Am I controlling or is it my DH?

All this to say, if the only thing stopping a man from cheating is a lack of opportunity, then he is not marriage material.

The naivete on this thread is astounding.All cheaters cheat because they have an opportunity to. It's as though no one's heard of anyone cheating in marriage.

Of course a cheat isn't marriage material, that's why people divorce.

Not true - my husband and I work in the same industry and he regularly meets with colleagues and other women 1-1 in a professional context - for dinner/events etc. Building strong professional relationships is a huge part of his job and ignoring 30+% of the industry would not make professional sense. I once went to a conference and met a woman who worked with my husband in a previous job. She didn't realise we were married (I didn't change my name), and was telling us how all the women in the office fancied my husband at their previous workplace - I just laughed along. My husband's head grew bigger than I thought possible when I told him later that day. I also once met someone who vented to me that my husband was a massive twat without realising we were married - so it's all swings and roundabouts.

All this to say, if the only thing stopping a man from cheating is a lack of opportunity, then he is not marriage material.

Funnily enough, employers don't tend to make their hiring decisions on whether an existing employee's partner will get jealous if they become friends.

So no, if the person at his level in his office is female, he doesn't have the choice to become friends with a non-existent male equivalent, and he's unlikely to be able to meaningfully offload about his workplace problems to someone working in the mailroom.

He's talking a lot to her on the phone because they're not in the office. If they were then it would be conversations there which you would be less hyper-aware of.

You feel like you feel, but I would find it unpleasant to have my workplace friendships monitored in this way, particularly if I was having a hard time and didn't have another outlet to sound off.

Both DP and I have been in similar positions and luckily we understand exactly why we both need close, supportive friends in our respective industries. You need someone to talk to who really gets it - not someone in a different field of work, even if they're your partner.

MN will scream emotional affair about anything. Even if it's evidently nothing of the sort, people will say it's a "slippery slope" towards one, which helpfully covers all male-female interactions ever outside of your actual relationship.

He needs to vent about his horrible job to someone.

You don't want to listen to him but also you don't want him to talk to anyone else about it? That's awful.

Are you saying that middle-aged men don't make friends with other middle-aged men at work? Because that's ridiculous.

"It's always a young, pretty colleague" - well it's not, it's just that to some women, the merest sight of a younger woman sends them into a territorial tizzy. No one else is on their radar so they don't care when their husband is friendly with older women or other men.

Anyway yes, the OP is being hugely controlling. In a toxic workplace, a trusted colleague you can offload to is a very valuable thing (because it's not actually fair to dump it all on your partner). At my last workplace mine was a man who worked in the US so we'd end up chatting at ridiculous hours. DP has a few colleagues he always vents to about work stress: a formidable Greek grandmother, a gay man and a gorgeous middle-aged woman with MS. Not sure how they'd fit into your "men only make friends with young, pretty colleagues" rule.

It sounds to me like an emotional affair. Also don't assume someone doesn't have time to have an affair, they always do.

I would trust your gut.

Aa an occasional insomniac, not sleeping properly hugely affects your worklife, and being forbidden to vent about it to colleagues would most definitely make me unhappy, too. From your updates it sounds like the real problem may be he's only got the one colleague to confide in, rather than several. Could you encourage him to form closer relationships with others as well? Maybe facilitate that by suggesting meetups outside of work/with family?

It's never the middle-aged bloke from the mailroom, is it? Funny that.

Well, that does happen all the time, but obviously you don't then have women here thinking their partner is having an affair. They're complaining he's always at football or going to the pub instead!

Then he takes a pay cut. If he cracks up mentally, he'll be on even less. I saw that in a colleague at work.

It’s just the way he mentions her name etc. I am glad she’s there for him but he’s getting too close to her.

Mentionitous he's got a crush on her.

I read about this often in here and the ‘emotional affair’. I can only share my experience.

I was senior at my last job, tough place. I became friends with a male colleague on my level. If I tell you I left as a whistleblower you’ll get a sense of how bat shit it was. For many reasons both of us had to stick it out.

We spoke frequently as were in some of the same meetings and would sometimes catch up at lunch for a walk. Honestly we were (unprofessionally) bitching about work mostly. We didn’t chat/text message each other outside work much, maybe in the evening occasionally (we worked late) and always about work.

Anyone on here looking in would shout emotional affair. I can’t tell you how not attracted this to person I was. He got married during this time. My DH couldn’t easily understand the dynamic at work and didn’t want to listen sometimes.

I’m just saying in my case it’s horrible to be accused and someone to say ‘well you can talk to me’, when often you can’t about work.

Yes it's controlling. You are policing your husband's normal conversation with a colleague. Why are you so threatened by him being friendly with a work colleague?

I guess it all depends on individual circumstances.

One of my good male friends, I met at work 12 years ago now (I'm a little older than him, so out goes the younger theory) He was in a long term relationship at the time but his then gf never had an issue. I met her and got on really well with her too, I'd even meet her for lunch and a chat, when she had a miscarriage we'd talk for ages as I'd been through the same. I was at their engagement party and wedding. I actually have as much in common with her as I do him.

One thing I will say is we have never crossed a line like speaking on the phone many times a week or been emotionally reliant on each other or have ever done anything that would make his wife uncomfortable and if she was, I'd absolutely have stepped back and I know 100% he would have supported doing anything to make her comfortable and not make her feel bad about it.

Would you feel any different if you met her? Do you think if you saw yourself their dynamic it might either confirm your uncomfortably or put your mind at ease?

The toxic work place will bond them. Happened to me once but I walked out and found a much better job.

I would suggest that your husband looking around finds another job ASAP. Just the act of job hunting cheered me up.

I regularly offload to male colleagues/friends at work. We might have a good Teams natter when things are particularly frustrating. I’d be livid if DH said I needed to stop talking to one of them because they were male.

That's beyond manipulative. 'Talk to who you want but if you do I'll leave'

So his one outlet to complain about work and being stressed is now gone - no wonder he’s unhappy!

i feel like everyone needs a work friend like this that you can vent to - nobody outside of work can ever fully understand what’s going on in there!

He's unhappy and talks talks someone in the same situation as him that understands what he's going through.
You don't sound jealous as you're confident he wouldn't cheat so it seems like you're controlling who he is friends with but why?

You can't tell him who he can talk to but you can set your own boundaries and say you will not be in a marriage with someone who disrespects you and shares a closeness with another woman which you are uncomfortable with.
Most dh wouldn't in the first place because they wouldn't want to make you uncomfortable and would see it as inappropriate but then if your dh doesn't put your feelings before another woman you have some thinking to do, she's coming between you and he's not putting his marriage first.
How would he feel if you grew close to another man?

Just sounds like trauma bonding over a toxic workplace. Which in itself isn’t great because you both just add fuel to the fire of how much you both hate work and it becomes toxic and draining moaning about the same thing.

I am a firm believer in that ANYONE can cheat. So if their relationship makes you uncomfortable then I get that.

YANBU OP

I suspect most of the comments on here are from women who have DH that aren’t attractive to younger good looking work colleagues. It’s easy for them to say I’m not bothered bla bla because the opportunity wouldn’t arise for their DH to cheat.

It's never the middle-aged bloke from the mailroom, is it? Funny that.