To think that no man who has been married just a year should send a text like this to another woman?

[Spero]

I didn't get this text I hasten to add, a friend did, it freaked her out and she asked what I thought. This man had made it clear he was interested in her, she didn't reciprocate interest so he married someone else quite quickly and has been married about a year - she hasn't heard from him in all this time.

This is text
'Hate it!! Don't think I made the right decision at all...! Blame you... U didn't like the cakes I sent you :). How are you?'

She had asked him 'how's married life' and this is his response.

I said immediately I thought it was awful and unpleasant and said horrible things about the man and the marriage. But I am now considering the exclamation marks and wondering if I have been too harsh? Is it in fact more likely to be some clumsy attempt at a joke and is just innocent and friendly??

Is my bitter man hating persona preventing me giving clear cool headed advice to a friend? Would be grateful for other views.

But it is a pretty big hint isn't it? If you are having problems with your marriage, surely the honourable and sensible thing to do is either talk to your spouse or get some help from a neutral professional, via counselling etc NOT text someone only a year ago you were desparately trying to get into bed.

That indicates some degree of stupidity AND sleaziness I think.

I think your reaction is entirely appropriate, if anything slightly on the overly forgiving side so YANBU. Either it was a flirtatious joke at his wife's expense or he is desperately trying to line up an exit strategy but in neither case does it reflect well on him.

He is a world-class sleaze bag, exclamation marks don't mitigate it and you are not a man hater (not on the evidence of this anyway.)

I do have quite low opinions of the way men behave generally, but I don't want that to cloud my judgment about individual men.

I think this particular man is, as you say, a creep and is looking for sex under the guise of friendship. And there are other men out there like this. However, not all men are, by any means, so the 'sad to think the Harry and Sally thing is true' is tbh not justified.

See, I think you have that the wrong way round - judge individual men by their behaviour (so this one is a sleazebag, yes) rather than assuming all men are bastards. Quite a few are, but let's not assume the worst about the entire sex.

My friend split up with her partner last year and is deeply depressed by what she has found via on line dating etc. This seems to be a pretty common response. I suppose there much be decent men out there but they don't seem to be on line.

I don't want to make unwarranted assumptions about anyone or any gender which is why I was interested to test my response here.

One of my closest friends is male. We've been friends for 18 years and we are both happily married to other people, have children and I have no doubt that he isn't remotely interested in divesting me of my knickers.

Spero you don't seem to be basing your judgement on his gender. If you reversed the genders in this situation and it was a woman sending the text it would be equally inappropriate and sleazy.

He is showing no loyalty or respect or consideration for his wife

How do we know she deserves any?

Maybe she's shagging his best friend whle threatening to keep his child from him if he divorces her or fails to keep her in the style to which she'd like to be accustomed?

OK that's a ridiculous argment, but Mumsnet is often willing to find hypothetical justifications for all sorts of behaviour.

Indeed. Maybe his wife is a ho bag of the highest order.

But he married her. He made promises. If he isn't happy with the marriage, why is he trawling my mate for sex instead of doing the decent thing and either trying to sort it out or ending it?

You see, its this kind of stuff that stokes the flames of my man hating fires.

LondonMan, I'm not sure what your point is. Is it that we should assume he has a perfectly good reason for texting a woman he fancies and complaining about married life?

I can't think of a hypothetical reason which would justify that behaviour. Even if his wife was utterly hideous, I would still think his behaviour was inappropriate and sleazy. I'm a great believer in ending one relationship before looking around for another.

I think a person should be able to expect loyalty, respect and consideration within their marriage. She might be unworthy of it, but we can only judge by what we know and what we know here is that he is the one demonstrating bad behaviour. What he is doing is hardly going to help things, is it?

My feeling is he is regretting the marriage but isn't man enough to walk or is after a bit on the side. My feeling about your friend's text is that she is trying to remind him he is married and therefore should not be t
texting that kind of message to someone she knows wants to shag her.

OP, I think you maybe are over thinking this a bit too so might need to accept that some men are twats but most are really lovely.

Even if his wife was shagging everything that moved or draining his bank account and he wanted a shoulder to cry on, a person he was trying to shag shortly before he met his wife wouldn't be the most sensible choice of person to confide in.

I doubt it has anything to do with the wife, to be honest, and everything to do with him being a douchebag with no boundaries.

I can't say for sure...what kind of cakes did he send?

sleazy sponge. Creepy cupcakes. Philandering profiteroles.

Dunno. Not sure that is the beating heart of this particular issue, but thankyou for your interest.

My first instinct on reading it was to assume he's joking, but that he's also a sleazy twat who would be well up for at least text-flirting with your friend. Lol at 'creepy cupcakes' :)

Disagree re. men and women not being able to be friends though! I have a few totally platonic male friends and while we may occasionally think each other looks hot and sexual thoughts might cross our minds the point is that we don't act on it and we don't fan the flames by flirting. Tbh I occasionally think my female friends look hot and have sexual thoughts about them too (not uncommon IMO), and no one says two women can't be friends, do they?