To think DH should stop seeing this female "friend"

[springycurls]

First time posting in AIBU, I really don't think I am but DH won't discuss it properly AT ALL

DH and I have been married for 6mo. I've known him 2 years. We're in our late 30s and met online. He was always open that he was looking for a serious relationship and our relationship is great. He can be a bit immature and there are things I'd like to change about him but overall I'm happy. He is in a very niche job working for the government that needs a lot of specific, high level qualifications (PhD as a minimum)- it can be very demanding and a lot of it he isn't allowed to talk about. (this is relevant!!)

He has this female "friend" who he met many years ago. She is in the same job but is 10 years younger and though he wasn't her manager he mentored her when she first started. They do seem to have a lot in common- DH has some quite strange interests that I think he's a bit old for TBH. They became friends and stayed in touch but there's always been something "off" about her. I've heard from friends who knew him before he met me that they used to go on "dates" e.g. for dinner or films even though she has a partner. That hasn't happened much recently. She's been with this partner a long time but they're not married so I'm dubious as to how serious she is about that.

Anyway I went through his FB messages and whatsapps and it seems like they message quite frequently- at least once every week. Sometimes she starts it, sometimes he does. Usually it's about some of these weird interests or sounding off about work- again the very specific stuff about their job that us "plebs" wouldn't understand - but I've noticed that she has a pet name for him that no one else uses and he uses a pet name for her. She sometimes ends her messages with xxx. They are due to be away for work in London in a couple of months. It's not required that they go as it's a seminar type thing, but I found a message from him asking if she was going and saying that he'd go if she does! She had replied saying thank god I'll have someone to sit next to, you're the only person I like out of all of them!!

She has in the past tagged him on facebook and it's always a bit inappropriate- like they both went to this comic book expo thing and she photographed him there with some models.

I have met her a few times and always felt she was actually a bit rude/cheeky to my DH- especially from someone so much younger who is in the same job and should be looking up to him. He says she's not rude it's just "we think the same way". I think she's a bit snooty as she seems to presume me and DH will have the same interests. We had her round for dinner once and it was awful! She's known DH's cat since it was a kitten so it loves her (cat hates me, I hate cats) and she made a bloody great fuss of it. She then wanted to talk politics which was a bit controversial as DH and I don't agree and she openly said she was shocked by that and not agreeing would be a "deal breaker" for her and her partner!
He wanted to invite her to our wedding but I said no. She sent us a card and a small gift anyway which I thought was quite passive aggressive!

I have tried to get him to talk about her but he just tells me to leave it and that there's nothing going on. I can't put my finger on it but it just doesn't seem right for him to have this sort of relationship. All his other female friends are our age, married and he's friendly with the husbands too. I've tried looking her up on facebook but her privacy settings are very strong so I can't even message her directly telling her to back off. I could get her number off DH phone but that seems a bit OTT

How can I get my DH to see this is a bit weird, and am I being unreasonable to think he should reduce his contact with her and keep it just professional? She's a young girl surely she should be making friends with people her own age anyway!

OP, you've done well to come back to the thread and I'm glad you did. There is a lot of advice on here that you need to take. Please keep in your mind:

1. Your husband married you because he loves you.
2. His friendship with this woman has no link to his relationship with you - they are not variables that affect each other.
3. Marriages where husband and wife are essentially forced to only have each other because of one/both party jealousy dry up very quickly and nothing breeds resentment quicker than that.

Please seek some help for your jealous nature, these things you write about are clearly winding you up and causing you stress - but they shouldn't be. You should be secure in your marriage because that is what marriage is. You don't have to live a life where you feel threatened by someone else, and you won't if you are secure in yourself.

Therapy will help, although right now you might not realise it because up until now you thought it was the friend who is being U. If you try to interfere with this friendship it will only push your husband away. When he married you, you were someone who respected his friendships and his hobbies then once you married you changed your mind - it's not right.

OP I'm late to the party of joining the YABU chorus. I think you seem to be taking advice on board though and that's healthy

BUT I also think this thread could potentially be very identifying. You've described a lot of detail in a pretty unpleasant way and unless you've changed things so much that any advice would actually be worthless, then I would be worried about your DH or his friend or your poor cat(!) being able to identify themselves.

If I was his friend and they're as close as they seem to be, I'd be devastated by this.

You've got your feedback- consider having the thread taken down now.

Jemima that's what I mean about her being some sort of high flyer. I think she finished it about 23 and was on a very accelerated program as DH was on similar but took longer (no holidays at undergrad so done in 2.5yr etc). He knew her for a year beforehand, I think.

Nah still doesn't add up. Your DH knew her a year before so met when she was 22?

Known her 10 years ... and somehow in that time she's only aged 6 years.

I think your dh was also very nice with you not having her at the wedding.
I wouldn't have stood for that.

I agree, I thought that was really nasty of OP and then to call the gift the woman so kindly gave 'passive-aggressive' was ludicrous. What a nasty attitude.

The late advocate Paul McBride went to Strathclyde Uni to study law at age 16 and graduated aged 19. Having a PhD at 22 wouldn't be impossible in that situation.

Maybe OP's lurve rival is a similar prodigy.

Op you also seem to have some very tight boundaries of what you think is appropriate. Why was her posting a picture of him with models at a comic expo (comic con? We're these cosplay models) in appropriate?

I think you seem to have quite a strict view on friendships between men and women. Please, we do keep asking, how would you feel if all this was with a man not a woman?

OP, like everyone else, I agree that there is nothing wrong with this friendship, but I do so feel for you, it is horrible being jealous and insecure, been there, bought the T-shirt.

Not all Oxbridge PhD programmes, Gabilan, or even most of them. The only ones I know of at Cambridge that don't require an MA/MSc are those in areas where students do a 4 year undergrad degree - so, where the 4th year is equivalent to an MSc. You can do, say, a PhD in Linguistics at Cambridge without a Masters.

They used to - a friend of mine did a PhD in a humanities subject straight from BA at Oxford. Since he had started his BA at 17, he got his PhD at 23. But that was nearly 20 years ago and was very, very unusual in his field even then.

Can't do it without a Masters, I mean't.

Now slightly worried that some highly technical, secret arm of the state has hired some woman who has blagged their way in without the required qualifications and is trying to read the 'the beginners' guide to wiring a nuclear warhead' without her colleagues noticing.

Is this poor bloke going to return from his London trip and be served up curried CAT?

Not all Oxbridge PhD programmes

Yes, I'm well aware of that, thank you. Some people fast track through school and uni. Getting a phd at 23 would be unusual, yes, but really not impossible. Of all the things the OP has said, frankly that's one of the least weird. She may well have fudged details as well, I do on here. And if she were going to make things up, I think she would probably have done the basic maths.

Basically she's jealous of her husband's friendship with a much younger high achieving woman. I'd go with that and stop fretting over the details of how old this woman is.

OP, I think you married the wrong man & his easy compatibility with his friend is illuminating the gulf between your interests, beliefs & values.

I graduated at 20 so I could have got my doctorate at 23.

Of all the things the OP has said, frankly that's one of the least weird.

I entirely agree.

I feel sorry for the OP's husband, given that she's so horrendously patronising about his interests, and expected him to give them up (along with good friends).

He must love her a lot to put up with that controlling BS.

There is a whole regiment of us on here talking sense and then there is this poster and the OP
There's a flock of hoodwinked sheep posting, OP, but I am not one of them.

Fair play to you, OP for coming back.

People - the detail of the friend's age really is the least odd thing the OP has said (but for info, dh didn't do a masters prior to his PhD ).
I don't understand why you think people should stay in if their partner /dh/oh were away though ? . My dh is away a lot - my social life would be very sad if i werent prepared to go out places without him.

TheElephantofSurprise
He should distance himself from her

the bloke is on a relationship with someone that doesn't seem to like him much, wants to change him, wants him to only spend time with her, and doesn't trust him.

And you want to compound this by separating him from his friends.

How many red flags do people need to see.

OP you should leave him and let him get on with his life.

Elephant I suggest that you are named after the elephant in the room, and that elephant is a controlling and abusive partner. One that thinks they get to dictate who the person they 'love' is friends with, where they go and what hobbies they have.

This elephant is a noisy one, it keeps on braying about the fact that they have the perfect relationship and that everyone else, people who show actual love, respect and trust of their partners, are stupid or have been 'hoodwinked'. When in reality the elephant's partner is being crushed by the weight of their relationship.

Well said RestlessTraveller. Elephant is one of those people who thinks it is everyone else who is out of step.

I was about to say Oxbridge. I did my DPhil there (not by 23!) and did an MSt then into DPhil.

TheElephantofSurprise so if this was a man posting saying he wanted the wife to stop being friends with an old friend just because it was with a man, it would be the same story?
I'm thinking not
It would be red flags, but because it is op's dh and the friend is a woman oh no, it's fine
No it isn't.
Op's poor dh has done nothing wrong and neither has his friend.
He can be friends with who he wishes and have whatever hobbies he wants!
When you marry you don't own that person.

hoodwinked sheep - hilarious.

I have a male friend who used to be a work colleague. He is younger single and attractive. We go to dinner on a regular enough basis. He was litterally the first person I told when I got pregnant (after a long while trying which he also knew about )

The is absolutely NOTHING remotely romantic between us on either side.

We spent 8 or 9 hours a day together for 4 years and went through some stressful situations together. You form a bond.

You can have a bond with someone without there being anything suspect at all. I would be devastated if someone came along and insisted he drop me.

Oh and dh has no problem with our relationship at all. I checked