To think DH is playing with fire with new 'friend'

[Ickysnicky]

I'm really worried about DH's behaviour lately and for a while now. We have 3 daughters, 10, 8, and 4. He takes them to school everyday as he catches the train in the same location. I was aware of him talking to one of our 4 year old's mums every now and then but now it seems like it's an every day occurrence and they have become very friendly, messaging on FB, etc. He also never speaks to anyone else. This leaves me feeling uneasy as DH doesn't have a lot of friends and in the 20 years I've known him he has never had a female friend, only work colleagues.

Anyway, they both have started the same hobby recently and have agreed to start going together. DH knew that I wouldn't be comfortable with it but said that if I said he shouldn't go then I would be ruining it for them and it would be my fault

I feel really uneasy about the whole friendship as DH seems very emotionally invested in the friendship. He's the type to be very flattered by attention and just worried that he really is playing with fire.

I totally trusted my ex. I didn't question his friendship with a new work colleague. He still had an affair with her. Trusting people doesn't mean they won't betray you

Right. I think it's a bit more nuanced than just blindly trusting. It's about saying either he actually is trustworthy, in which case great, all fine, or he's not trustworthy, in which case it doesn't really matter what you do, because you should want to break up with an untrustworthy guy anyway.

Put it this way, do you think that if you had "prohibited" your husband from seeing his new colleague, he would have stayed faithful to you and been the partner you always wanted?

Anybody here who says they'd be "fine" with a situation like this are deluding themselves

Why? I used to run (and I actually went to a running club) and I quite often ended up running with one particular male runner - mainly because he ran at the same pace as me, but yes, we also got on in a social chit chat sort of way. I wouldn't have wanted my DH to come running with me instead because part of the point of running was time away from my family. And there was nothing remotely going on between me and other runner, and I would have thought DH had lost the plot if he suggested there was.

If you change "mum" to "dad" in the OP, no one would bat an eyelid.

Several have picked up on my line as follows : Anybody here who says they'd be "fine" with a situation like this are deluding themselves and commented on it.

Can I be clear? No, I would not be OK with my husband going running with a woman I didn't know, who made no effort to get to know me. No I would not be OK with him saying "you're ruining it for US", I would not be OK with being gaslighted in that way. I would not be OK with being told I was overreacting or making a mountain out of a molehill or whatever else.

If you're OK with that, then that's great! The OP isn't, I wasn't and indeed very many on this thread were not either. That is the point I was making. I am quite willing to accept that my views are skewed by my own horrible experiences which have taken me several years to recover from.

I think if this is left unchecked then there is a very good chance this is going to head towards an affair/cheating.

I am not a believer that you can't stop him cheating nor that someone is a cheater. Circumstances, people all contribute.

You need to hit this head on. I would do some of the drop off and I would invite her over. Also keep telling him how lucky you both are to have each other and the children.

He has a hell of a lot to lose and you need to remind him.
Do not make it easy for them.

This would be a deal breaker for me.

I trust my husband 100% and he has friends that are female, but he realises being emotionally invested in them and chatting constantly with a female would be wrong. He doesn’t even do this with his male friends.

Your husband is putting his feelings before your marriage op, it’s incredibly disrespectful of him.
He doesn’t care about you, clearly.

You are deserving of more love and respect!

If my husband was going to have an affair with another woman, the last thing I'd want to do is give her the satisfaction of seeing me desperately try to cling to him and shut down his opportunities while they plot behind my back. I'd much prefer that zhe saw me as a secure and healthy person who didn't have a problem with her husband having whatever friends he wanted and he still betrayed my trust. I'd not want her to have what she sees as evidence of any claims he made of me being controlling or oppressive.

I would put a stop to this. No use being the 'cool wife' here.

I would put a stop to this. No use being the 'cool wife' here

So once you put a stop to it, you think your relationship would continue all fine and dandy? Your relationship with a guy who only didn't cheat on you because you "put a stop to it"?

Those of you who say you have lots of male friends etc, the OP has stated that her husband has never had female friends so this behaviour is different for him.

Or he doesn't connect with many people and he's actually made a connection with one person. Maybe nurture that instead of shutting it down?

The fact that the woman isn't interested in being friends with the OP also screams that there is more to this. If I'm genuinely friends with someone, male or female, I WANT to get on with their partners and I will be friendly and welcoming whenever the opportunity arises.

Me and hubby are a bit different because we have both had the experience of one of the partner of the other's friend assuming that because our spouses get on well, we will also share their connection. Now I only go out of my way to arrange social events with people I think he will genuinely click with for other reasons like common interests. One time, hubby came to an Xmas event at my workplace and become good friends with some guy who worked in IT with whom I'd only had a work related argument. They're still Facebook friends now.

if my husband said to me 'dont ruin it for them' my response would be 'ok, but if you do start running together you will be ruining it for us, me and the children, so if thats what you want carry on' then if he started to run with her i would divorce the shit!...its showing that he cares more about himself and ow than his family

OP. Trust your gut instinct. He is behaving out of character and has a female friend and doesn’t want you to ruin things....

XH got himself a female friend. I trusted him 100%. He would never cheat on me. She was his friends wife. He then suddenly accused me of never letting him see his friends. I got slightly suspicious at one point but let it go and even apologised to him for daring to think there might be something going on. There were loads of signs, FB secret chats, secret texts, emails, but I was oblivious as I trusted him and after all, she was married to his oldest friend wasn’t she.

They’re married now.

Always trust your gut instinct when they start to behave differently.

Make it clear to him that you are not comfortable with this. He can join a running club.

@theunknownknown

That’s a bit out of context without the sentence that followed it.

Doesn’t sound right to me. I’d trust my instincts and say you’re not comfortable with it. What’s your relationship like in general?

It's true- you can't stop someone from cheating. They'll do it regardless.

But this is all about OPs self respect. Why should her feelings not matter and her have to roll over and take this shit? Why should her partner's weird sudden 'obsession' over this female take priority over his own wife's feelings, his family's feelings, etc.

She has to stand up for herself and what she believes in, because no one else will. She has 3 kids to keep in mind. I don't see OP having the opportunity to go off with a man for 'fun' during the week... probably because if she had free time, she'd rather spend it with her husband or her girl friends. She certainly wouldn't stamp all over her husband's feelings just to be matey with a guy who's probably hitting on her.

She can't stop him from cheating, but she can firmly remind him of boundaries and how she feels. If he chooses to stamp on that, then it's his loss. He'll lose his family over a stupid fling with a desperate, embarrassing woman. Or, he'll catch himself on and realise what it looks like, reassure OP, reduce contact with this woman and put his effort back into his marriage and family.

OP is fully entitled to stand up for herself. This is her family, her husband, her life.

Trust Your instinct !

It is all about individual responsibility. It is not for us to police/monitor/control the activities of others. None of us owns eachother or anyone else. Are people never to consort with members of the opposite sex simply because they are married or in a relationship? . I think if OP seeks to intervene and control it will be all the worse., It is up to him if he engages in an affair but if/when he does,thats the time to act.

OP may not be back, but hopefully she's reading the thread.

I also think that the running is almost a red herring here. His change in behaviour, messaging her all the time, describing his relationship with her as "us" - those are the red flags, not the fact that he wants to do a hobby with a member of the opposite sex.

I agree with this. The hobby is irrelevant, it's the "them and us" attitude that positions the OP as the "them", the bad guy.

OP, I hope you and your DH can talk calmly about this, and he pulls back from the brink. It's certainly into emotional affair territory and he needs to realise what he's risking.

If he logs his runs ok strava you’ll soon know if he’s not doing as he says!

Its rubbish when men and women cant be running partners or be gossips about My husband has many female friends and I couldnt care less so there must be something about the way he is acting that tells you there is something more. Play the long game and see what happens.

Ruining what, exactly???

Its rubbish when men and women cant be running partners

^^

Yeah. Rubbish.

It's not so much about the running more the new weird behaviour from him and the way he's positioning OP as the outsider 'ruining it for US'

I would like to think platonic friendships can happen but l have yet to be re-convinced 100%

My DP has several female friends. They all pre-date me. My brother similarly has many female friends so I'm used to the idea that men and women can and do have platonic friendships. I'd still be suspicious in some circumstances though, including those the OP describes. A female friend when he doesn't have many friends, one he messages a lot, takes up a new hobby with, and then starts talking about "us". Yes, that would make me suspicious and I would want a long talk about what exactly was going on.

It's too simplistic to say, "either they're trustworthy or they aren't. If they are going to cheat, they'll cheat".

At the moment, this friendship seems to be threatening the OP's marriage. Either the DH doesn't know this and is sleepwalking into a scenario where he will cheat or, he does know, and is planning to cheat / already has.

If it's the former, the op needs to spell that out to him and make him realise how serious this is. He should not spend any more time with this woman.

It's possible that this isn't something the OW knows she's doing, (although her being a bit frosty with the op speaks volumes). But that doesn't matter; the op's DH has to put this new friendship to one side immediately and focus on what is happening in his marriage.

And that is either that he is deliberately trying to cheat, (so that needs to be sorted), or he isn't being careful and protective enough of what should be the most important relationship in his life. Either way, the OP clearly doesn't trust him altogether (rightly so), so that needs to be sorted too.

He needs to be made aware now, that this is a marital crisis. If he is made aware and ploughs on regardless, then it's obvious that he doesn't place as much value on his marriage as he does on a new friendship with some woman he has only met recently. And then the op then has her answer.

If she just shrugs, says, "if he cheats, he cheats. Nothing I can do about it", and the DH then sleepwalks into wrecking his marriage, it will be a long, painful, drawn out process where she watches her husband throw their marriage away and then hides it till HE'S ready to tell.

I would definitely try to take every possible, reasonable, step to save my marriage if it was under threat, but if my DH didn't do the same and let something like this continue, even after he'd been warned it was a deal breaker, I would obviously look into separating. And at least it would be quicker than the former.

I think you should trust your gut instinct. I would not be happy with that situation either.