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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Friends OH

84 replies

AnnabethChase · 15/09/2018 15:31

My friends other half recently started sending me daft stuff on WhatsApp. By daft I mean silly memes or videos of people falling over. Stuff that’d just make you chuckle then you carry on your day, sort of thing. This past week he’s suddenly upped his game and has started sending me porn videos and memes. I spoke to him in person about it and said to drop the rude stuff, didn’t want his other half getting the wrong idea. Now he has completely gone silent on me. I don’t know if I’ve embarrassed him or he’s in a huff (he has form for this). It won’t be because he’s realised they’re inappropriate as he said he deletes the whole thread and she never sees what he’s sent, so he already knows they’re inappropriate. AIBU to avoid him? How would I explain it to his OH because she would notice as I see them a lot and she would ask what’s up?

Thank you

OP posts:
BettyCrook · 15/09/2018 16:23

OP you need to show her because if not you will seem deceptive and an accomplice as if you did not mind this and been lying to her face knowing who he is and not letting her see.

I suspect your friendship will be weird now anyway because the other option is to avoid them.. i would just show her and say something like look i value our friendship and you have been supportive to me im sorry this may upset you but i want a transparent friendship with you to avoid any future misunderstanding, your husband sent me the following and before you view know that i have told him that they were inappropriate in person and asked him not to send me such things again.
and then show her.

trust me if you say nothing she may think you like it or been encouraging it.

NotAgainYoda · 15/09/2018 16:26

I agree Betty

And OP, do you want to be the sort of woman who is manipulated by a man?

anyoldironing · 15/09/2018 16:28

He sounds a childish twit doesn't he?
Not sure I would tell my friend though. It's not like he was sending pics of his nob, although suspect that was next up.
A woman I know, kept sending me vaguely porny things of men's penii ( lol). I think it's weird. Fortunately, she has gone off me, due to the fact I am no fun probably.

YeTalkShiteHen · 15/09/2018 16:29

Not sure I would tell my friend though. It's not like he was sending pics of his nob, although suspect that was next up

It’s not a race to the bottom Confused

If my DP had done this, I’d want to know.

Rudgie47 · 15/09/2018 16:38

She needs to know then she can decide what to do about him.
Basically he was sounding you out for an eventual shag I think. At the very least hes a pervert and has no respect for women.

ContessasGulagSpaDay · 15/09/2018 16:42

trust me if you say nothing she may think you like it or been encouraging it.

I agree. In every film/tv show/book/article/Mumsnet post I have ever read, this is what happens.

Aria2015 · 15/09/2018 16:43

He's fishing to try and start something with you. You've done the right thing stopping him in his tracks. Sadly you've probably only stopped him doing it with you and he'll no doubt do it again with someone else in the future. He sounds like a dirt bag!

Cupcakecafe · 15/09/2018 16:46

Tell her.
You have the conversion to prove it so it isn't your word against his, and that will also show you didn't encourage it.

I would want to know if I was your friend. Yes I'd be devastated, but I'd rather know what he was like. She already may have an inkling he messages other people but no proof. You say dp/oh rather than dh so I'm assuming they aren't married. Tell her before she marries him or has children with him. At least then she can make an informed choice about what to do

Didiusfalco · 15/09/2018 16:47

You have to tell her, what happens when he does it to someone else, she finds out and it emerges that you already knew/had been through the same.

AnnabethChase · 15/09/2018 17:28

That’s for all responses. I am going to leave it a couple of days and see if he stays silent or carries on. I hope he stays silent for his own sake.

Incidentally he has a daughter and yes he is married (a very long time too).

OP posts:
NotAgainYoda · 15/09/2018 19:12

Married? So your friend is having an affair with him?

What a pair of charmers they are. And how low must her self esteem be?

LanguidLobster · 15/09/2018 19:18

I've got absolutely no idea why you're putting up with him.

Just tell her and block him.

AnnabethChase · 15/09/2018 20:45

@NotAgainYoda

No, no they’re married to each other. Sorry I was just referring to him as an individual rather than them as a couple. THEY are married and THEY have a daughter.

OP posts:
covetingthepreciousthings · 15/09/2018 20:55

I definitely think you should tell your friend. If you don't and it comes about that he'd been sending this sort of stuff to you & you didn't tell her, she will think you enjoyed it. Call him out on it now.

AnnabethChase · 15/09/2018 21:02

@covetingthepreciousthings

Thankyou for the advice. I’m trying to work out how best to talk to her about it without losing her. That really worries me.

OP posts:
AnoukSpirit · 15/09/2018 21:06

I would be more hurt if my close friend covered up for my arsehole of a husband and lied to me, than if she was honest with me and gave me the opportunity to act (even if I did choose to ignore it). Wouldn't you?

How humiliating to find out a few years later perhaps that he's been doing this - probably to all your friends, this is unlikely to be the first time he's tried it - and nobody told you?

Things like this don't stay secret forever. If you don't tell her the next one might.

He's not embarrassed, by the way, he's annoyed you didn't rise to his bait and that you had the audacity to put him in his place. He'll already be sounding out his next target.

AnnabethChase · 15/09/2018 21:39

@AnoukSpirit

I know you’re right. I’ve watched him talking to another mum a lot and she doesn’t get the same side of him as I’ve seen. He’s “normal” with her but I’ve seen a different side to him.

OP posts:
stopfuckingshoutingatme · 15/09/2018 21:55

I would not show her OP

She will find out eventually and your friendship means a lot to you

Why should you both lose a loving friendship because of this twat ?

Elephantinacravat · 15/09/2018 22:01

God, what the fuck is wrong with blokes these days? Coming on to you by sending you porn? Grim.

AnnabethChase · 15/09/2018 22:11

@stopfuckingshoutingatme 👍🏻

@Elephantinacravat

I know, it is pretty grim. Some of the stuff was really explicit too.

OP posts:
YeTalkShiteHen · 15/09/2018 22:16

I had to have this argument earlier in the context of unsolicited dick pics being sent to female fans on football support forums.

Bastards. It’s so intrusive and aggressive.

AnnabethChase · 15/09/2018 22:19

@YeTalkShiteHen

It really is. I see a fair amount of penii for my work and they’re really not all that.

OP posts:
YeTalkShiteHen · 15/09/2018 22:22

I really don’t understand what is supposed to be attractive about an unsolicited picture of a willy that is
a) uncalled for and an act of aggression
b) attached to an absolute fucking arsehole which renders said appendage of fuck all use to me
c) just a really creepy and disgusting thing to do.

It makes my skin crawl.

Chrysalis7 · 15/09/2018 22:41

I agree with the posters saying that they cannot IMAGINE why any man thinks that a woman wants to see a photo of his PENIS, (or any other man's for that matter!)

Do they think it turns the woman on, and will get her going, and make her want to fuck him?

Utterly repulsive and vile.

You need to tell this woman OP.

butterflysugarbaby · 15/09/2018 22:45

Very, very tricky.

I had a similar situation a few years ago. A neighbour of mine - Penny, from 7 doors away - was also a friend, and we would go on coffee mornings with several other female neighbours and mothers once a month or so.

One January, we all met up for a night at the pub to celebrate someone's 40th birthday (about 20 people who knew each other in the neighbourhood,) and we all got quite drunk.

I went outside for a bit of fresh air, and Penny's husband Mark, came out about a minute later. Within several minutes, he started groping me and making comments about my boobs, my legs, and how 'hot' I was. I was so embarrassed and mortified, and questioned if I had lead him on. (I hadn't, but as every woman knows, you question yourself, when you have a man try it on, or sexually harass you.)

I managed to get away from him, and felt very shaken and upset, and went home soon after.

I toyed with whether to tell my friend Penny or not, and after much soul searching, I decided I would. (And I did 2 days later.)

She was gobsmacked and said 'he would never do that!' When she asked him about it. He said I had tried it on with him, and when he 'rejected' me, I left the party, and decided to lie about it to cover my own back! She called me a lying cow and said I was a nasty trouble maker, and I was trying to split them up.

Within HOURS, she had slagged me off to anyone who would listen, and they believed her (and him!) and I was the desperate slag who had tried it on with her husband. The only one who believed me (luckily) was my husband.

Life became so awful in the neighbourhood that we had to move. We put our house on the market 6 months later, and moved 10 miles away.

Fast forward a year, I bumped into an old neighbour who had snubbed me and turned against me, and she said 'oh Lisa, I am glad I saw you, I am SO sorry about being awful last year.... turns out Mark WAS a lecherous twat. He tried it on with Penny's SISTER in law (her brother's wife,) a few months after you left, and it was caught on cctv. Penny has been trying to find out where you are to talk to you about it and say she is sorry.'

The damage was done then though. So I said 'sorry, but that ship has sailed. I had to move HOUSE because of all that, and my life was made a living hell by Penny and Mark and their cronies who they got onside. So no. I am not interested.' And I walked off.

Never looked back.

But yeah, that was a tough time. HE was the lecherous cunt, and I was the one disbelieved, and the one who had to move house.

Penny left Mark, and I hope he rots in hell.

So yeah, good luck with all this @AnnabethChase I don't know what to suggest. Whatever you do, it will be 'wrong.'

I have not used any real names.