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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think that an intelligent, married, successful woman

56 replies

winkywinkola · 14/12/2015 20:59

does not ask a married man out for coffee two days after crying on his shoulder about the state of her marriage because she wants to offer support and kindness to the man about his unhappiness in his marriage?

Aibu to think that both parties had absolutely no interest in assisting their current marriages by meeting again?

Obviously an inappropriate friendship was struck up but the married man seems to think there was no intention from either party to generate romance?

OP posts:
M48294Y · 14/12/2015 22:49

That bit about the emails containing lots of xxxxxxxs and missing youxxxxxx - that's drip feeding, that is.

Sometimes its just not wise to post after three glasses Wink.

Duckdeamon · 14/12/2015 22:52

Apparent intelligence and career success have little to do with how likely someone is to seek a relationship with someone not single. Perhaps she was feeling low about her looks, in her relationship, looking for a boost, likes attention from men, and/or saw something in your H (based on superficial impressions) she found attractive or different.

Her motives don't really matter.

Depression isn't an excuse for him to have behaved like that!

Duckdeamon · 14/12/2015 22:53

Saying he wasn't thinking right at the time or whatever is kind of excusing himself, minimising. That would piss me off.

Original poster
winkywinkola · 14/12/2015 22:56

He says he fucked up. It was wrong.

OP posts:
Moopsboopsmum · 15/12/2015 00:15

I had this, never found out if he actually fucked the OW it not. It took about a year for our marriage to unravel. If you are still upset and questioning a year later I suggest that you LTB. My ex DH was also 'depressed', he had a breakdown after he left me and the OW was v supportive. Etc. Etc. they aren't together now.

throwingpebbles · 15/12/2015 06:02

So you dh "was in a bad place" but she is "a bitch" Hmm

Sounds to me like both of them were in a bad place. And both of them crossed some lines they shouldn't have.

Original poster
winkywinkola · 15/12/2015 07:11

Nope. Where did I say that he was in a bad place but she is a bitch? They're both cunts.

OP posts:
Original poster
winkywinkola · 15/12/2015 07:13

My point on this thread was that he says the motives for meeting were not romantic. I think they were. And I think for her they were too. Hence my op.

OP posts:
Enjolrass · 15/12/2015 07:19

You will never know her motives. You strongly suspect what they were and you may be right.

But you won't ever know 100%.

When it comes to dh, at some point you either have to leave or draw a line under it.

I assume you don't believe him when he says it wasn't romantic. Again you can't force him to tell you anything different.

For your own sake you don't want to be trying to work this out forever.

lighteningirl · 15/12/2015 07:39

Either forgive and forget or ltb everyone talks about their marriage and two unhappy people will gravitate to each other. You should be focussing on your relationship and your own happiness. Is he happy now? Is he sorry? Are you happy? If so move on she is nothing to do with you and trying to blame her and exonerate him (and hence yourself) is at least unproductive and at worst covering up other issues.

KakiFruit · 15/12/2015 07:43

When it comes to dh, at some point you either have to leave or draw a line under it.

This. You will never know, so it's really a question of whether you can forgive and forget or not.

Lonecatwithkitten · 15/12/2015 07:45

IME it is all selfish behaviour both of them your H and the OW put themselves above everyone else.
Either you can both put this to bed and not go back to it and so move one with your marriage. Or one or both of you can't move forward from it and then the marriage can't be saved.

Noneedforasitter · 15/12/2015 08:18

So your husband engaged in some flirting a year ago, no affair, and admits he made a mistake. Everyone makes mistakes and in this case nothing of consequence resulted from it. It is madness that anyone is advising you to LTB for that alone. Because no relationship is perfect.

The woman you describe as intelligent and successful is clearly not as together as you believe, or she wouldn't be throwing herself at someone she had just met.

You need to move on from this and focus on the positives in your relationship.

Jux · 15/12/2015 08:29

You'll never know so you have to decide whether you are going to try to trust him again or not.

If you want to stay married and having him about, more than you don't, then you make that decision, and put the affair behind you. Move on.

If you can't leave it all behind you, then you need to decide to end the marriage; at least get him out.

Either way, a decision is called for, your decision.

Duckdeamon · 15/12/2015 08:37

talking to OW about their respective marriages - whether or not one or both of them thought of their new relationship in a "romantic" way at that point - was inappropriate, broke boundaries and was a betrayal.

Any contact and meetings after that were similarly a betrayal.

lostinmiddlemarch · 15/12/2015 08:56

I think these things often start with no thought about what will happen next, just self-pity and a desire to hear their side of the story affirmed. The idea that they're just getting some 'support' from an outside party is all the mind is consciously thinking. They're being disingenuous to themselves as well. Then, later, they can be genuinely 'surprised' by the feelings that follow - and therefore acting on them won't be so bad because they didn't ask or intend to feel that way. It's a game involving irresponsibility and denial. Sounds like it was driven by the woman this time. You have absolutely no way of knowing if your DP would have pulled back when the opportunity for self-pity to develop into something else was offered. He probably doesn't know (or conveniently believes he would have done the right thing). If he did fancy the woman in question, he probably thinks 'she's an attractive woman but I would never have betrayed my wife'.

Either way, you should stop mulling. It sounds embittering.

Badders123 · 15/12/2015 09:08

He was contemplating an affair.
Only he knows.
Her reasons are unknowable.
But...yeah.
Not good.

Badders123 · 15/12/2015 09:09

Sorry should have read "only he knows what happened"

IceBeing · 15/12/2015 10:30

winky okay this is projecting on an epic scale - but maybe bear with me?

We all perceive ourselves in multiple different ways. You might have a work persona and a home persona and a sports club persona...its not about being two faced it is about having different aspects to your identity that you value. When you get depression or some other mental illnesses too, you can end up with one of these personas taking the majority of the damage. It is a survival mechanism to allow your brain to heal, to then de-empahisize that persona and re-focus on one that is not so hurt. So for your DH it is possible that the depression was centred on home-DH and work-DH was coping better. The fact that it is your home-persona that is hurt makes it hard to access support from your family and easier to access support from others. Having made an emotionally supportive connection when you are desperately in need of one it is only sensible to nurture that connection.

Taking it too far is obviously a terrible thing to have done - but the motivations that put your DH (and potentially the OW too) in a bad situation in the first place were sensible and aimed at healing which the brain is driven to do.

I am not at all condoning anything untoward that happened, just trying to indicate the way in which the situation may have arisen.

AyeAmarok · 15/12/2015 11:10

This is why when someone has an affair (emotional or physical) it's the cheated on spouse who has to live a life sentence of torture if you try to stay together.

It's easy for him to get over the affair, he is the one who is in control of whether or not it happens again. You're not, so you try to work out the reasons why, in an attempt to future proof the relationship and stop him cheating again.

But you can't stop him. You either need to trust him, or decide that you can't and walk away.

It's very unfair. Flowers

ColdWhiteWinePlease · 15/12/2015 12:22

There's something that doesn't ring true about his story.

Any woman that cries to a stranger on a works "do", would have to have hit rock bottom. That's bat shit crazy. So I'm not sure I buy that. Also, it seems unlikely that two strangers would discuss their doomed marriages at a works do? I mean, how does that conversation even get started?

Also, why would you e-mail someone you didn't know, and sign it off with "miss you xxxxx"? How can you miss someone you hardly know? Surely you can only miss someone who previously was there, and now is not?

Having said this, your marriage does appear to be back on track, so I think you're going to have to try to forget this sorry episode.

Original poster
winkywinkola · 15/12/2015 14:03

She started crying, explained she'd had a row that morning. H was being the comforting hero. Twit and ultimately, disloyal moron.

If I were upset in such a work space like a networking meeting, I would find a loo or woman who might know where there was a loo. I wouldn't start crying to a stranger, a man and tell them my marriage problems. Then again, she didn't pick the fat, ugly bloke to cry on at the networking meeting, did she?

That's what I mean about questioning motives.

Two days later, she calls him up, suggests meeting for a coffee. He agrees and so it starts until a month later, I discover the emails and confront him. Every time I have asked him, his story is the same. She was deeply unhappy, her husband only wanted sex three times in the year and only anal sex (wtf?) and why? Was she ugly, uninteresting blah, blah, blah

You're right though, I will never really know what happened. I hope my fury with h will subside though. He's begged and begged forgiveness, saying nothing happened and he was miserable and it will never happen again.

I do need to get past this. I just detest the thought of having been made a fool and her smirking, thinking she is so hot, fun, interesting etc, h simply couldn't resist her advances. Of course he could have resisted. He chose not to.

OP posts:
ColdWhiteWinePlease · 15/12/2015 14:32

Uugh, she sounds like an utter knob. She was telling him about the anal sex thing, to make him visualise her in that position. She was asking "am I ugly", so that he would have to stroke her ego, but saying "no of course not, you're beautiful" - or something like that. She sounds quite predatory and he made a mistake when he was weak.

But if all is well now, just put her out of your mind. She's deeply unhappy. And you two sound in a good place now. I've no doubt she'll be jealous about that and probably stalks you both on Facebook when she's had too many glasses of wine

Duckdeamon · 15/12/2015 15:55

her behaviour and motivation aren't the key issue here: it certainly sounds inappropriate but your H could easily NOT have got involved, at any point.

I still don't get what his "being miserable" has to do with his doing what he did.

Enjolrass · 15/12/2015 16:08

She sounds like a knobber.

The 'am I ugly' is classic of someone with self esteem issues. Wanting someone to tell them that they are beautiful etc.

The anal sex is tmi and probably hopes it would lead to other sexual talk.

She has low self esteem and was quite happy to use your dh to try and make her feel better.

That's my best guess. But it's doesn't really matter.

What matters is you and your dh.