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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To be upset with my husband and his friend

832 replies

Pumpkin108 · 05/04/2020 08:56

Hi everyone,

So I'm 8 weeks pregnant (first baby) and I've been doing OK though for me it's not that easy as I have an underlying health condition and the whole thing makes me feel quite anxious but I've been trying to stay really positive and telling myself I'll be ok. My dh has been pretty supportive. Anyway the other day, he was working from home and left his laptop open when he went to do something... I came in from garden and saw messages he'd been exchanging with a work colleague (and friend) who he's know about 1.5 years which basically entailed her being unpleasant about my pregnancy... One such comment was 'oh she'll need to take laxatives before the birth otherwise she'll shit herself' and my dh replied with the laughing laughing emoji...

There were other comments about how my body will be broken afterwards and I'll have to wear pregnancy nappies etc and how I shouldn't have a homebirth because of my 'disease'

Aibu to be hurt by this? To think it's none of her business and that she was rude and hurtful and my husband didn't really stand up for me either?

OP posts:
florisandyoris · 06/04/2020 11:03

Copy paste send to all his contacts?
If it’s not a big deal and he’s so innocent what could be wrong with that?

Washyourhandsyoufilthyanimal · 06/04/2020 11:04

I never usually would think this but he needs an ultimatum. His friendship with her or you. If he says he can’t choose that’s your answer. If he chooses you but still speaks to her then that’s your answer.

simplekindoflife · 06/04/2020 11:04

*unacceptable! Obviously! Confused

MerryDeath · 06/04/2020 11:06

she sounds vile so she's probably very very unhappy in herself for some reason.

your husband, or anyone, should engage with that kind of shit talk.

florisandyoris · 06/04/2020 11:07

poster lmcneil003 Mon 06-Apr-20 11:01:58
Don't tell his work.
If he loses his job, he won't get another one in this climate. He will be livid and you will be penniless. It's that how you want the early years of your baby? Poor, single and having issues with the father that will have access.

Think pragmatically, not emotionally. Let it lie. Have the baby. Then see how he is. Please think about your unborn.

It’s not pragmatic to be living in this situation with a stress related potentially fatal pre existing condition and being treated in this way. If he’s minimising her feelings, ridiculing her, and dismissing her concerns now it does not bode well for her or the child.

HotelBravo · 06/04/2020 11:08

Do you think if you asked him to stop messaging her he would? Or do you suspect they would just go 'underground' and be more secretive?
I think you already live with stress caused by him. Remove the stress from your life.

HotelBravo · 06/04/2020 11:10

@florisandyoris let it lie!? Let a man undermine her, sneer at her illness? Why on earth would you advise that over simply leaving him??

florisandyoris · 06/04/2020 11:13

Also I would be careful about what I disclosed to his sister. If you are going to do anything drastic don’t tell her. She will probably be relaying your conversation to him.

florisandyoris · 06/04/2020 11:15

poster HotelBravo Mon 06-Apr-20 11:10:38
@florisandyoris let it lie!? Let a man undermine her, sneer at her illness? Why on earth would you advise that over simply leaving him??

I was quoting someone else. Who seems to on every thread on mumsnet be supporting the minority view/ against the OP in every thread.

roarfeckingroar · 06/04/2020 11:19

OP, I'm pregnant too, a few weeks ahead of you, and I would be so hurt and absolutely fucking raging if my fiancée did this to me.

Realistically, could you have seen the messages accidentally? Do previews appear on his phone screen? If so then use whatever excuse would make sense because how you saw them matters Not. One. Jot. He is being an a disloyal, pathetic, weak little bastard AT BEST.

I would react badly. Very. Pack him a bag. Nuclear. Make him see how much he is risking and how much it has hurt you.

Just told DP about this and he said "what a prick. If I had a colleague saying things about you I would report them to the business for being inappropriate for a start."

GilbertMarkham · 06/04/2020 11:20

So the work chat is a platform where you can have group chats/indivodual chats so pretty sure no other work colleagues would see it. However most of the very rude stuff was on Facebook...

I see.

Most of it on Facebook? Personal. Personal account messaging I presume, not work.

CatherineOfAragonsPomegranate · 06/04/2020 11:21

@Pumpkin108

No I think you're telling the truth. If you read my message you'd see I was replying to Still1nLove, (I think its her now its gone) who was saying it wasn't possible for you to be telling the truth because people don't have scans that early. I was defending you by saying it IS possible to have an early scan, pointing out that I myself had one early at 6 weeks! I have no opinion what so ever on how quickly you got pregnant. My message was to the pp, who per reporting is now deleted!

I then said it is possible - not definitely - a fake post because that can always happen on MN, not that I thought you were definitely lying! But I apologise if that with that latter part I hurt your feelings.

@EXGEMS You STFU and read properly next time instead of jumping to conclusions! I have zero opinion on when the OP (or you for that matter) got pregnant and had no idea what you were talking about!

Sauvignonismysaviour · 06/04/2020 11:24

They are both absolutely out of order for talking about you this way. Your husband does not have your back at all and is letting someone talk about you in a derogatory way. In fact he's encouraging it and feeding her secret information. They are an affair waiting to happen and frankly are welcome to each other!

If he can't see what he is doing is so very wrong, no point telling his sister or his parents because he will never see.

In fact it wouldn't surprise me if he's messaging her this morning saying you've had a word with him, which for me would be the final straw.

Think about your marriage vows; "to love and to cherish". He is not doing this AT ALL. His behaviour sums him up.

I'm so sorry for you, you deserve to be treated so much better. Please keep well, take care of yourself in pregnancy, and consider your next moves carefully.

EKGEMS · 06/04/2020 11:24

Apologies Catherine I definitely had the wrong poster

HotelBravo · 06/04/2020 11:25

@florisandyoris sorry to hurl my wrath at the wrong poster!
I was too stunned by the audacity of the idea that the OP should allow this treatment!!

GilbertMarkham · 06/04/2020 11:26

If I had a colleague saying things about you I would report them to the business for being inappropriate for a start."

He probably wouldn't be telling his work colleague/s about your bowel disease, early pregnancy, pain/discomfort during an emergency scan etc in the first place.

Scratchyback · 06/04/2020 11:27

Oh OP, just read the entire thread and I'm so sad for you. What a shit. He should be grovelling now but unfortunately is doing what people who get caught behaving appallingly often do - deflect, deflect... Wasn't me - it was her! Oh ffs! You're mad! Its your hormones! Etc Etc.... You may need to do what mightn't come naturally to you and completely LOSE YOUR SHIT! Frighten that fucker into seeing that its really crappy behaviour and into him never doing this to you ever again. He should be batting for your team, not some random work colleague who's clearly a nasty bitch. He should be looking after you. I'm actually so mad on your behalf. Good luck OP - he needs a huge lesson taught to him.

NearlyGranny · 06/04/2020 11:28

The issue clearly isn't that your DH "didn't know what to say," as his sister suggests; it's that he didn't know what NOT to say!

This nasty woman simply could not be making her callous and offensive remarks about your pregnancy, your birth plans, your bowel movements and your cramps if she hadn't been told about them, could she?

Who told her? He did. She can't read his mind. He volunteered intimate information about his pregnant wife to a work colleague.

Why? How? In what context? You have a right to know. The way she is commenting suggests to me that he was having a rant or a moan about you and being really negative. Otherwise her comments would be supportive, excited and encouraging, surely?

Your issue is 100% with him. He's the one who spilled his guts, gossiped and moaned. He is the one who will be in your life for 18+ years as your child's father long after this woman is a distant memory.

Why did he tell her all this stuff? When and how? What was his tone, for her to pile on like this? How is he proposing to shut it all down and support you? How is he proposing to win back the trust and happiness he has destroyed?

Those are the questions he needs to address if he wants to be in your life and his child's life.

GilbertMarkham · 06/04/2020 11:36

*They are both absolutely out of order for talking about you this way. Your husband does not have your back at all and is letting someone talk about you in a derogatory way. In fact he's encouraging it and feeding her secret information. They are an affair waiting to happen and frankly are welcome to each other!

If he can't see what he is doing is so very wrong, no point telling his sister or his parents because he will never see.

In fact it wouldn't surprise me if he's messaging her this morning saying you've had a word with him, which for me would be the final straw.

Think about your marriage vows; "to love and to cherish". He is not doing this AT ALL. His behaviour sums him up.

I'm so sorry for you, you deserve to be treated so much better. Please keep well, take care of yourself in pregnancy, and consider your next moves carefully.*

Excellent post.

You do have to wonder if they have been or are involved in some way. At the very least they are in some sort of fked up dynamic where he shares sensitive, personal information about his partner & life with her, she asserts her "superiority" over his partner by being derogatory to her and he goes along with it .. confirming her superiority. They definitely have an "us against/taking the piss out of his wife" thing going on.

Very nasty, very disloyal, very fked up.

roarfeckingroar · 06/04/2020 11:42

@GilbertMarkham well exactly

contrary13 · 06/04/2020 11:55

Pumpkin - Don't show your screenshots to his parents. They will turn them around on you. After all, not only did they raise your husband... but also the sister who agreed with you yesterday, but turned it back on you today by saying that "it's not his fault".

I also wouldn't report her to work, because when your husband finds out - he's going to take her side, I'm afraid, not yours. You'll be made out to be more than just hormonal to his work colleagues - but possibly controlling and, dare I say it... abusive by trying to prevent him from having friendships with other women.

Your problem is - as many others have said before me - not this woman. It's your husband. Blaming the entire exchange on her being Polish?! Well, that's certainly a new one! My son's stepmother is Polish and she is the loveliest of people - kind, respectful, polite, and has even been known to step in and defend me when her husband (my ex) is having a tantrum! It's not a cultural "thing", it's a choice "thing". She is being nasty - and your husband is encouraging it, as well as joining in - because she chooses to. The question is why? Why visit your home to meet your dogs? And yep; that was so that she could observe you, and your relationship with your husband. She may be engaged - but as I said in my post yesterday, so was my mother, and she ended up marrying the bloke she was having an affair with (my father) whilst still engaged to the poor man she was cheating on!

You don't seem to want to hear what we're all saying. And I do understand why - you're newly pregnant, and everything was great, then you caught sight of a left-open laptop and... now everything's turned to shit. You want the happily ever after, the white picket fence and the perfect nuclear family. But if you stay with your husband, you're not going to get that. This mocking of you has obviously been going on for some time. I'm even willing to bet that this woman isn't the first, or only colleague he sneers at and belittles you to. Maybe she's the first who joined in, who encouraged him - but I doubt he needs much encouragement to be nasty to/about you, does he?

Domestic abuse /violence often starts during pregnancy. It's when abusers believe they have their victim trapped, tied to them by a child. And abuse can come in many forms - physical, verbal, emotional, financial. So far, I'm seeing two forms in your marriage already - and I don't even know you! Do you really want to stick around and wait for this to all get worse?

You said that he wanted a baby more than you did. Why? Was it so that you wouldn't leave him? Was it to trap you into a relationship that seems one-sided, with him being the dominant one in the marriage, rather than you being equal partners? He has shared intimate medical knowledge about you with a stranger to you - and then sneered at it with this stranger. With someone who is only meant to be someone he works with. Well... unless his work is to make his wife feel like crap, he shouldn't even contemplate doing it.

You don't sound passive at all, to me, and he certainly doesn't sound like a pushover. You sound trained into accepting shitty behaviour from him, demeaned into compliance, and he sounds like an abusive bully - who will, believe me, get much worse.

Why did he leave his laptop open? Was it a test, do you think, to see if you'd see the messages on it? Was he setting you up to fail? You said that you knew him well enough, to know that he'd turn it back on you about snooping. Did he? Has he? Will he when this all gets worse? ("Well, if you hadn't of snooped on my laptop, you'd not know what we're still saying about you, and you'd not be so overly sensitive about it, would you?", sort of a thing).

Do you have any family nearby? Not his family... your family. Or friends you can turn to? Because right now, I think you're in a very critical part of the whole abuse cycle - and because of lockdown, you're essentially trapped. Talk to your midwife - she will know how to help you, and she'll need to know that your husband is being abusive towards you. Because he is.

Please listen to what we're all trying to tell you. Most of us have personal experience of men like your husband - and some of us left them, with either small babies/children, or whilst still pregnant. We did more than survive; we thrived (to borrow a phrase). And, more importantly? So did our children.

Snowymascot · 06/04/2020 12:00

OP you seriously need to consider your next move.

Your husband is bang out of order, and you need to tell him straight. If you don’t you are setting yourself up to be treated like this for this forever. He shouldn’t be taking her side, he shouldn’t be discussing what you and he say or do, he shouldn’t be discussing you at all to anyone.

He is meant to put you before anyone and he is not doing this.

With you telling him how you feel and him dismissing it is not on. TELL him how you feel, make him listen

Snowymascot · 06/04/2020 12:01

Sorry posted too soon.

What do you want to do? What do you want the outcome to be?

ReturnofSaturn · 06/04/2020 12:03

I couldn't forgive this.

You are never going to be happy in the relationship with this man.

lmcneil003 · 06/04/2020 12:16

The posters who are saying you need to talk to your OH are correct. Talk to him, and listen to what he has to say.

Do not listen to the many posters telling you not to be a doormat and to leave him.
You are pregnant. Do not make any rash decisions. You will bear the consequences of your actions. The posters on this thread will not. Proceed with caution and clarity. If you need a week too think things through, give yourself that time.

Has your OH done something so very awful that you want to be a single mother, and have your precious child not living with his or her father?