@pleiades Good question! My wife goes out with friends more often than I do. I’m usually stuck at home working, which is probably why she encourages me to go out when I can. Now, most of my wife’s friends are women. One of her friends has mostly male colleagues and associates, however, and the two of them would go out together with anywhere from three to five guys sometimes. They also like to go clubbing together on weekends. This has never bothered me.
And just for the record, my wife has been reading all of my responses to this question and agrees with them. Her response upon reading the question title was, “Why wouldn’t it be okay?”
@zenvelo My response to you was prompted by your distinction between maintaining old friendships and initiating new ones, and by your contention that the latter was not acceptable. That is what led me to ask what the difference was, and thus why I presented cases of starting new friendships. The bus tour was not a case of leaving my wife behind, of course, since she was unavailable at the time. But it was a case of meeting with a colleague of the opposite sex alone outside work hours (and a single one at that). I also mentioned cases where I was leaving her behind to do the same thing (though in part because my wife didn’t really want to tag along).
@JLeslie I agree that people in good marriages try not to do things that make their partners uncomfortable. But I also think a good marriage involves people who are emotionally secure enough to not be uncomfortable with their partner having friends of the opposite sex. I trust my wife, and she trusts me. If we didn’t trust one another, that would be a bad sign.