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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Set up by friends

236 replies

HoneyBadger32 · 26/03/2018 16:10

I will try not to make this long winded...

I have been friendly with a couple for a few years now. I coincidentally went to school with the husband and we went on two or three "dates" when we were about 15, I then ended up working with him after university many years later so i knew him first but now we regularly do things together as couples and I am very close with his wife.

A few weeks ago he called at ours after work to borrow some tools from my OH. His wife was away for work so I invited him to stay for dinner. All very normal. My OH went out to play football and he stayed to watch the end of a film we had put on after dinner. He then randomly starts a conversation along the lines of "do you ever wonder what it would have been like if we had stayed together...." Completely out of nowhere. I asked if everything was OK with his wife etc etc and we had a chat before he left.

fast forward to yesterday and his wife sends me a message saying she can't believe I wouldn't tell her if her husband was trying to cheat on her...I phoned her to try and figure it all out and she says that she had always thought I held a torch for him and that they concocted this plan for him to come onto me (which actually I really don't think you can say he did) to see whether I would tell her?

Tell me this isn't the most bizarre thing you've ever heard? What is the appropriate response to this? I was just on the phone with my mouth open and no idea what to say.

OP posts:
Original poster
HoneyBadger32 · 27/03/2018 10:35

we work in a ridiculously small firm so I see him all the time! He usually makes me tea and toast in the morning because he thinks I should eat breakfast...but it's not flirty romantic toast!

OP posts:
BiscayTrafalgarFitzroy · 27/03/2018 10:36

If he had actually tried it on with me my OH would definitely have been reacting differently,

But he and his wife tried to do something equally as awful to you!

Shedmicehugh1 · 27/03/2018 10:37

He did try it on with you! The fact it was a pathetic attempt is irrelevant!

YellowFlower201 · 27/03/2018 10:37

I wouldn't meet the wife. Wait until you know more via your DH. Mind perhaps your DH should take back up in case crazy wife is there or they are setting him up for something or other?

PositivelyPERF · 27/03/2018 10:41

I’d actually be pissed off with my husband if he went out for a drink with the husband if someone who accused me of that. At the end of the day, the wanker has said something to his wife to make her think this. I’d suspect he was trying to make her jealous and implied the two of you were flirting or he could ‘have you if he wanted you’, just to make her feel insecure.

Your husband and him going to a drink, just makes me think the men are going along the line of ‘oh, those silly little women, don’t worry, they’ll get over it’.

PositivelyPERF · 27/03/2018 10:45

but it's not flirty romantic toast!

I think you haven’t been eating your toast before the butter melts, OP. You kept missing this. 😁

Set up by friends
SeaEagleFeather · 27/03/2018 11:11

I really don't want to go for dinner with the wife though! I know I should be making an effort to help her if she has marital problems or whatever but I do find the situation a wee bit freaky

dear god no. You're opening yourself up for things becoming waaaaay stranger and given her weird take on what's okay behaviour, you'll be lucky to come out of it with your fingernails still attached to your fingers.

Is it possible that she was pressuring him to try soemthing on and he tried it very half - heartedly, told her he'd tried and thus her very strange text? I don't know, just seems odd that he'd really want to risk a 15 year friendship

Lookatmenow · 27/03/2018 11:13

Have you now seen this man face to face at work?

What has been said?

I hope you asked him what the hell he thought they were playing at?

BlancheM · 27/03/2018 11:14

Oh god. I'd be wondering if the friendship with the wife was fake all along. Standard advice on here when you don't trust your partner's male friendships is to befriend the wife to keep your enemy close.
Weirdness aside, this could have caused you trouble in your own relationship. It's good it didn't, but it could've done. What a couple of manipulative idiots.

BlancheM · 27/03/2018 11:15

Female*

Lookatmenow · 27/03/2018 11:27

Can i ask why your husband doesn't seem to be upset that his friend (of many years) has:

A - set up his wife
and
B - potentially made a play for his wife

Why is this all acceptable to him?

Original poster
HoneyBadger32 · 27/03/2018 11:28

the butter heart is flirty?! hahahaha I will see him this afternoon, we are on cross over conferences so he was out yesterday and i'm out this morning.

Should I just ask him what the F he's playing at? I feel like it'll be mortifying all round.

OP posts:
PositivelyPERF · 27/03/2018 11:30

Should I just ask him what the F he's playing at?

Yes, I would. It would be worse if you both try to ignore it and end up cringing every time you see each other.

Original poster
HoneyBadger32 · 27/03/2018 11:31

lookatme he's bemused because it's such a weird thing to have done, so i think h'es reserving judgement until he feels he has the real story, and also, he definitely did not make a play for me. I was oblivious to what had apparently happened, and I do think he must have told her something else for her to have thought it would even have registered as weird for me

OP posts:
GeekyWombat · 27/03/2018 11:31

Are they people that love a bit of drama in their lives to keep things lively do you think? If they are and you're just this week's sideshow / a chance for them to row and make up and things will be ok with them next week (and you're ok with that!) then I guess you can continue the friendship. I'm not sure I'd be able to. It sounds exhausting!

I definitely wouldn't ever be alone with either of them socially again!

shakeyourcaboose · 27/03/2018 11:32

hyper has it
a message along the lines of ‘I feel the other night crossed a boundary. I don’t mean the set-up come-on itself, as I deflected that and playing around is simply not on my radar. I mean being used as ‘bait’ or a pawn in your relationship. I think we all need some space here, but please do not use us in this way.’

EasterRobin · 27/03/2018 11:32

Since you work with him, it'd be awkward not to mention it. I would just say "I had a really weird call from your wife. What was that about?" Not because I want to hear his side, but because you need to have the conversation to avoid future awkwardness at work.

nellieellie · 27/03/2018 11:35

Agree with hyper and shake - above. Definitely make it clear that you don’t know or want to know what the heck is going on with their relationship, but do not want to be involved in their bizarre games.

Lookatmenow · 27/03/2018 12:01

honey he might not have made a play for you but the intention from them both was. He didn't go through with it (or so you think) and if he told his wife he did. he knew she was going to contact you in regards to it.

Where did he think this would lead?

Did he think there would be no fall out?

And yes! definately ask what the fuck he was playing at!

christ, your grown up's for FFS!!!!!

StealthPolarBear · 27/03/2018 12:07

Stay away or you'll get sucked back into the madness and drama

TathitiPete · 27/03/2018 12:08

I'd not want to be alone with him again tbh, I wouldn't be able to trust him. I don't mean that he'd be dangerous or anything, just that you couldn't trust what he might later say had happened.

Slarti · 27/03/2018 12:22

Is this actually real op? Because if someone had come into my house and taken advantage of my hospitality and generosity, all with the ulterior motive of 'proving' I was untrustworthy, I would be livid.

By behaving so duplicitously they have been shown to be untrustworthy. By concocting a honeytrap for you in order to manufacture a reason to throw accusations at you they've shown you utter contempt and clearly are not your friends. Yet your dh is going for a pint with him and you're thinking you should be civil and supportive???

If one of my friends had come into my house and treated my wife like that he'd be having those power tools surgically removed.

Lookatmenow · 27/03/2018 12:32

totally agree with slarti

you need to start to realise the extent of what has happened here and not just shrug it off - unless you're 12!!!!

Hypermice · 27/03/2018 12:39

I have to agree with slarti

This is a very peculiar dynamic and not one I would want to be anywhere near.

The absolute best case scenario is that they are massively self absorbed and have no boundaries. The worst is that they’re actively engaging in some kind of odd power/sexual play dynamic which involves you and your husband, or that the husband holds a torch for you still.

There’s literally no situation in which what they did is Ok or pans out well.

Get those power tools back, give gem a form but polite no thank you and let the friendship fizzle out. Keep a polite but distant demeanour at work.

Very, very peculiar situation

UpSideDownBrain · 27/03/2018 12:44

There is something very twisted about this and I would not want to be friends with them, whatever their excuse. I can't stand this kind of game playing or secret testing - it's just nasty.