to be a bit put out about DH's new friend

[Tananog]

First off, she's female and a good deal younger than me. Not that I mind that per se; he's had female friends before that he's met at work. But he met this one in a chat room and, as she seems to have told him a lot about herself (she's going through a divorce) he says he's developed a 'strong bond' with her and she's become a special friend. He's meeting her for real next week. I believe him when he says there's nothing in it but friendship, so why am I disturbed by it? I'm being stupid aren't I?

What's trust got to do with it? I trust my husband to have female friends who he goes to the odd lunch with, talks about his hobbies or know him from years ago. He doesn't talk about developing a 'strong bond' with them, nor them being his 'special friend'. This is code for 'person I'm about to shag' unfortunately.

Exactly Onetoomany, You are his partner/wife should be his special friend, lover etc. You can both have close friends or good friends, but at the end of the day its you that should be his one special friend and have a special bond with. This is a sure fire way to end a relatioship.

Tananog.

He's got a "strongbond" and she's a "special friend".

As his wife you should already occupy those two positions foremost.
As a consequence he should invite you to any meetings; to share "his" experience.

Evidently he hasn't.

I saw this once before, many years ago, within our social circle; it's deception by being totally transparent.It worked well.

You need to ask yourself why this dilemma does not evoke more anger and angst.

you are not being unreasonable, 'he' is being totally unreasonable. he is being totally disrespectful to you and you deserve to be treated better x

and...why does he feel the need to meet women in chat rooms anyhow?

Tananog, I would agree that you are right to be hurt and worried.

I have two friends who met people online.

One left his wife of 30 years for a woman from the US with 3 kids who lived in a trailer park. The other one left her husband in a flurry of romance which she described as being all about the words - it was exciting, gave her lots of positive attention and stimulated her intellectually after being largely a stay at home Mum for 3 years.

It is surprisingly easy to get into a very intimate relationship online - somehow because it can feel like it is safe, or a diary, the usual inhibitions can be lost.

I am sure that is not what you wanted to hear. It is probably not what he wants to believe either. But that is what I have seen.

I'm with ChippingIn. Over my dead body.

I wonder where the OP went...

On face book to meet some new male friends??

we can but hope...

either that or she is burying him under the patio as we speak...

perhaps its date day with the new special friend and op has gone after all.Special bond my arse

Now I trust my husband as much as it is possible to trust anyone and I'm generally very chilled about him being friends with other women believing that I am the one he loves and that if I didn't trust this that would be more damaging to our relationship than any other women could possibly be. And I don't like this. One bit. I asked dh what he thought too and he agrees that it sounds very dodgy.

Your dh may well actually have pure intentions and not be planning to cheat. But having a strong emotional bond with someone is a very big thing and if there is an ounce of physical attraction on top of that then he is on very thin ice. Even if he doesn't shag her the emotional closeness with someone else at the exclusion of you is also something I wouldn't like.

The only reason dh and I could come up with where it would be understandable that they wanted to meet up alone without you there (and actually I didn't find any posts from the op saying her dh wanted this - just that he wanted to meet her although I might have missed this) would be if the forum they met on was to discuss personal experience with mental health issues / previous abuse or something equally personal when it would be understandable for this woman not to want to discuss this with you. But we both felt that even if this was the case you could get all the benefits of being able to talk about it with someone who had been through a similar experience without having to actually meet in person - you could have all the chat online. And the support otherwise should be from you as his wife.

Have to say I would feel very strongly that either you are there when they meet (invite her to yours / go out together) or your dh listens to your concerns and prioritises your happiness over his desire to meet a stranger. Of course if you all meet up together it may be that you are no longer concerned in which case you may be fine for them to meet up without you or you may not.

If your dh is intent on meeting up with her despite you explicitly outlining your concerns I think that in itself is very damaging to the relationship you share. There is nothing unreasonable with calmly explaining that you feel very uneasy about the idea of him meeting up with a single woman he has felt a strong bond with.

By the way those of you who have had a pop about the other woman I think are a bit harsh. She is single (allegedly anyway) with no ties to anyone and doen't know the op so has no loyalties to her (other than moral ones). Moreover it is the op's husband who initiated the meeting not her and tbh if a married man I considered a friend asked me to meet up I would presume that whether his wife was ok with it or not was their business not mine.

Good luck and come back soon with an update!

OP OP OP, come baaaaack

We need to know full details of how you and your newly massive balls sat him down and told it like it is. And what he said. And what happened next.

That'll be because some of us spend time on the relationships board, where there are dozens and dozens of threads from women who trusted their DH/DPs and..."oh, look he's been shagging someone else after all!"

So the solution's to stop trusting your partner? Charming. I couldn't live like that...

Heracles, two separate issues at risk of being muddled: normal trust, and handling inappropriate behaviour or behaviour that has a lot of "red flags".

Nobody is suggesting "the solution's to stop trusting your partner". It's about recognizing if a point comes when that trust seems to be being abused, and dealing with that, rather than putting one's head in the sand.

I'm all for trusting your partner. But if they start banging on about how special and close some strange woman off the internet is, then I would think that they were at best daft and pathetic. Even if he isn't planning on shagging her, he is a twit of such gigantic proportions that I could no longer respect his judgement.

I'm not debating the level of twitness, just the immediate assumption he's about to skip over the horizon with her. I have friends of both sexes that my partner doesn't know; I don't need them vetted, I'm capable of deciding for myself.

we have friends of both sexes too. Friends we met at work or knew before we met or friends we come across in everydya life as well as mutual friends met on holiday etc. However i do not go on the internet and chat to male friends before announcing to dh i have found someone special, carry a photo of them and go out to meet them refusing to let him come. I think that is an entirely different issue.
If that is acceptable in a persons relationship then good for them but in most peoples it wouldnt be and they are entitled to make their own choices about it.

I'm not sure I said they weren't. Could you point me to that bit?

I wouldn't feel comfortable with this, but then I am extremely jealous!

However, I have lots of male friends that dh doesn't mind me going for coffee or a drink with.

Hark at my double standards.....

Although I do trust DH, I am a jealous bitch - there, I've said it.

It doesn't sound like OP is the jealous type though..

interested to know how this has panned out??

me too.

And me!!!!

Hi, it's me, the OP.
Well ... we've talked about it - at great length - yesterday and today and I think he's now got the message that I?ve been feeling hurt.

He says I can go with him to meet her or if I really don't want him to meet her, he won't go and will call it off. He has admitted that he's in too deep and got emotionally entangled by trying to help her out and be a shoulder to cry on and now she's becoming dependent on him. He knows I'm not happy about it and says he will end the friendship altogether rather than risk hurting me as much as he now knows he has. So, he's got to let her down gently, otherwise he may end up hurting her as well.

What he wants to do is, in his words "cool things down" from the emotional intensity that they seem to have reached, and bring the friendship back to a more superficial, chatty level. I'm not sure that's possible. He thinks it is.

He says if I asked him to, he will end the friendship completely but that it would ?be difficult?. He would miss the friendly chat part of their relationship. I have said that he needs to decide for himself what to do and that I won?t make that decision for him.

Incidentally, in his defence I have to point out that he didn?t actively seek to meet someone on the internet. It happened incidentally on a gaming site; you play a game and chat to the person you?re playing with. Things just moved away from the banal chat of ?where are you from? to stuff that was much more personal. I think he got sucked into other people?s lives a bit too deep.

Some people have said that maybe he?s a ?rescuer? or a ?father figure.? Having now talked about it, I think that may be true. He seems to have wanted to help this girl through a difficult time and, inevitably, developed some sort of bond through the personal stuff that she was divulging to him. And apparently, she laughs at his jokes, whereas I of course have heard them all before. He is a bit naive, and is a ?helping? sort of person.

I still feel as if I may have been rather irrational over all this. I don't want to dictate who he should be friends with. We've been married a long time and have always trusted each other, so why should I not trust him now? I feel much better for having talked it out and explained how I felt.

I don't know now whether the planned meeting is on or off. If it is still on and if I do go and meet her, I'll come back and let you all know how it went.

hahahahahahaha

Don't be a mug. Really.