DH dogwalks with another woman

[DMOB3]

AIBU to not want my DH to disappear on a sunday moring with a female colleague, who is also married. This happens intermittently. He never says in advance that he's going but always admits where he's been. Plus his phone always tells me where he is. Am I being paranoid? Last week he said he wanted to give me a lie in. Late evening (11.30 pm) she WhatsApp him to thank him for the walk.

@amispeakingenglish - “and more” you say?

I walk with a married man occasionally. Both of us have at times sent thank you for the walk messages because our dogs are reactive/anxious but they really get on and it's a relief to see them play so happily.

It's 💯 innocent. I never ever would consider him like that. We talk about work, the world, family, kids. It couldn't be further from an affair if we tried. We met dog walking by the way.

I like dog walking with friends. I love that my dog has friends. He's such a pita sometimes.

@WTF475878237NC don't understand your reply??? doesn't relate to my post.

@CayrolBaaaskin what night walks? i go to art shows and things with his wife who is now a friend of mine.

@Somanymistakes, exactly sounds like our walks I now walk with both of them, our adult kids and other friends also at times

so many sad suspicious minds on this thread.

we also met dog walking same as Somanymistakes

@gannett

I sent off a round of Whatsapp messages at 11pm last night, hadn't got round to replying for a few days and just wanted to clear the backlog. Didn't know that would be deemed inappropriate by the territorial pissers of MN.

Dog owners go walking with other dog owners literally all the time.

Thank god, someone speaking sense

@amispeakingenglish
I'm astonished (and disheartening) by the suspicion on this thread too.
I've also messaged him late at night. I don't expect a reply. I'm a night owl and it's when I catchup with messages. I never expect a convo then though, and I certainly am not sitting there feeling saucy, hoping for intimacy.

Even worse....I'm a single divorcee. I find it so deeply depressing that I'm automatically seen as a predator by so many women! I'm not interested in shagging their husbands! I just want a few more friends and I chat to everyone. The divorce reduced my friendship circle quite a lot.

@Somanymistakes yes its weird is'nt it . We message each other too as we have an on going sort of game about spotting something can't say what as outing, I also message his wife about other things. They are individuals and i treat them as such, its lovely that my one friend turned into two!! They are lovely people with a great relationship. I ,like you, am single now.

yes this

Dog owners go walking with other dog owners literally all the time.

What do you mean by his phone shows you where he is? Are you tracking him and if so, why?

It wouldn’t fly in my marriage. I’d be suspicious. Very.

@WTF475878237NC

amispeakingenglish

• but did you thank him for the walks, at night? That's the weird bit to me. Suggests she's offloading on him which I wouldn't like...they're getting close.

Yeah, after you get married, you’re only allowed to offload about anything bothering you on your spouse, forever. That’s totally the secret of a happy marriage — never have a serious conversation with anyone else ever again. It’s called ‘offloading infidelity.’ Never have any kind of friendly, mutually-supportive relationship with anyone else, ever.

Slightly off topic but am I the only person who would hate social dog walks? I don't want to walk and talk with random dog owners or make connections with them, I have enough on my plate with kids, extended family and the school family crowd. Down walking is my me time. I'd certainly not want to spend an hour chit chatting and hearing them offload their issues. With all that in mind, IF there was a very agreeable male dog walker who'd to listen to me offload and give me loads of useful feedback and buy me coffee, I suppose I could develop an emotional attachment to this person. Others might have stronger boundaries. I am married BTW.

I wonder what the split is of people that spend time with male friends without their partner present, and those that don't.

Our house in our finial year at uni had 14 men and 4 women so most of my friends from that time are male. They're some of my closest friends as I've known them the longest. They're like brothers to me, there's no romantic inclination whatsoever.

I also worked in investment banking where there was 2 women (of which I was one) for the 98 men in my department. It's not been a deliberate tactic to acquire male friends, it's just occurred naturally.

I have lots of female friends but I'd hate to get into a relationship that necessitated me to dump all socialising with my male friends. I extend the same trust to my husband with his female friends. If people are going to cheat, that's up to them but I'm not going to track my husband's movements and friends. That's not what I believe is a healthy relationship.

@amispeakingenglish - im kidding. I dog walk with a variety of people and think it’s perfectly fine.

@Somanymistakes - im a single mum and I get that. No invites to certain things in case I get my hooks into their dh - emmm, no thanks I’ve got better taste anyway.

Learn from the wise folk on here who have experience - just look after your DH and walk with him. If we don’t listen and learn from experience then we will be hurt. Do something before it’s too late.

@newyear1
Similar to you, most friends from university and early work years are male (tech field). By my thirties, I was beyond fed up making nice with an endless parade of insecure and controlling wives/girlfriends. I started finding the politest possible formulations of "We've known each for a very long time, if we'd wanted to get together we already would have." Or, if that didn't promote sanity, then: "I know him much better than you do, and I don't want him ..." 🤣

@Dnaltocs

Learn from the wise folk on here who have experience - just look after your DH and walk with him. If we don’t listen and learn from experience then we will be hurt. Do something before it’s too late.

Agreed, if you have a good man look after him.

Yeah, after you get married, you’re only allowed to offload about anything bothering you on your spouse, forever. That’s totally the secret of a happy marriage — never have a serious conversation with anyone else ever again. It’s called ‘offloading infidelity.’ Never have any kind of friendly, mutually-supportive relationship with anyone else, ever.

^ actually the books on protecting your marriage from infidelity suggest that you should only offload on someone who you couldn't theoretically marry ie a relative, a friend of a different sexual orientation...

@WTF475878237NC

Yeah, after you get married, you’re only allowed to offload about anything bothering you on your spouse, forever. That’s totally the secret of a happy marriage — never have a serious conversation with anyone else ever again. It’s called ‘offloading infidelity.’ Never have any kind of friendly, mutually-supportive relationship with anyone else, ever.

^ actually the books on protecting your marriage from infidelity suggest that you should only offload on someone who you couldn't theoretically marry ie a relative, a friend of a different sexual orientation...

I think it would be tragic to go through my life grouping potential friends into ‘people I could theoretically have an affair with’ or ‘safe people’.

The best protection against emotional infidelity to my mind is good friendships for both people — that way your marriage doesn’t become claustrophobic, and you’re not relying on one person for emotional sustenance in ways that could make you lurch into the pants of a random who offers you a shoulder to cry on in tough times.

Someone I consider my closest, most trusted friend is male. I've known him since we were preteens, so 40+ years of friendship. He's been married for 30 years and his wife is suspicious of me. For no other reason than the fact that I'm single. When I was married, she was fine but as soon as I was single again, she became jealous. It's exasperating.

SHE has a problem, clearly: low self-esteem, lack of trust in her husband, instability in the marriage, whatever. But he and I have never been attracted to each other and never flirt or give anyone any reason to believe that we're more than friends.

@JaniieJones

'He has to have something of a social life behind her back because he wouldn't really get one otherwise.'

Sounds awful, maybe his wife doesn't his wife understand him?

Usually in these cases, I find the wife understands him only too well

[quote CayrolBaaaskin]@Somanymistakes - im a single mum and I get that. No invites to certain things in case I get my hooks into their dh - emmm, no thanks I’ve got better taste anyway.[/quote]
Memories of when I was single, having been divorced. Some married men came out of the woodwork to offer 'services'...err no, if I wanted a portly middle-aged flatulent cheating married man, I would have kepth the one I already had, prior to divorcing him

Tell me you actually said that every time some gone-to-seed Lothario made you the offer you could easily refuse,@SpongeBobJudgeyPants?

I wasn't that brave unfortunately @Stookeen. But I thought it very hard indeed, and my face went like this I do say it quite a lot though, when I talk about it the perils of being single although there are many joys indeed