DH secretly reconnected with ex GF

@snoopywife have you had your conversation with him yet as this might totally change the advice you’re being given now

I would want to be there at the reunion.
If he says no then organise it as a surprise and go as a surprise so get his uni friends in on the surprise and organise something special for the following day for just the two of you like a spa date or whatever your both into.

It’s different if he is aware of the friendship in the first place. Your situation is very different to the OP and therefore irrelevant! Surely you can’t be that naive to not realise that!

@HalloweenGrinch I agree.

I don't really understand this.

You can't stop him having an affair if that is going to happen. If you try (by making clear your lack of trust, or trying to muscle in on his reunion) he will resent you for your lack of trust. By snooping on his messages you have already shown you don't trust, and he would be entitled to be angry. I can't see from your posts where he has done anything wrong so far.

You can only control your own response to events. He is entitled to his own thoughts nd actions as an autonomous human. You are entitled to respond in whatever way you want. For people saying 'there should be no secrets in a marriage', that is bananas and a recipe for burnout. Everyone needs privacy and control over their own thoughts and interactions.

Any attempt by you to control him will backfire. Let him go, reminisce and realise just what a good thing he has with you. And if he comes back and your spidey sense is wrong, welll you can deal with what actually happened not what might happen. Don't set the expectation that he will not be able to control himself. You will push him away and it will become self-fulfilling.

If you stop him going to the reunion or insist on going with him, you will never know if you can trust him with this person. It will prolong the agony of not knowing his true intentions for that night. He will feel trapped and monitored and curtailed by his marriage, rather than secure with mutual independence and trust. His friends will know you don't trust him in this scenario. It will make more of the situation, perhaps for no earthly reason. You say you have a good and long happy marriage. In my opinion you need to trust it. Remember she dumped him. She thought he wasn't good enough 20 years ago. OK, some first loves separated for mutual reasons, they never forget and are like magnets. But those that were dumped 20 years ago are also quite likely to hold a little bit of a grudge (a bruised ego - it is only human nature) , rather than being the pathetic sole who still holds a candle. More a nice to see you, with an underlying - see what you missed? Too late, too sad, too bad. Also, you need him to see her again to realise he is totally over her, that they are in fact strangers after 20 years, otherwise he continues to carry the younger girlfriend version in his head, forbidden by his middle aged wife - hard to compete with that notion over the next few decades.

Chat about the reunion with him. Tease him a little about old flames. Let him see he is loved and that you trust him. Your marriage will be stronger for it. And if he breaks the trust, then your marriage wasn't that strong anyway and at least you know where you stand.

Please keep us updated. I know how you are feeling, that icky feeling. I agree with what most are saying, ask who is going and see if he mentions her.

Agree @bongers49 . And often people decided to snoop because their instincts are warning them something is up.

That's quite different from constantly monitoring someones phone

For those being judgy about "snooping", i think they're forgetting in a marriage you sound have no secrets. I imagine your suspicions were raised by a change in behaviour, and i think you have every right to investigate what is going on here.

I think I would start a general conversation about the reunion and ask who is going. If he doesn't mention her, I would then outright ask if she was going. If he lies then you know where you are with him and your relationship. If he says yeah she's going I might ask why he didn't mention her to begin with given that they have history, and say it makes you feel uncomfortable etc....
You could say something light-hearted that let's him know you're suspicious/on to him. This might wake him up to the reality of what effects any kind of affair would have on your lives and make him think twice about it. If he's intent on an affair though, I doubt there's much you could do to stop it that wouldn't damage your relationship anyway. Going along to the reunion yourself might only delay it.

Maybe he didn't think it was an issue, I don't tell dh every time I speak to exes

And it’s out in the open, there is communication and openness which is very different !

This sounds really innocent to me. I am still friends with all my exes. We even went on holiday with someone my husband had slept with as she was still part of their friendship group but I really didn't care.

I'd have an issue with overnight though.

Unbelievable, I just read a post regarding a man reading his wife chat, and everyone attacking him for reading it, why no one mentioned that to this OP.

The main point to me is do you trust your husband? These people were from a time before you. He is entitled to have a reunion and yes, she might be an old flame, but you obviously don't trust him at all. If this is the case, there are bigger things in your marriage to deal with than this. He may be your husband but he is entitled to have a life and do things without your involvement from time to time.

if they are all meeting up there surely wouldn’t be the need for individual messaging, it would be a group chat?!

@Dogdaysareoverihope Sorry, I missed your questions. We were both married, and we both left our marriages (there was no getting 'caught'). We are still together (and married to each other now). I know I will never cheat again, and I believe he will never either, but hey nothing is ever certain. It was completely genuine. We had never stopped loving each other.

I agree it is concerning, but I wouldn't assume the worst. I have reconnected with a previous boyfriend (from late teens/ very early twenties). I have now been married 39 years. I haven't kept it secret but my DH doesn't use social media himself and is probably not really aware of it. It is lovely to be back in touch, to reminisce and to catch up with our lives but emotionally it means nothing. I love my DH dearly and always will and that's that. The ex is now a friend and that's all.

How did tonight go?

Where has he got the time to message her daily, for months? I don't contact my best mates this often.

But mainly it's the secrecy. It's borderline dishonesty.

Not really, don’t you guys do things alone with friends? Surely meeting old uni pals no-one would bring partners.

But I do agree it’s likely to end in an affair, but of course your DH might not see it that way so you run chance of coming across very jealous

YANBU

However, you going on this trip is going to be cringe. It won’t stop them wanting to reconnect if that’s how they feel.

I would tell him what you know. If he doesn’t admit he’s been foolish, I would end things. I can’t be in a relationship with someone that I don’t trust.

I agree. I read somewhere that men will usually try to reconnect with an ex to cheat as a first option because the familiarity is already there.

An overnight to me seems concerning and also the fact he's concealed this info from you. Yes you shouldn't read messages but I think if you're suspicious then it goes out the window and you have every right.

lol! That is true.

i guess it just goes to show we all bring our prejudices and former experience to bear when making judgements.

but then I think when on mumsnet everyone chips in with their own biased opinion, the truth is probably in between all of it.

sometimes sneaking a peak at a partners phone is justified ( they’re acting shifty) , but sometimes it’s because the suspicious one is paranoid insecure and controlling.

Would this be a good time to mention a recent thread in which a man had looked at his wife's phone and found something that he considered a betrayal which upset him, and about half of the responses were 'he looked at your phone? Unforgiveable! LTB!'