woman flirting w my husband - how do i handle?

[dieselgirl]

hello!  my husband & i have been married for 3 years and have no kids yet.  still enjoying ourselves.  sorry, this is quite a long post:

anyway, yesterday new year's eve we went to a club with a bunch of friends.  i was having fun... but shortly thereafter we bumped into his ex's sister, let's call her jane (she was hot, but i'm hot too!  hahaha!)  - i got a little tired from dancing so i sat down. 

jane proceeded to dance with my husband very closely (i'm not sure if you're all familiar with "grind") and she had her hands all over him, like around his waist, his hips and my husband put his hands on her shoulders.  it wasn't just a friendly dance, if i didn't know them it would look like she was making the moves on him (she's single and she knows we're married).

mind you, my husband doesn't really dance.  in fact he didn't dance with me the whole night. he's usually the type of guy who just stands there with a drink in his hand and bobs his head. they danced maybe 2-3 songs directly in front of me and i know some of my friends were looking at me for my reaction but i played "dumb" even though inside i was thinking there is something wrong with this picture.   she danced with him again a few songs after that.

i got so mad at my husband when we came home and i told him how embarassed i felt about his actions.   he wasn't aware that it looked bad and i think he thought what he did was okay since he told me "she's an old friend and i always treated her like a younger sister" (she was in high school at that time when he was going out with his ex but he hasn't seen this girl in 8 years).  i gave him a piece of my mind after he said that, since i think that's not a valid excuse to act the way he did.

if faced with this situation, how would you handle it?  i didn't do anything when we were in the club and i'm wondering if i should have. 

[kckgirl]

Smack that man with the old clue-by-four and tell him how it looked to other people. Remind him that no matter what he's doing to think about how it looks to other people.

[IndianInlaw]

Well, now he knows it's inappropriate.

And now you know you need to put the kibosh on it if it happens again.

[Peyton Fan]

Men can be really clueless at times, can't they? This is what works best with my husband. CALMLY (that is key with him anyway) ask him to picture the following scene "We're at the club and I am looking GOOD. Really hot. You don't feel like dancing and then this guy come up that I haven't seen for years, younger brother of an old friend. We start dancing and we're dancing like this (demonstrate on him, just as seductively as you can). I come back sit down with you have a couple of other drinks and then go back and dance with him again. He means nothing to me, but this is how we are dancing nonetheless. How do you HONESTLY think you would feel and/or react." When I paint a picture for DH and he honestly takes a moment to see how it appeared to me, he normally agrees and sees my point of view.

Hopefully next time you are at a club with him and something similar happens, he'll turn down the dance invite. If he doesn't, I think I'd have to say to whomever wanted to dance with my husband, that he's dancing with me.

[ZipTheWonder]

She was dancing close, had her hands all over him and was "grinding" him and he had no reaction at all??  Nothing at all told him that he was having an inappropriate experience with this woman? 

[Verruca]

If it happened again, and I hope it doesn't now that he understands how you feel about it, I'd cut in politely.

"You don't get to monopolize the best-looking man in the room all night!"

Or, if I were feeling snarkier than that and didn't care about looking like I was jealous, "I'd like a chance to dance with my husband, too!"

[Sirius]

It's unlikely we'd ever find ourselves in a situation like that since Mr. Sirius isn't that clueless.  He's also well aware of how some women can be.  He told me if a woman started behaving the way the OP described, he'd stop dancing and go sit down by me.  He'd also tell her he felt she was acting inappropriately because he's married. (Maybe not that formally, but he'd get his point across.)

[Shoo]

Wow.

If your dh does this when you're right there, and doesn't understand how inappropriate it is, how can he be trusted to behave himself when you're not there? 

I'd definitely ask him this.

[Pixie]

When women aggressively flirt with my husband I usually walk up and say, "Not your husband." and walk off with him. After 20 years together, Hubby and I don't play.   He won't put up with it any more than I will.  He will rescue me if some guy comes onto me, I rescue him from aggressive females.

  I did like the time some woman was flirting with Hubby while we were shopping with the kids.   Kids were 18, 15, and 12 at the time.   Our 15 year old daughter walked up and said... "GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY DADDY!"   She is so much like my Mom, I love that child, she has no fear!  I did have to  (appear to) reprimand her, I said, "Now Sweetie, you know Daddy isn't going anywhere, he couldn't afford the child support!"   Woman backed off quick!

[andi]

Men can be really clueless at times, can't they? This is what works best with my husband. CALMLY (that is key with him anyway) ask him to picture the following scene "We're at the club and I am looking GOOD. Really hot. You don't feel like dancing and then this guy come up that I haven't seen for years, younger brother of an old friend. We start dancing and we're dancing like this (demonstrate on him, just as seductively as you can). I come back sit down with you have a couple of other drinks and then go back and dance with him again. He means nothing to me, but this is how we are dancing nonetheless. How do you HONESTLY think you would feel and/or react." When I paint a picture for DH and he honestly takes a moment to see how it appeared to me, he normally agrees and sees my point of view.

Hopefully next time you are at a club with him and something similar happens, he'll turn down the dance invite. If he doesn't, I think I'd have to say to whomever wanted to dance with my husband, that he's dancing with me.

i like this one!  perfect IMO

[ettacat]

 Now, I am not saying your marriage is over, and he is a cheating whatever. But, I have to wonder if he just didn't like the attention.

A woman is grinding and bumping all over a man and they just "don't know" what the woman is trying to do? Yeah right.

[dieselgirl]

i'm not really sure if my husband was just so ignorant that he didn't think what he did looked bad.  but like many of you said, he told me now at least now he knows and will refrain from doing this in the future... he can be insensitive and stupid sometimes (as all men are).

i told him i wasn't born yesterday and i hope it will not happen again!!!  thank you so much for your replies!  it  gave me some ideas on how to handle this kind of situation if it comes up again.

[Lauren]

I honestly think there's a part of men's brains that shuts down when a woman is blatantly coming on to them. Its the "I've still got it" part of the brain that is working. The second time, however was inexcusable. He had enough time to think. Now, hopefully he's aware how it made you feel.

Our 15 year old daughter walked up and said... "GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY DADDY!"

Your daughter is AWESOME. I so need to try that one day.

[fklwmn]

I think if it bothered you, you should have said something in the club. He's your husband, so it shouldn't have been an issue for you to 'cut in' with a giggle or to pull him away to show him something - politely, of course. Once you have him to yourself, you can pull him aside and tell him that you have a problem with his behavior and ask him to not do it any more. It doesn't need to be a scene, or anyone being angry at anyone, just "Hey, this looks really bad, and I don't like it. Please stop."

That way he has the opportunity to nip it in the bud without you siting there stewing all evening, just getting madder and madder. Plus, it probably makes your night muchmore pleasant as well

[ZipTheWonder]

I'd be a lot less concerned about how this kind of thing looks than how it feels. 

Her behavior was provocative -- and while healthy mens minds may be dumbfounded by sexual behavior, their bodies aren't.  Bluntly put, in monogamous relationships (I am not assuming that's the OPs situation, so this is meant in general terms) being turned on by others isn't generally part of the contract.