Right here goes - longtime MNer (although recently more lurking than posting) namechanging for some no holds barred, arse-kicking, truly impartial MN advice.
H and I married 14 years, 3 kids, fairly up and down marriage - typical rollercoaster - when it's good it's great, when it's not good it's really really shit. Dynamic shifted some six years ago whilst pregnant with DC1 when I discovered H had embarked on a fairly nasty text-messaging EA with a woman he met through work. Started when I was 7 mths pregnant, discovered when DC1 was four months old. Carried on for another six or seven months until I found a hidden phone by which time it had stopped. H at the time swore blind it was text messages only, I later discovered sometime after the birth of DC2 that he also telephoned her numerous times a day. He said he only met her once. We moved on ..sort of..had an unplanned DC3. During that time, there have been a couple of occasions when I've found questionnable texts. Rightly or wrongly, I've been checking up on him and both times caught it in the early stages. H is somewhat of a ladies man - I want to say was a ladies man but of course evidence shows that he still considers himself to be so.
There's the background - may be irrelevant but wanted to show H's history. Current situation is this - H and I fostered a friendship with a girl from the local nursery whilst I was pregnant with DC3 - let's call her Jane. She was DC2's keyworker and loved him to bits. H bought her flowers on her birthday (without discussing with me beforehand) and I thought nothing of it because he's fairly generous especially where he thinks kids may benefit. We decided to ask her to babysit DCs whilst I was in hospital. Rang her on the night i went into labour - she cancelled her plans and H picked her up and brought her round. She stayed with kids whilst H took me to hospital. He stayed with me a couple of hours and then went home - to be fair, they told him to. I thought nothing of it at the time. He was going to come first thing in the morning. We had discussed many times that I'd prefer he be with the kids and I would be fine on my own. In the event, he did come the next morning albeit five minutes after I gave birth.
Jane continued to come round ostensibly to see me and the kids. H would collect her and drop her home. He would literally be minutes in the car and often took one of the kids with him when doing this. We discussed that she was a bit of a pain in that she would often invite herself over and then stay far beyond her welcome (along the lines of until 1am in the morning when DC3 was a few weeks old). However we thought she was maybe lonely having not long broken up with her long-term bf.
DC and I went on hols with my parents when DC3 was about 8 months old. H couldn't come as he'd just started new job. We were only away a week but on my return I had texts from Jane asking to come over the following weekend which she did. H was totally different - he didn't offer to collect her or indeed drop her home. He went upstairs and had a bath and then went out. He has never done this with either Jane or indeed any of my friends. No matter how much of a twat he's being to me, he's always been super polite and welcoming to our guests and bent over backwards to see to their needs to the extent that I sometimes feel a bit redundant. Not the case on this occasion - he basically gave Jane the cold shoulder. After I took her home, I did tackle him on it and asked if something was up. He was so weird and dismissive that I really couldn't fathom why he behaved that why.
I shouldn't have but of course I did check his phone and lo and behold there were a number of text message exchanges between them, including one call from her to his phone at midnight. I went absolutely batshit crazy. Not least because he had deleted some of the texts - the ones left were fairly innocuous but still, the fact that he hadn't shared this with me even when I tackled him on his odd behaviour and had deleted some of the exchange left a very very bad taste in my mouth.
His attitude was to treat me as some mad crazy bitch who was making up stuff in her head. We tried to talk about it a number of times - our relationship went to hell. I did say to him on numerous occasions that I didn't think anything had happened not least because he had given her the cold shoulder the last time she visited. I asked specifically why she would call at midnight knowing he was alone. He said that he had no idea - he'd been half asleep so had just made excuses and hung up. Sounds plausible but his insistence that Jane was just a innocent young girl who'd simply made an error in judgement ringing him so late infuriated me for some reason. We stopped talking about it ..well, basically because we stopped talking. Only recently have we been slowly getting back on track after a particularly nasty argument a few weeks back.
Okay this is very long but to get to the crux of what advice I need...in a nutshell! Jane has only texted me once in the last four months (since our holiday) to ask to come over. She has texted H and telephoned him about three times, the last time saying that she couldn't get hold of me. H rang her back and left her a voicemail on one occasion when he got short shrift from me for making apologies for me as if I was being unreasonable. So far as I know, he's ignoring her (I'm no longer checking his phone). Last week, I deleted Jane from FB - firstly because the whole thing is doing my fucking head in and secondly because she had some godawful link to a photoalbum named "Cockalicious" or something equally tasteless. DC1 (7) often reads over my shoulder and I don't fancy answering that question. She's obviously twigged and has, in the space of two hours tonight, texted me twice, rang me and sent me a private fb message.
So what the fucking fuck do I do? Am I totally mad? Should I be apologising to Jane and to H for being some mad old paranoid bint? I'd come to terms with the fact that I was never going to know exactly what happened whilst I was away but I was pretty sure H wouldn't be such a fucking plonker to shit on his own doorstep and be willing to throw our relationship away which is what would happen if I caught him doing anything (and I mean anything) untoward again. My gut says ignore her messages and delete delete delete. But part of me wonders whether I should meet her and just let her know why I'm not interested in pursuing a friendship with her. She's old enough (21 yrs) to know what's appropriate and even though she certainly may have a crush on H going on her past behaviour, she should know that I'm not exactly going to just brush that under the carpet.
Anyway - if you've managed to read this far, congratulations - give yourself a shiney!