A
female
age
41-50,
anonymous
writes:Is it ever ok for a married man to take another women out to lunch? My husband worked with this women but she recently got a different job. Well I just found out tonight that he talked to her online and ask her to have lunch with him sometime so they met up and he paid for her lunch also. He never told me about it I had to find out from another source. I want to know if iam over reacting or if I have a right to be upset? Why not ask your wife to lunch?
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male
reader, SeattleWill +, writes (15 October 2019):
No, it is not o.k. A group lunch is fine. One-on-one lunch is a date.
A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (15 September 2013): Why should he ask you to the lunch? Do you know her? Do you really think that just having lunch with someone makes you fall in love with them or want to sleep with them?? Or do you think that once married a man's only interaction with females should be limited to his wife and mother?
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (15 September 2013): Actually, the converse is true: it is *usually* OK for a married man to take a female friend out to lunch, whether paying for it or not (hey you invite someone to celebrate their occasion, courtesy says you pay). It is generally ok as the rule, the exception being if their relationship is not purely platonic or if one of them has non-platonic intentions.
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A
male
reader, Wild Thaing  +, writes (14 September 2013):
 You are afraid your man is straying and that makes you feel insecure. Hence the heavily loaded question, "Is it EVER ok?"
All you can hope for is that your man can respect the boundary that comes along with being married. Are you emotionally prepared and willing to tell him that you trust him to not cross that boundary? If not then I can see the beginnings of a all-consuming mistrust that destroys a marriage.
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A
female
reader, So_Very_Confused +, writes (12 September 2013):
 I don't see a problem with a married man taking a female co-worker who is leaving out for a congratulatory lunch and paying for it as a bon voyage gift.
hearing about it LONG after the fact would bug me... "why did you keep it a secret?" if the answer is anything along the lines of "because I know how you would misconstrue it" I can see the need to keep it on the down low
I would not be upset if my husband took a female or male co-worker to lunch...
he does not get upset when I as a bisexual woman have lunch with a girlfriend who pays my way...
why is it different?
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (12 September 2013): Concurring with most of the posters here that asking a co-worker to lunch to chat before she leaves the job is perfectly fine, and paying for her food is more of a "hey, congrats, it's on me" gesture than a potentially romantic one. Like honeypie put it, just because you got married, it's not like you died. I think too many Western people plan their own social funerals when nuptials are on the horizon, and I think that is horrifying. Maybe it's BECAUSE of this concept that he didn't tell you. Even if you'd give him a moderate amount of shit about it, I can see the avoidance mechanism kicking in even though his lunch was perfectly innocent. All you can do is say something like, "Hey, babe, you know I don't mind you hanging out with friends or people from work, just curious if the fact that you didn't tell me about lunch with _____ has any significance." Say it like you're talking about the weather, and you'll probably get a straight answer.
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (12 September 2013): Honey pie answered that in full...hiding information from your wife is not ok, if its innocent then there isn't anything to hide...unless its something not quite right.
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A
male
reader, dougbcoll +, writes (12 September 2013):
 " is it ever ok for a married man to take another woman out for lunch?"
my answer is how i look at it. i will not go out to lunch with a woman if i am by my self. i believe the same should apply for a woman to not go out to lunch with another man, if they are alone.
my reason is my values of not letting temptation, opening my self up for an affair to happen. not letting a chemistry build between myself and another woman.
in any affair a spark has to start the fire at someplace, and time. when to people start opening their hearts up and letting the other in, that's when the fires start burning.
this is my view and my way of safe guarding myself.
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (12 September 2013): Taking a co-worker out to lunch before they left for their new job would be perfectly fine and acceptable I would think.Where it went wrong was not him talking to you about it in general converstaion. "Honey, one of my co-workers is leaving and I thought it would be nice to take her out to lunch before she leaves". Simple.Instead he didn't say a word, communicated with her outside of work followed through and still didn't say anything. Regardless if there is absolutely nothing behind any of it, he was terribly wrong to keep it to himself because now it makes him look like he has something to hide. So now the question is why?He should know better, and yes you have a right to be upset about it. This is not about asking his wife out to lunch, so keep that out of it. This was about a co-worker and why he went about something gracious in the manner that he did. If you turn this into he took HER out to lunch and he doesn't take me, well, you will get absolutely no where and he will not understand what went wrong.
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A
female
reader, loony89 +, writes (12 September 2013):
it is OK for a married man to have lunch with a woman in some cases. it just depends on the context, for example, an old friend, for business, for work related things. Notice how all these things are totally normal and he should have had no problem sharing it with you before they happen. For that same reason, if you found out from someone else, this is not the case. so many questions, why did you have to find out from someone else? why is he hiding it? why the hell did he pay for her?? you have all the right to be upset and make it clear that you are not upset about the act itself but about the lies and not coming clean about it. Talk to him about it and see what he says. You should be able to tell if he honestly just forgot to mention it or he expected you never to find out about it..
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A
female
reader, Honeypie + ♥, writes (12 September 2013):
 If he is hiding it from you, then I don't think it's a great idea. The fact that they are talking online and he's not telling you that either, means ( and this is a guess) that he has something to hide.
Now it could be that they still network, even if she has moved job, but I can't see if it's JUST about work why he didn't mention it to you.
In general though, I DO think you can ask a co-worker or friend of the opposite gender out to lunch even if you are a married person. You (general you) got married, you didn't die. It's not like you can ONLY eat lunch/dinner with your spouse from the moment you married.
Have you asked him why he didn't tell you about it?
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