Opposite Sex Coworker Social Boundaries

cyc0sys · Oct 24, 2018

cyc0sys,
How did your wife respond to the party cancellation news?

Relieved, in a word.

cyc0sys · Oct 24, 2018

As you seem to be well read...or at least try to come off that way, how could you confuse sarcasm with pretentiousness? Yes, you are coming off very pretentious. You came to a group of strangers and called your wife's feelings irrational with no empathy for her feelings. I think my husband's jealous feelings are sometimes irrational, but I empathize with him because the feeling of jealousy sucks. Your partner needs empathy and reassurance. If it's an ongoing issue, then you go to counseling. You don't have to take obnoxious behavior in the meantime, but there's a better way of dealing with it instead of dismissing her feelings. You should care about your wife's feelings. Irrational or not. And help her get help if it's a mental health issue.

Naahh, I'm good with sarcasm. So I guess we'll agree to disagree.

Orion81RN · Oct 24, 2018

Naahh, I'm good with sarcasm. So I guess we'll agree to disagree.

Not sure what you are disagreeing with. My sarcasm reply was a question. Is it that I called your posts pretentious? Of course we'll disagree on that. That's what pretentious people do. Is it that you disagree with the rest of my post? That you should care about your wife's feelings, regardless if they are irrational and that it can be handled better than dismissing her feelings? You stated you were doing so. You stated that will not cater to her irrational feelings. That is dismissive. So what exactly are you disagreeing with? Because the vast majority of people on this thread hold the same thoughts regarding this. Based off both comments and likes to those comments.

It's not my marriage, so no sweat off my back if you disagree. To your credit, it's great you cancelled the event. I simply don't think any reasonable person would disagree that you could have handled it better, for the sake of your marriage, when you initially told your wife that only women would be coming to her home. You were dismissive. That being unhealthy is indisputable.

cyc0sys · Oct 24, 2018

Not sure what you are disagreeing with. My sarcasm reply was a question. Is it that I called your posts pretentious? Of course we'll disagree on that. That's what pretentious people do. Is it that you disagree with the rest of my post? That you should care about your wife's feelings, regardless if they are irrational and that it can be handled better than dismissing her feelings? You stated you were doing so. You stated that will not cater to her irrational feelings. That is dismissive. So what exactly are you disagreeing with? Because the vast majority of people on this thread hold the same thoughts regarding this. Based off both comments and likes to those comments.
It's not my marriage, so no sweat off my back if you disagree. To your credit, it's great you cancelled the event. I simply don't think any reasonable person would disagree that you could have handled it better, for the sake of your marriage, when you initially told your wife that only women would be coming to her home. You were dismissive. That being unhealthy is indisputable.

My post was in fact dismissive, because it reflected my frustration regarding the situation. We discussed the issue ad nausea as all couples married do. Someone as empathetic and non-judgmental, as yourself, would do better to read between the lines.

My intention was to gain a deeper understanding from an external view point. If you're bandwagon deductive reasoning skills are correct, it all seems to boil down to jealous, communication, and trust.

I don't buy that. So I'll be paddling my own canoe, pretentiously, into the setting sun of this dying post.

Farawyn · Oct 25, 2018

My post was in fact dismissive, because it reflected my frustration regarding the situation. We discussed the issue ad nausea as all couples married do. Someone as empathetic and non-judgmental, as yourself, would do better to read between the lines.
My intention was to gain a deeper understanding from an external view point. If you're bandwagon deductive reasoning skills are correct, it all seems to boil down to jealous, communication, and trust.
I don't buy that. So I'll be paddling my own canoe, pretentiously, into the setting sun of this dying post.

"Your"

*runs*

Daisy4RN · Oct 25, 2018

Relieved, in a word.

I am glad that you and your wife have worked out this issue! Marriage is too precious to not learn how to meet in the middle, sometimes you get your way, and sometimes she gets her way. I have been married a long time and this is a fine art to master but well worth it. I wish you both the best!

BeenThere2012, ASN, RN · Oct 25, 2018

To your last question...No! I think your wife is being inreasonable.

LouDogg, BSN, RN · Oct 29, 2018

I respect my wife's feelings, 25 years at this would have ended it long ago if it were otherwise. But I have no intention of catering to illogical fear and irrational gender bias. If the situation was reversed, my mindset would not change.
Is this some type of unspoken and overstepped Opposite Sex Coworker Social Boundary infringement I missed?

This has nothing to do with coworker boundaries and everything to do with your marital issues. If you did truly respect your wife's feelings, my opinion is, you wouldn't consider honoring those feelings as "catering to illogical fear and irrational gender bias."

I think that mindset is going to create a permanent dissociation and inability to actually consider her feelings or how you should react/honor them. These are old coworkers and really have no place in your future if you are off to work somewhere else. While keeping them as professional contacts may be pertinent to your career in future endeavors, having a group of women over for dinner and drinks is probably low on the importance-of-life scale--especially considering the obvious rift it will cause in your relationship.

#myopinion

totallackofsurprise · Oct 31, 2018

If porificed more skeptically, here is much in the original post intended to distract readers from multiple red flags, deliberately vague back-story, and true motive.

First,

Several days before the BBQ my wife become very anxious and irritated when she found out everyone coming was female....
But I have no intention of catering to illogical fear and irrational gender bias

and

I respect my wife's feelings

...are mutually exclusive.

(Describing one's wife's feelings of anxiety, irritation and fear in these circumstances as "irrational" and "illogical" is... wait, who has the gender bias here?)

"No intention of catering to" = I do not respect or care about her feelings at all

By their very nature, feelings are often illogical and irrational. Doesn't stop us from having them. Feelings are not facts but they do activate the limbic system with powerful effects on mind and body -- except in sociopaths, who feel nothing.

OP may tell himself, his wife, and us that he respects her feelings. But the language used indicates otherwise.

If the situation was reversed, my mindset would not change.

Really, if that's true, first impulse is to ask, then what's wrong with OP/OP's marriage?

Because if that is really true, then either OP is quite uninterested in his wife, or he's got/had some on the side and could care less about wife and anything she does (or feels). There's a reason they say the opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference.

A certain amount of jealousy is normal and natural between loving spouses. (Note: I don't mean pathological stalker-ish jealousy. OP's wife's concerns aren't pathological; she was fine with the originally planned BBQ and that changed only when she discovered it was going to be entirely females.)

Were the situation reversed, my ex would have been, at the very least, "irritated." More likely, he would have flatly objected to the changed circumstances and reversed a previously "copacetic" attitude. Don't see how that's "doublespeak." It seems pretty reasonable and straightforward, actually.

More to the point, if my ex weren't the slightest bit concerned in the exact same scenario, I'd have seen a huge red flag. It simply isn't normal to have absolutely no jealousy, qualms, or concerns about such a situation. One would think OP would do the same -- unless OP is extraordinarily internally secure, a sociopath, or just doesn't feel much for the wife anymore.

With language in it trying to prove a cleverness and intelligence to a bunch of total strangers on a message board, that's hardly the language of the extraordinarily internally secure male.

An objective, unemotional recitation of the facts would have sufficed (i.e., wife withdrew her approval for the gathering when the circumstances changed). OP, though subtly so, is anything but an objective recitation of the facts.

Recently, I had plans to have a BBQ at my house with several of my ex-coworkers.

Red flag. Ex-coworkers? Not even current coworkers?

I suggested the idea to my wife before my employment arrangement changed abruptly and she seem copacetic.

Red flag. The deceptively innocuous, vague phrase "employment arrangement changed abruptly" is hiding something. Does it actually mean "was fired"?

OP doesn't mention any major illness, deaths or disruptive life changes... Those would be the main faultless reasons why OPs "employment arrangement changed abruptly." The glossed-over description of why they are now OPs ex-coworkers is evasive and vague.

Later, my ignorance and inability to comprehend doublespeak was revealed.

Red flag. Inaccurate, inflammatory language like this attempts to justify OPs position and simultaneously denigrate OP's spouse's perspective, despite its validity.

Reminding my wife that I'm a middle aged adult male, working in a significantly female dominated world did little to therapeutically defuse the situation.

Red flag. Seriously, anyone with any sense knows that reminding one's upset spouse (already upset at the idea of you inviting over a bunch of unaccompanied ex-coworkers of your spouse's gender) that one works daily in a profession dominated by her gender would know this is not only not "therapeutic," but is actually passive-aggressive.

The subtle message here is "I'm already around all these women all the time, all of us away from our spouses... but you don't know exactly what I do with any of them during work hours... so what possible difference could having them over for BBQ without their husbands make?"

Putting out the fire with gasoline was the effect achieved.

Red flag. More (literally) inflammatory language.

She stated, that it's inappropriate and disrespectful to host other females in our home, who I no longer have a working relationship with.

Red flag. What OP wants to do isn't necessarily inappropriate, but it is odd specifically because OP no longer has a working relationship with them.

As most commenters here point out, just because they've worked long and hard with valued coworkers doesn't mean they would invite them and their spouses over for a BBQ after they left.

I'm guessing one of the invited ex-coworkers isn't just an ex-coworker.

I told her it would provide a bit of closure and continuity for everyone.

Big. Red. FLAG.

First of all, OP originally said "I suggested the idea to my wife before my employment arrangement changed abruptly." So OP couldn't have been motivated by providing "closure and continuity for everyone" because it was already planned before OPs '"employment arrangement changed abruptly."

And why are closure and continuity even necessary? It's obvious that the one who needs "closure and continuity" is OP, not his ex-coworkers. They will continue on (without any BBQ, as every commenter here has mentioned) without OP.

OP could've just had a work party with a farewell cake and coffee before leaving.

Unless OP couldn't. Because it was abrupt, right? So why was it abrupt? Under what exact circumstances did OPs "employment arrangement change abruptly"??

Direct patient care is like navigating a psycho-physio war zone of emotional chasms and insurmountable summits. No one goes it alone.

Yeah, and...? That's very eloquent, but it also sounds like every ER. Red flag. Extreme hyperbole. Why?

I wanted to do something nice for my fellow coworkers and aides. To show my appreciation and to recognize the help and solid care they provided.

Red flag. "Something nice" showing "appreciation" could be pizza delivered to them while they're working, or a little cake and coffee gathering in the cafeteria at OP's former workplace... if one really felt that was needed.

Most commenters here don't. People move on. You stay in touch with those you hope to see again, and you leave behind those you don't.

And isn't "the help and solid care they provided" setting a pretty low bar? Sure, there are seriously dysfunctional workplaces, and we've all experienced things like working a code utterly professionally with people we can't stand.

But most teams/shifts, or at least some subset of people within those teams, help each other. It goes without saying: this is a team sport. That's nothing new or special, and ex-coworkers go on just fine without us when we move on -- as do we when someone else moves on.

Rather than "do something nice for my fellow coworkers and aides," it sounds like OP really wants to do something nice for himself. Either OP wants to see a specific coworker one more time (for OPs closure and continuity) and knows it would be inappropriate (and unacceptable to the wife) to invite her out without including all her fellow team members... or OP hopes to do some kind of damage control or justify his behavior -- get out in front of, at any rate -- to all the other employees for the real reason OPs "employment arrangement changed abruptly."

She was not appeased and enlisted the support of her in condemning my actions.

Red flag. "Condemning" is an overly dramatic term to describe that, factually speaking, her approval was understandably withdrawn when the circumstances changed such that OP would be having an exclusively female group of ex-coworkers over for BBQ.

The bottom line is that OP uses a lot of dramatic, pejorative language to portray himself as reasonable and above suspicion and his wife as irrational, illogical, and unreasonable -- despite the fact that what OP suggested is unusual in the first place and is ultimately self-serving rather than motivated by gratitude.

Furthermore, OPs justification ("closure and continuity for everyone") doesn't fly because it couldn't have been the original motivation for the gathering -- he'd already planned it before his "employment arrangement abruptly changed."

The fact that NONE of the ex-coworkers' spouses could attend seems possible but still mostly unlikely. (Were they ever really invited in the first place?)

The vague and evasive language used to describe the sudden change in employment smacks of "I was fired for x unprofessional reason."

This intended gathering has an overall suspicious feel, as do the protestations of innocent, unselfish motivations while OP simultaneously alternately overtly and subtly portrays the spouse's predictable and not unreasonable reaction to the major change in event as overreacting, "illogical," and "irrational."

Yeah, the spouse may be insecure. Or she could be entirely correct in her suspicions. Hard to say, given that even if perhaps the marriage has had past problems that motivate her distrust &/or motivate OPs subtle taunts, it is unlikely OP would fully disclose those issues here. May not even be aware of a lot of this.

There are some maybe plausible aspects to the original post. But they're combined with so many other unlikely, vague, evasive, &/or very iffy red flags. By themselves each little iffy item would probably mean nothing. But combined together, the entire story comes off as flim-flam shot full of holes. There are just way too many unexplained gaps, curious choices, and fishy red flags for it to be entirely convincing.

But maybe the biggest of them all is OPs attestation that he respects his wife's feelings, when throughout the post it is so obvious that he doesn't. Maybe she's given him reason not to. Maybe she hasn't. Maybe OP's got reason to prod her insecurity; maybe he doesn't. We'll probably never know and it is probably moot because after OP's self-described 25 years of marriage, there's a lot of water under that bridge.

But the original post scenario just doesn't feel right. Something's missing; something else is going on. Yes, marriage counseling seems like a good idea. But it might also be an expensive, wasteful lesson in futility to go through marriage counseling if OP or OP's spouse already has one foot out the door.

YMMV.

mtmkjr, BSN · Oct 31, 2018

I read the OP's post and just saw self-deprecating humor being used to lay the scene, tell the story and gain a greater perspective and obviously some feedback on how to handle a situation, with the whole post pointing to someone who takes his marriage very seriously and does love and respect his wife. Otherwise, the BBQ would have gone on as he wanted regardless of her feelings.

A few others here else read the same post and see a selfish, pretentious, passive-aggressive jerk...

So much goes into how we interpret things, our own experiences at the forefront. I think though, that giving the benefit of the doubt towards a more positive point of view is far more helpful than assuming the worst of someone.

One more thing... you actually CAN respect someone while not "catering to their illogical fear and irrational...". The key word is "cater to" which implies an immediate giving in and submitting to what the person is demanding. For example, If I am being unreasonable, while it may be wise for my husband to cater to my feelings, there are times when a little push-back is healthier and might lead to a more mutually beneficial end result.

Horseshoe, BSN, RN · Oct 31, 2018

I read the OP's post and just saw self-deprecating humor being used to lay the scene, tell the story and gain a greater perspective and obviously some feedback on how to handle a situation, with the whole post pointing to someone who takes his marriage very seriously and does love and respect his wife. Otherwise, the BBQ would have gone on as he wanted regardless of her feelings.
A few others here else read the same post and see a selfish, pretentious, passive-aggressive jerk...

I see it somewhere in the middle between your ultra rosy take and the OP is a jerk take.

I thought he was less than sensitive, put more into the whole need for "closure" business than was warranted, but deserving of kudos when he canceled out of respect for wifey's feelings, after getting some harsh feedback on his post.

mtmkjr, BSN · Oct 31, 2018

I see it somewhere in the middle between your ultra rosy take and the OP is a jerk take.
I thought he was less than sensitive, put more into the whole need for "closure" business than was warranted, but deserving of kudos when he canceled out of respect for wifey's feelings, after getting some harsh feedback on his post.

True. I was simply drawing a contrast between assuming the worst and best of someone (while being aware that there is limited info given to make these assumptions)