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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To block my DH on twitter?

95 replies

MooseHunter · 02/05/2017 19:49

I recently started using twitter for work- related matters but I know DH has been on it for years, is a really prolific tweeter and has loads of followers. He's on it a lot. I recently had a look at his account and although he talks to both men and women there, his obvious flirting with women has really turned my stomach. He's a flirt in real life so I really don't think there is anything in this, but it isn't nice to see how he talks to some women and there is one woman in particular that although he doesn't talk to the most, appears to know quite a lot of stuff about his life that they haven't discussed in tweets (yes I looked) so I am a bit Hmm about her. I don't follow him and am not sure if he even knows I am on twitter so has no idea I have seen his tweets

I am of course now constantly checking his account to see what he is saying and who he is talking to and quite frankly it is driving me mad. I really wish I had never looked, I hate how this has made me feel. Should I block him so I don't have to see his tweets (and couldn't if I tried) and just say nothing to him? I do feel a bit like I am spying, tbh

(Usual name changed to protect the innocent etc)

OP posts:
Neverknowing · 02/05/2017 22:26

Follow him? Then he can see that you're seeing his tweets.
I wouldn't be worried though if he's talking about you and your family. It is probably harmless. If it makes you uncomfortable you should follow him and itll either stop or you can bring it up with him because he knows you follow him.

scottishdiem · 02/05/2017 22:45

I was sympathetic to your husband until "hot to trot". Thats going too far and you need to question that language, especially if its not something he says elsewhere.

Bobbins43 · 02/05/2017 23:25

Yeah, hot to trot is not on at all. Does he know that it can also mean ready for sex?

OverthinkingSpartacus · 03/05/2017 00:05

You said in OP that what he says turns your stomach, but then say he doesn't say creepy things. One of your recent posts

Hot to trot is grim. In the context he is using It means being sexually excited and eager to have sex. Him telling random women they look like they are desperate to fuck is creepy imo. Unless he knows her really well enough to know she'd see it as a compliment? If he knows him telling her she looks like she is after sex will be a compliment or a laugh I'd be querying how he would have got to that stage to know that's he finds sexual "banter" like that as a compliment or funny.

In which case as you've seen no evidence of this in public tweets, then they must have built that relationship up over private messaging? In that case, if he's openly telling her she looks like she's wanting a shag, what is he saying to her in private?

If you are not ok with him making sexual comment like that about women's appearances then you are more than reasonable to want to discuss it. He will pack it in if its all innocent because your feelings will mean more to him than his desire to make sexual comments to strangers on the Internet. If he says it's not sexual then ask how many males he's told are hot to trot. (Bet the answer is zero cos he knows a man will think he's coming on to them)

melj1213 · 03/05/2017 03:04

for two people who don't appear to have any real-life connection, they seem to know an awful lot about each other.

Honestly, this is how Twitter works, especially if you've been on there since the beginning and the site has built up around you ... I am on Twitter a lot, I have a lot of friends that I have made on there purely because we are all into sports/share the same sports teams and so use twitter to "livechat" during games. A lot of these people I have never met IRL yet I would class them as really good friends and I have known them for the nearly 10 years I have been on twitter (joined early 2008)

Since the early days of Twitter, that group of friends I chat to has grown and incorporated friends of friends and/or other people who have joined our "twittersphere" and we all chat a lot and if anyone read our conversations it would seem the same way, that we know an awful lot about each other for "just" internet friends.

You don't seem to know what you want to get out of your snooping - on the one hand you say it isn't anything out of the ordinary wrt his "flirty" nature and the conversations seem normal enough, if a little too familiar for you occasionally, but then you also feel creeped out and sick to your stomach about what he's doing ... so why do you feel that way if you also feel there is nothing to be creeped out/sickened by?

CherylVole · 03/05/2017 06:40

I remember shit about my twitter pals I don't even ask about my rl ones

rizlett · 03/05/2017 06:53

You know you want to dig more - I'd be the same because I'm insecure - but blocking him is the only right way forward.

If there is anything serious going on you'll find out eventually and do you want to throwaway the trust you have already?

KungFuPandaWorksOut16 · 03/05/2017 07:21

I thought hot to trot meant I'm all done up and ready to go? Like i look hot and im ready to go (trot) I've only heard ladies saying it. Especially in the salon after getting hair/treatments done they will say it when paying and leaving.

CherylVole · 03/05/2017 10:41

Agree

FizzyGreenWater · 03/05/2017 11:10

'They are sometimes rude to each other in the way that only people who are sleeping with each other can be, iyswim.'

This is what jumped out at me.

If you honestly think this then that is what you need to examine. FWIW I do understnad what you mean by this comment, but also think you need to examine it in the light of what other folk have said about how social media interaction works - if it is something you are fairly new to.

But - I'd know what I meant if I thought this about my DH. You not being familiar with Twitter doesn't suddenly mean you don't KNOW your DH and how he interacts. You already know he has a flirty way of engaging and yet this has sent your antennae up.

MooseHunter · 03/05/2017 11:13

So, to try and answer some of your points: It turns my stomach that DH seems to have this whole other life online which I knew nothing about. Yes, the vast majority of it is just normal chat and I am probably reading far too much into it all. His flirting in real life IS unsleazy and harmless, he has a job which partly involves putting people at ease and he is very good at it and by "flirting" I don't mean anything sexual. Perhaps "flirting" isn't even the right word for it.

Am willing to accept that I don't know an awful lot about how Twitter works or how relationships on there grow over the years. DH does speak to people he works with or work-related contacts on there a lot too, as well as people he appears to have "met" on Twitter.

I didn't know "hot to trot" meant ready for sex Confused

Although I still think DH is too clever to conduct affairs over an open internet site, I am still slightly concerned over one woman but that's maybe because I don't like to see a very pretty woman talking in an overly familiar way to my DH and maybe they have never met in RL and my instincts are out on this one

I guess what I am really saying is that I am rather shocked that DH has an aspect to his life I knew nothing about and am a bit miffed he tells people there things that he never mentions to me. Whilst I do want to leave him to it, I am also compelled to look at the same time. Wish I'd never found his account.

Am I going to talk to him about it? I don't know yet.

OP posts:
DontPullThatTubeOut · 03/05/2017 11:20

I think posting on here will make you more paranoid, mumsnet has quite a few man haters on it. If you know this is what he is like and you are ok with it in RL then I can't see why you have an issue with it on twitter? If you are worried then talk to him, calmly about it. Don't accuse him of anything.

Botanicbaby · 03/05/2017 11:20

I wouldn't fixate on this one woman, sounds harmless and I'd leave him to it.

I have a lot of twittersphere friends I don't need to meet them IRL and it stays that way, your DH probably likes to portray a certain image online (as most people do) and as long as everything is fine with you both and your relationship then I wouldn't worry. Though I suppose its only natural to feel a little jealous. If you don't 'get' twitter then its understandable that you may think its more than it actually is...if that makes sense?

saladsmoothie · 03/05/2017 11:27

I thought hot to trop means ready to go... Confused

melj1213 · 03/05/2017 12:52

I am still slightly concerned over one woman but that's maybe because I don't like to see a very pretty woman talking in an overly familiar way to my DH and maybe they have never met in RL and my instincts are out on this one

You also have to remember that, if they have been twitter friends since the beginning, they are now in a nearly 10 year friendship, so while it's overly familiar to you because you're seeing it from the outside where it is now, it has developed to this point and wasn't always at this stage. I didn't tell my Ex (when we were still married & together) about everyone I talked to on Twitter, because he didn't have/use twitter and because it was just people I talk to on the internet ... much like any online forum.

To me it just seems like you don't quite understand how Twitter works and it's making you feel paranoid about perfectly innocent exchanges you have seen.

I guess what I am really saying is that I am rather shocked that DH has an aspect to his life I knew nothing about and am a bit miffed he tells people there things that he never mentions to me.

So you need to talk to him about that - sometimes being on the internet is our chance to, not quite reinvent ourselves, but to be freer than we have to be in public - take this very thread on this very forum, would you talk about your issues with your DH being on twitter with a load of random people on the bus? No, I'm fairly certain you wouldn't, but on the internet there's that little slice of anonymity or distance that makes you feel like you can safely discuss things with, what are essentially, total strangers. This happens on Twitter too - stuff people wouldn't say IRL they feel comfortable putting on the internet as whilst people obviously know there is a real person on the end of the other twitter handle they are talking to, it's a little less personal and people feel they can either be more honest or less inhibited about their discussions.

What about his conversations are you "miffed" about? Is it that he's talking about family issues or personal problems that he's never told you about, because in those cases I think you are definitely within your right to be a bit upset that he felt he could share that with strangers but not his wife especially as those things are going to affect you too. Or is it that he's telling people random stuff that he's just never thought to tell you about but that ultimately had no bearing on anything or effect on your life and so really aren't worth getting upset about.

He's clearly not got anything to hide as he doesn't have a locked account or has ever actively hidden his twitter from you, he's just not gone out of his way to include you, so perhaps the issue is less his Twitter life and more the fact you're feeling left out of it?

MooseHunter · 03/05/2017 13:03

Fair enough, I don't understand Twitter and the nature of the relationships formed on there- happy to admit this. So what do I do now? Block him and carry on as before? Talk to him about it? I don't want to go on like this, that is for sure. For one thing it is utterly exhausting

OP posts:
AnchorDownDeepBreath · 03/05/2017 13:12

I think not understanding Twitter is a red herring.

Your DH and this woman know things about each other that he hasn't told her publicly, which means this isn't just a public Twitter friendship. I would be exploring exactly what else it is.

WhatALoadOfOldBollocks · 03/05/2017 13:17

I thought hot to trot meant I'm all done up and ready to go?
That's what I thought too. Ready to go out on the town rather than ready to shag.

melj1213 · 03/05/2017 13:45

Your DH and this woman know things about each other that he hasn't told her publicly, which means this isn't just a public Twitter friendship. I would be exploring exactly what else it is.

Unless the OP has gone back through 10 years worth of posts, you can't know that for certain, and I know she said she looked but nobody can review 10 years worth of tweets, I have over 100k tweets and not even I could find everything, as they get archived after so long. And even if they do chat in DMs or whatever, that's not a crime either.

I have a lot of Twitter friends who are just that, friends made through using Twitter and chatting regularly ... sometimes we chat through DMs and some I am also friends with on other social media (Instagram, FB, Snapchat, LiveJournal, Vine etc). I know a lot of their addresses because we all exchange postcards on holiday and cards at Christmas but I have never met them in person nor is it any more than a long standing friendship of nearly a decade.

The OP's main concern is that her DH is friendly with a woman on Twitter, not that they are doing anything inappropriate or saying anything they wouldn't if they were IRL friends but as she has "discovered" the friendship potentially 10 years after it developed, of course they are going to be very familiar and her upset at not being included is making her paranoid over the friendship

MooseHunter · 03/05/2017 13:50

Haven't been back through ten years' worth of tweets, no. But she knows recent stuff. And from what I have looked back on (few months' worth of tweets) they only started getting friendly at the beginning of this year

OP posts:
melj1213 · 03/05/2017 13:55

So what do I do now? Block him and carry on as before? Talk to him about it? I don't want to go on like this, that is for sure. For one thing it is utterly exhausting

What exactly do you want to happen? Until you know that nobody can answer the "what to do" question.

IMO the first thing you need to do is talk to your DH - explain that you've seen his twitter and from reading some of the things he's said you've realised there's a whole "online persona" you didn't know he had and it's made you feel a little bit uncomfortable/insecure that there's stuff you were totally unaware of.

I wouldn't bring up the specific relationship with the woman as it risks turning into a conversation where he thinks you're accusing him of cheating or whatever and that won't be productive, but perhaps use some of their tweets to illustrate how "I saw you were discussing with Y, but you never mentioned this to me and I feel a little upset that you wouldn't confide in me" etc and see where it goes from there.

Somerville · 03/05/2017 14:01

If he assures you it's innocent, he'll be happy to show you his DM's surely? Insist, if he offers, on seeing them immediately, before he can delete some of them.

'Flirtatious' men on Twitter come across as sleezeballs. I'm always agog when they also use the same account for work - it's not just unprofessional but also makes them look really pathetic.

He's putting all this stuff out on the internet, and if it's under his real name or photo then it reflects on you too. I'd definitely be asking - and expecting - my DH to change how he interacts on social media if it affected our reputations, even if it was innocent.

melj1213 · 03/05/2017 14:12

I'd definitely be asking - and expecting - my DH to change how he interacts on social media if it affected our reputations, even if it was innocent.

If my Ex had ever expected I changed what I was doing on social media, even if it was innocent, then I'd have told him to fuck right off. My social media is mine to control, not his, not yours, not anyone else's.

What has your reputation got to do with your DH being friendly/flirty on social media?

CheekyLoki · 03/05/2017 14:17

Someone enlighten me..what is the point of twitter unless you are a celebrity or a public figure? If you are Joe Average and you are so pally with your chums on twitter, why not just have them on facebook?
Explain it to me like a 5 year old because I am twitter dummy.

Maudlinmaud · 03/05/2017 14:30

Twitter has changed since I've been on it Cheeky but it really was a nice way to connect with people you don't know from all over the world. Facebook is for keeping in touch with the people you do know. I use neither now but I did enjoy twitter.

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