socializing. It's a great way to meet interesting people quickly and to fund a great dance partner. I was stationed at Fort Bragg where there were just too many men. Getting hit on got old quick. I learned quickly to go with at LEAST 4 other men in the mixed group from my unit so I could have plenty of males to come to my aid and pretend to be my boyfriend or husband to NOT get attention from the horny men (cough assholes) who thought women were there to get their unwanted attention. It never ceases to amaze me how many dumbasses still think like this, but there you have it. I can count on one hand how many times, of the probably hundred times, I went to a club or bar wanting male attention for a harmless ego boost. However, I have lost count how many times I've gone and danced until they closed the club down and last call had been made over a half hour before. In my 20s, I went just about every weekend night that I wasn't in the field. In my 30s, it slowed down significantly. I had a very fit figure in my 20s and 30s, I never needed some man's attention to give me an ego boost, I had a mirror.

Do some men go to bars/clubs to pick up women, absolutely. Do some women go for attention, absolutely. However, it is offensive as hell to have someone tell me why I'm doing something, especially when they're dead wrong.

OP yeah it sucks that women go out for some harmless socializing with their women friends and get repeatedly harassed after they've made it very clear they aren't interested. I have a few Army brothers, so I've personally witnessed it happening to them too, but statistically it happens way more often to women. Ok,I'll hop down off my soap box now.

[This message edited by StillLivin at 4:15 PM, Friday, March 22nd]

@Hellfire can't see anything in 2024 that you might be talking about... I had a wobble on the anniversary of stuff happening so maybe a cryptic message I sent made you think things were not great?

Anyway can only assume that you're saying that in concern so thanks.

It was a thread in the Wayward forum.

You did say it had recently taken a turn for the better. I'm happy to hear that.

I'm sorry my offhand/off topic comment wishing you well has deterred from the subject of this thread. I think what's being said, by women,in this thread is important. And, clearly, something some men need to hear. So let please drop it,and get back to the subject at hand. After all..you thought it important enough to start this thread.