I’ve been with my partner for 5 years. We own a house together, have 2 dogs and I moved to this area (a few hundred miles south of my family) for his job a few years ago. We aren’t yet engaged, nor do we have any children but we are very happy. I haven't seriously brought this up the topic of engagement/marriage for a while but have been meaning to.
He is happy for me to use his laptop and so recently, while working late, some iMessages popped up in the corner of the screen from a female colleague I haven’t heard of before. Her (small) photo shows a very pretty woman who is absolutely his type. I then fell down the rabbit hole of reading their entire message thread and I’m not sure what to make of it. My spidey senses detect something is off.
He messages her a lot. Almost always about work but it’s every day. There’s a lot of emotional support amongst the two of them and I’m never mentioned, nor is her partner (if she has one; I don’t know). He has opened up about feeling low, burnt out and she has encouraged him to access support which he has now done. I was aware he was fed up with work and very stressed but certainly not to this extent. He’s very much leaning on her for this support and not me. They also have hobbies in common that we don't but these aren't discussed much.
He instigates their messages nearly all the time. When she works late, he checks in overnight texting until about 1am, with the messaging beginning at around 10.30pm; so after I've fallen asleep. When she doesn’t reply, he messages again in the morning to see how is. He tells her what a great job she’s doing, how much she deserves to get a promotion that came up and how she’s the only normal colleague he has and how she can’t leave (high turnover, she was offered a promotion elsewhere but has decided to stay put).
I will emphasise, there is nothing really inappropriate sexually as such in the messages. She never seems to message at weekends and much of the content is about their work/colleagues- it’s pretty mundane stuff. He is the one leading the conversations and I think this is what has got my guard up
Our dogs are the same breed as hers and they send fairly regularly dog photos, but again, no mention of me. He’s even sent photos of himself on holiday with his brother and another of him on a stag do, but despite mentioning he was abroad for the week we went away, there was no mention of me, nor any photos of that trip.
AIBU to think this is toeing the line or is this just innocent chat between two close colleagues? I work in a primary school (almost all female colleagues!) and so can’t judge what’s normal. We are otherwise very happy as I say, never had any suspicions of cheating. I’ve been cheated on before and suffer from anxiety but I’ve had a lot of therapy which has really turned it around in the last year - until now and I’ve barely been able to sleep all weekend. He's away at present but I will bring it up once I've got my thoughts straight