Husband stopping at random dive bars for one beer?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The "random" and "dive" parts are what puzzle me. I can see having a favorite "third place" spot he finds relaxing and a good bridge from work to home, and having a beer there occasionally. (If it's every workday? Yeah, that could be a bigger problem of needing a drink rather than needing a break.) But going to different, random places all the time--unless he's maybe a beer lover who wants to check out different places' microbrews or whatever? -- seems a bit off. And I'm not sure how OP defines a "dive bar" here. Sometimes that really just means cool and funky and not pretentious, but for me it can also mean in a sketchy area that's maybe not a good idea. I'd talk to him about it, not about the need for the break per se, but more about why it seems like such a restless, unfocused choice of places to stop.

God forbid an adult male who works at various hospitals should have even a single moment in which he is allowed to be restless and unfocused. His entire life has to be prescribed and rigidly controlled by someone else, I suppose.

JFC, if your spouse controls you that's too bad but you're projecting that here. Of course he can be unfocused. OP is not trying to "rigidly control" him, she just doesn't get the randomness of this, as opposed to having some regular watering hole or favorite decompression spot like many people would. She's not trying to tell him he only must drink at one particular place, FFS. I'd just wonder if he was under some kind of terrible stress at work that needed more than a 15-minute stop in a bar to deal with it.

[Anonymous]

Even if he doesn't need to decompress or whatever, going to a bar for a beer is FUN.

Going to random bars when work puts you in random locations is FUN -- variety is the spice of life.

Live a little, folks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not a good sign. He could be trawling.

Maybe I’m a clueless but I really doubt there are women at these bars? And he is only there for 10 or 15 minutes. He isn’t hiding this.

How do you now how long he's there?

OP's post 8/10 17:23.

Read before you type.

That's what he told her. She has no ACTUAL real idea. She only saw the credit card charge and then confronted him about random bar charges that had been happening in different places for some time.
So--he could have been out much longer. These could have been 'meet and greets' and later banged them on his lunch break. They could have had one drink before heading to the hotel and then he came home later. But, she didn't know because all of that time she didn't even know about the random bar stop offs.

It smells incredibly shady. Too be going to different bars for some time and keeping it a secret. Something is off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The "random" and "dive" parts are what puzzle me. I can see having a favorite "third place" spot he finds relaxing and a good bridge from work to home, and having a beer there occasionally. (If it's every workday? Yeah, that could be a bigger problem of needing a drink rather than needing a break.) But going to different, random places all the time--unless he's maybe a beer lover who wants to check out different places' microbrews or whatever? -- seems a bit off. And I'm not sure how OP defines a "dive bar" here. Sometimes that really just means cool and funky and not pretentious, but for me it can also mean in a sketchy area that's maybe not a good idea. I'd talk to him about it, not about the need for the break per se, but more about why it seems like such a restless, unfocused choice of places to stop.

God forbid an adult male who works at various hospitals should have even a single moment in which he is allowed to be restless and unfocused. His entire life has to be prescribed and rigidly controlled by someone else, I suppose.

JFC, if your spouse controls you that's too bad but you're projecting that here. Of course he can be unfocused. OP is not trying to "rigidly control" him, she just doesn't get the randomness of this, as opposed to having some regular watering hole or favorite decompression spot like many people would. She's not trying to tell him he only must drink at one particular place, FFS. I'd just wonder if he was under some kind of terrible stress at work that needed more than a 15-minute stop in a bar to deal with it.

Hmm… my spouse doesn’t control me, nor do I control him, and I’d have no problem with him doing this. Your reaction to my admittedly post seems kind of over the top.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Even if he doesn't need to decompress or whatever, going to a bar for a beer is FUN.

Going to random bars when work puts you in random locations is FUN -- variety is the spice of life.

Live a little, folks.

Having a beer in a random spot for fun is apparently not allowed here, PP. It inevitably means cheating or alcoholism or both!

[Anonymous]

Seems low class and bizarre to me. Go into a dive bar and you don’t see professional men in suits. You see bikers, construction workers and old drunks. It’s not cool, it’s depressing. Even if he’s only drinking one beer, it’s bad optics for a man with a professional career to even be seen in such a place.

And when I was his age all I wanted to do is get home to see my kids and kiss my wife. Delaying that for 10 or 20 minutes to sit amongst a handful of random proles in a bar is bizarre. Something is up.

[Anonymous]

God forbid something happen to him in the parking lot or an auto accident on the way home. Anyone hearing the story would be very weirded out that he was at some dumpy bar after work. Right or wrong people would assume the worst.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Seems low class and bizarre to me. Go into a dive bar and you don’t see professional men in suits. You see bikers, construction workers and old drunks. It’s not cool, it’s depressing. Even if he’s only drinking one beer, it’s bad optics for a man with a professional career to even be seen in such a place.

And when I was his age all I wanted to do is get home to see my kids and kiss my wife. Delaying that for 10 or 20 minutes to sit amongst a handful of random proles in a bar is bizarre. Something is up.

You're so right. Where are the Executive Dive Bars?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems low class and bizarre to me. Go into a dive bar and you don’t see professional men in suits. You see bikers, construction workers and old drunks. It’s not cool, it’s depressing. Even if he’s only drinking one beer, it’s bad optics for a man with a professional career to even be seen in such a place.

And when I was his age all I wanted to do is get home to see my kids and kiss my wife. Delaying that for 10 or 20 minutes to sit amongst a handful of random proles in a bar is bizarre. Something is up.

You're so right. Where are the Executive Dive Bars?

I don’t think many white collar young men with a wife and kids at home go to bars after work at all. Maybe a drink after golfing in the clubhouse bar?

[Anonymous]

Those of you who have a problem with this and who are already suspicious of their spouse potentially being a closet alcoholic or misdirecting for an AP are on the road to divorce. Whether you are right or wrong, the lack of trust in your partner is going to kill your marriage one way or the other. Either you will be right and the hidden issue will end the marriage or the lack of trust and your overcontrolling nature will drive your partner away.

I'm sorry, but once you get to the point where you have either killed or lost the trust in your marriage, it's only a matter of time until the wedge between you destroys your marriage.

[Anonymous]

Stopped into a dive by my barber after getting a haircut the other week. Will probably do it again next time

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Stopped into a dive by my barber after getting a haircut the other week. Will probably do it again next time

For the millionth time, this isn't weird. It's fun.

The weird thing is doing something regularly and never mentioning it to your spouse. If it's really no big deal and business as usual, then "Yeah, I saw that on the news when I stopped for a beer after work" will have come up at some point.

The people who are saying it wouldn't must never speak to their spouses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Those of you who have a problem with this and who are already suspicious of their spouse potentially being a closet alcoholic or misdirecting for an AP are on the road to divorce. Whether you are right or wrong, the lack of trust in your partner is going to kill your marriage one way or the other. Either you will be right and the hidden issue will end the marriage or the lack of trust and your overcontrolling nature will drive your partner away.

I'm sorry, but once you get to the point where you have either killed or lost the trust in your marriage, it's only a matter of time until the wedge between you destroys your marriage.

Ha. I never suspected a thing and had 100% trust. I now see that’s idiotic. I should have questioned and delved deeper when something didn’t seem right, as should OP.

I guess you can stick your head in the sand accept every lame excuse and gaslighting and you’ll have a “happy” marriage because you aren’t rocking the boat at your own peril. Being cool girl backfires.

[Anonymous]

We share locations on all of the family’s iPhones but I don’t think I’d even notice if my husband briefly stopped at a bar on the roads he commutes on. The Apple Find My app sometimes seems to freeze on a location and if you are only in a bar for 5-10 minutes I’d have to be stalking the app to maybe notice. And even then, I’d probably miss it and assume it was just a brief fluke on the app.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Seems low class and bizarre to me. Go into a dive bar and you don’t see professional men in suits. You see bikers, construction workers and old drunks. It’s not cool, it’s depressing. Even if he’s only drinking one beer, it’s bad optics for a man with a professional career to even be seen in such a place.

And when I was his age all I wanted to do is get home to see my kids and kiss my wife. Delaying that for 10 or 20 minutes to sit amongst a handful of random proles in a bar is bizarre. Something is up.

How does a person of such high social standing such as yourself know in such detail who frequents these low class establishments?