Feel uneasy about friends wife

[onelast]

Met him about 3 years ago via hobby. Met her for the first time before Xmas (probably November time). Friendly with him but not unusually so. Hang out within a group once every couple of months. See each other as part of hobby twice a week usually. Nothing untoward.

Now the strange part. I keep seeing her everywhere! I saw her walking the dog opposite my home (live overlooking a big park area - she would have to drive around 20 mins to get here) then again at a restaurant in a hotel that hobby group meet at quite often and most recently in the car park where I work. This is all within the last couple of weeks.

Friend has made comments in passing on nights out about her being quite possessive and insecure and mentioned recently that she thinks he's having an affair (to explain why he hasn't been as active with the hobby since xmas). Now I am worried she thinks I am OW and is scoping me out.

AIBU to feel unsettled by this?

He has disrespected his wife several times by calling her possessive, insecure, and suspicious. It was inappropriate for him to say this to you.

Her repeated presence is very odd. Perhaps he has had mentionitis about you at home, possibly to put her on the wrong track.

I suggest telling your H about this and then distancing yourself from from this man.

Before I met DP, I'd been in exactly the same places at the same time on many, many occasions. Including when he was with his now XW - I must have actually met him at one place as he described doing something that I distinctly remembered somebody doing and talking to them about it. When I finally saw a photo of her and heard her name, I remembered her from something else where I did a lot of extra work to help her out.

If I'd have been friends with him sooner (due to a shared hobby that didn't intersect properly for another five years/long after their divorce), it could have looked to his XW that we were always 'together' in potentially dubious circumstances.

All pure coincidence.

If I see her again before I see him I will have a word with her. Otherwise I am going to have a chat with him about it in person. I won't be texting him or giving her any cause to be worried.

In terms of our friendship, we have never met up alone and don't really interact on SM. We text occasionally to arrange a lift if it's only going to be the two of us, otherwise it's all arranged via group chat. It has only been me and him in a car a few times and only because it's pretty much en route for him to pick me up. I've returned the favour and gone out of my way for him a couple of times though.

I feel quite sorry for him. I don't think he told us what he did to intentionally slag her off and be a bad husband. He has been very subdued lately and missed a few weeks of the hobby and then only came once per week where he'd usually come twice so we were asking, as a group, if he was ok and what was going on. He seemed genuinely upset and said he was having some trouble at home with his wife, she's quite controlling and didn't want him coming to the hobby so much. When he dropped me at home we were chatting and that's when he said she thinks he's having an affair.

At the time I felt uncomfortable with him telling me this but he did seem genuinely distressed and told me it wasn't true. At the time I didn't question it much because felt like it's not really my place but then I started seeing her and it got me (over?) thinking things.

I put it down to coincidence until the work car park incident which worried me a little bit. I know she knows I work there because I told her when we met what I did, she asked where.

Reading the thread I was agreeing with @Ponoka7 points and thinking he was preparing to Chuck you under the bus as a diversion from the real OW.
However your latest update gives a bit of a different slant on things. I feel a bit sorry for him now! Unless he's a very good actor of course. Difficult one but I would mention to your own DH just in case it all gets worse.

I wouldn't feel too sorry for him just yet. You cannot know what goes on in others' relationships. And just because he's giving a particular version doesn't mean that she doesn't have her own, slightly different, but equally valid version.

You don't know him very well. You don't know what sort of husband he is. Is he a father? It just seems strange that you know him through this hobby for 3 years, and it is only now that his jealous, possessive, controlling wife has a problem with it.

Maybe she doesn't mind that he does the hobby. Maybe she has no problem with him being out once a week. But maybe twice a week is becoming too much within their family circumstances. Maybe she is carrying the full load at home, while he leaves her to go off a couple of times a week. And isn't much help at home.

You simply can't know.

Women (People) tend not go become jealous and possessive and controlling if they haven't always been. Something tends to happen to cause them to be suspicious. A change in behaviour. Protective of their phone etc. His wife knows him better than you all do. If there's been no problem for 3 years then something has changed.

He may be very upset because he's unfairly accused or he may be very upset that he's been found out (or nearly so). You won't know which one it is. I wouldn't get involved but I would tell my partner because his wife's behaviour feels creepy to you and rightly so.

@TellMeWhoTheVilliansAre your post summarises how I felt at the time he was telling me. I have had my own struggles in the past so understand how she might be feeling.

I know they have one teenage son with quite severe disabilities so what you say about her perhaps needing more support at home is correct but then why would he say what he did?

I'm not trying to defend him as such. I don't know what he's like at home or whether something is going on with someone else. This thread was more about me being concerned that whatever the situation, his wife potentially thinks I am involved in it.

For what it's worth, when he told me about her suspicions I did believe him. He just looked so beaten down and sad. He'd have no reason to lie to me. He didn't even need to tell me about it.

I know they have one teenage son with quite severe disabilities so what you say about her perhaps needing more support at home is correct but then why would he say what he did?

Because if somebody is checking out and not pulling their weight at home, they are unlikely to come out and admit they are doing that. They will usually divert the blame.

I'm not saying he's completely lying, but chances are he's not being 100% truthful either. We all put forward the version of ourselves that we want people to see. Very few of us will admit to being a bit shit to our partner etc.

I don't know what's going on, no more than you, but I do know that people who aren't pulling their weight (practically, emotionally, whatever) in a marriage etc can be very good at making themselves out to be the hard done by victim.

For what it's worth, when he told me about her suspicions I did believe him. He just looked so beaten down and sad. He'd have no reason to lie to me. He didn't even need to tell me about it.

Different scenario, but my brother-in-law is an alcoholic and a cocaine addict. He was physically abusive to his wife. To listen to him telling his story your heart would break for him. His wife ruined his life. Took everything from him. Left him with nothing.

The reality is she left with their children BECAUSE he is a violent, alcoholic, cocaine addict.

Maybe there is an element of truth in what your friend says. Maybe his wife has her own truth. Whatever it is you don't know enough to make yourself involved. Talk to your husband about it. See what he says.

Go up to her everytime you see her. Be nice and polite. Maybe make a joke about how your starting to think she's stalking you.

Any reasonable person would back off at that point. If she doesn't back off then I would worry, and think about calling the police.

I’m always a bit intrigued by posters who say they share a “hobby” with this man or that man. It always seems to be a man. The intriguing bit is they never even hint at what the “hobby” might be.

Do grownups have hobbies?! It sounds so 1950s and always conjures up needlework for me. 🤣

Cycling, rambling, running group, canoeing, crown green bowling, drawing/painting/pottery classes, dad (and mum) bands, fixing dry stone walls, volunteering at various charities, tree planting, sewing/cookery classes, brewing, book groups. Some people's hobby seems to be getting pissed every weekend .

Even needlework can be more fun than watching the telly some nights drina27.

if I think about it from his perspective a stranger comes over and says she thinks his wife is having an affair with her husband it's gonna play on his mind. It would mine.

DH would find it mildly amusing and probably phone me to tell me while the 'accuser' was standing there.

I’m always a bit intrigued by posters who say they share a “hobby” with this man or that man. It always seems to be a man. The intriguing bit is they never even hint at what the “hobby” might be.

Do grownups have hobbies?! It sounds so 1950s and always conjures up needlework for me

Are you one of those people who slumps in front of the TV and finds it weird that not everyone does?

I go to a fencing club with my male best friend, and do a regular drystonewalling volunteer thing with another male friend (my ex-BIL). Is that so incredible? Obviously, there are in fact lots of women also involved in both.

So he’s out at this hobby twice a week, plus out every month or so with you socially as a group, plus whatever else he does that you don’t know about.

Not bad for a man with a jealous possessive wife and a severely disabled son.

The question is - is she jealous and possessive and stopping him from going out...

I’m sure that sounds much better than “I don’t really pull my weight at home and my wife is getting sick of it so I had to knock the two nights out a week at this hobby on the head for a bit until she stops whining”.

I would feel some empathy towards the wife, you have no idea of their history or what is pushing her towards this type of behaviour.

Do grownups have hobbies?! It sounds so 1950s and always conjures up needlework for me

Jesus. People without a hobby are dull as fuck ime.

What do you do in your spare time if you don't have something that you do for pleasure? Watch TV and mindlessly consume stuff?

There is nothing mindless about what I do. 🙄

Your “hobby” is...?

< awaits with bated breath >

What is this obsession with the idea of people other than the “hobbyists” watching television - even slumping whilst doing so?!

🤣

I've got several - some I do alone, some I do with other people. Because I'm a normal person, not a boring fucker who believes adults shouldn't have hobbies!

I think your suspicions may be right op, she's seeing if you're with him.

Some women do this, I had it years ago, the bosses wife, who were both about thirty years older than me, felt he was having an affair, which I only found out after.

She turned up at the office one day and proceeded to spend the whole time at my desk literally sat next to me, pulled a chair up, and stayed there till lunch time from nine am. Her husband walked into my office, and said oh you're here, and walked out. He didn't come back in.

She stayed over three hours, sitting side by side with me. Eyeing me up and down, making sickly sweet polite small talk, telling me about her great marriage asking me all about myself. It was awful. And weird as fuck.

I was polite back and kept looking at the woman I shared an office with in embarrassment and discomfort. I couldn't work out why she was sitting at my desk like that. Spouses didn't come to the office. As per any normal office.

The thing is, she was right, he was having an affair. It just wasn't with me. It was with another woman at work. I wouldn't have touched him with hers never mind my own.

She'd got it completely wrong. It was just I was rhe new girl who started at the same time as the affair started. It was a small office. So she'd jumped to the very wrong conclusion. She was early fifties, I was early twenties. The woman he was shagging was closer to their age.

It's odd what some women will do. This woman decided making her presence felt was important, like a warning shot. Yours isn likely doing the same, she wants you to see her. She will soon try to befriend you.

She thinks you're the ow.

Because I'm a normal person, not a boring fucker

Mmmmm. You sound really normal. Lol

Sorry hobbyists. I appear to have touched a nerve. Mea culpa.

Woah @ReceptacleForTheRespectable did you not like something someone says? And you describe yourself as "normal"?

drina27 start your own thread about hobbies. Your hijacking the ops thread, which might actually be quite serious.