Husband and our (f) best friend on holiday

[OfMyDog]

Sanity check please. Just back from 10 days in Santorini where it was me, DH our DS and also my best friend and her DS of same age. She is on a lower income so we offered for her and her son to join us and we paid for everything. She’s married too but she and her husband aren’t close so he stayed home, so just took her and her son.

She’s mainly my best friend and we’re super close and I trust her implicitly, but my husband also counts her as his best friend. They used to work together years ago. At home they go out alone together all the time, play sport together, meet for coffee and if one is WFH, they meet up at our house or hers for lunch without me. Our sons are in same class at school and it’s all one merged family. Her husband doesn’t seem to care what she does.

In the first week of the holiday they were spending loads of time together and I felt a bit like a spare part sometimes, he chats to her more than me, they joke together, they went to watch the sunset together on the beach alone etc. If we go somewhere, he sits in the middle of us with one of us either side but then he talks to her and ignores me, and if I bring this up he just makes out that it’s his right and that I’m boring him by even mentioning it.

I love her to bits and believe she is fully on my side, but I hate seeing him laughing and joking with her. I trust her and I’ve no physical evidence to doubt that he is doing anything, though he’s alwsys on his phone late at night :/ My family says that I’m being too trusting and that it’s not right. When I’ve tried speaking to him about it and how I feel, he shuts it down and says I’m being ridiculous and turns it into an argument about how it’s my fault and I’m being silly.

One thing that really stood out was a night on holiday where both our DS had fallen asleep in ‘our’ hotel room, so I stayed with them, and DH who’d been texting her all eve went to her hotel room and was gone for ages. When I went over and knocked, they were just sat on sofa and she was in her PJs, I have no reason to think anything happened then or any other time, but maybe I’m also being naiive!?!?

I don’t know what I’m asking other than AINBU to think that they’re just friends and it’s fine? I trust her, and I’ve never seen any evidence of him cheating. It’s just a bit uncomfortable with it sometimes and any of my other friends who hear about it think im a mug. I also hate how he just shuts me down and says I’m being too clingy for even mentioning it. Now we’re back in the UK they’re literally finding every opportunity to go for walks together and again I feel like the spare part, argh!

Please tell me I’m not being ridiculous!

xx

It’s there right in front of you!!! You are being naive. They are both treating you like a mug.

If my best friend’s husband treated her like this I would have a word with him. I would also avoid him - even if we were once very good friends and workmates. I can’t believe that they are both treating you like this. Of course it is not ok for them to watch a sunset without you or sit close together on a sofa when you’re not around. Are they crazy? They are both horrible and I am so so sorry.

Would you try and speak to her DH to see if their relationship isn't working because of his wife's relationship with your husband.

Are we also forgetting that you SUBSIDISED THIS? No wonder her husband does not fancy being involved,...

You must be a really good person to have allowed all of this to make it this far? I'm sorry you are going through this. :(

Also want to add that if I was the friend I would be really embarrassed of my behaviour... I bet she wouldn't allow for her husband to behave this way.

You're UR as you're massively underreacting! Where's your anger? Why so passive? Why pay for this woman's holiday? So she can't afford a holiday, then she doesn't get a holiday like thousands of others who can't afford to go. A decent person would have at least watched the kids so the married couple could have time together. She's just as bad as your gaslighting husband.

And the three of you are disrespecting her husband. It is not your place to parent his child.

‘Assuming it is just an emotional affair (like I 95% believe it is not physical),’

Sweetheart I’ve got to say I think your original vote was worded strangely so I wouldn’t draw this conclusion.

I doubt whether 95% believe this is just emotional. I for one would not be surprised AT ALL if this was a physical affair.

Please find your voice. You seem so kind and just ripe to be walked all over.

So if you and your husband split who's side do you think she would take? And to flip it, if you and bf fell out who would your husband side with? If the answer for either isn't you then you have your answer. Your friend is not your friend. if you told her straight you aren't comfortable with how much time they are spending together and want her to step back how would she respond?
Also what is you and your husbands relationship with her husband??
If they won't step back from each other then step back from your relationship with your friend and make it clear to your husband why, that you dont feel respected. By stepping back you aren't facilitating their weird relationship and making a joke out of you

i wouldn’t trust him and I certainly wouldn’t trust her. This is not your fault but your closeness to her might play a part in her falling for him.

when I was younger I had a close friend who had a crush on a guy. She couldn’t stop talking about him and the more she talked the more I started to see his merits and started to fall in love with him too. I then became good friends with him and she realised that I was in love with him. She was quite gracious about it. Nothing happened but if he had entertained it I would have gone for it. She didn’t end up with him either. It is not something I am proud of.

All I am saying is that she might be a nice person (as I was) but you should be aware that her feelings might run deeper than friendship.

Are you overbearing? Are you pleasant to be around? Do you play offence or are you one of those ladies who only play defence? You have to ask yourself why isn't he spending time with me? What does this women do that I'm not doing? Do you weigh him down?

Op I could see you posting in afew months about your dh leaving you for your best friend the writing is on the wall.

@RationalHuman are you high?

@RationalHuman The 1990s called They want their shitty misogynistic relationship self help book back

@OfMyDog what does you friend say when you tell her how uncomfortable her/their behaviour makes you feel?

I feel for you, OP. You sound lovely (if a little naive!) Affair or no affair, he treats you horrendously. Ducks in a row, tell him to go. You deserve better

Oh do F off with your victim blaming @RationalHuman

@JenniferBooth in my head I read it in Jonathan Frake's voice.

I feel very upset for you OP. These two are gaslighting you, minimising your concerns and it’s extremely cruel. I just hope you find your anger.

OP, you're STILL absolving your ''friend'' of equal blame.
Why aren't you seeing red flags with her behaviour aswell???

I used to have a very close male friend. We worked together. I absolutely adored him and he was one of my best friends. Everybody at work used to joke about the sexual tension between us, or that we were like an old married couple. I used to bat it off but I secretly loved it. My heart had sunk when we’d started working together and I’d found out he was newly married.

One night I took him out with my friends, and one of my friends hauled me to one side and asked me straight off if his wife was OK with how we were with each other, as if it was her husband she wouldn't be. That
wasn't a massive wake up call to me. I told her it was just our way with each other but there was no way anything would happen. He was like my big brother I told her.

Eventually I struck up a friendship with his wife and we hung out a bit. Looking back on it I think I just wanted an opportunity to suss out the dynamics of their relationship, and sanitise my relationship with him. She used to make a point of saying she was cool with our friendship but looking back on it, I'm sure she wasn't. When - and after years of being single - I met someone else - he more or less disappeared from my life apart from the odd text pretty soon after it became serious.

What I'm trying to say is that we were probably both in love with each other. Not necessarily at the same time, and I’ve no doubt if we’d have been a couple if we’d met when we were single. It was at the very, very least an emotional affair. I think there must have been a crunch point where he realised he needed to put his marriage first, and I suspect that decision was helped along by my meeting my now husband and having a baby in very quick succession. I think that took the thrill out of it for him. We never socialised as a foursome, even in the early days of my relationship and when I was still hanging out with him and his wife relatively often which I think says it all.

This was all years ago, but I feel horribly guilty. It’s never innocent OP, I’m with the others on this.

She is not your friend and your husband is one nasty prick.

I wouldn't discuss anything further with him or her.

I would 100% be setting up a camera in your home and I would be getting legal advice.

He's a complete creep but she is even worse.

God help you OP.

The saddest bit of this is you thinking this is how a close friend behaves.

This is a very strange set up.. you co parent with her? How on earth did that start? What does her husband say about this?

You have let this go too far.. how it reads is that you are in a Throuple.. if that’s not what you want then you need to end this friendship now! Cut ALL ties. Tell him, you don’t want her in your house, you don’t want the kid in your house, you don’t want the friendship to continue at all.. If your husband sides with her then you know where the land lies.

Get a voice! This is your life, your sons life, don’t be treated like this! You haven’t been brought into this world to be made a mockery of by these two! She’s a freeloader who’s more than likely sleeping with your husband under your nose!!

OP, I have a feeling that you have been in denial about this, but that deep down you know what’s going on. It is so sad to read that you were left alone a few times on the holiday and you must have felt that loneliness. I am wondering what you did to hide that feeling from yourself. Do you eat a bit more or have another drink? Take extra special care of the kids?

Well now you can allow the feelings to surface and I know it sounds corny but you have to be your own best friend because she certainly isn’t. And neither is he. My heart goes out to you. You deserve better.

I'd pal up with the dh, start popping round for coffee. Bet your husband and alleged bff wouldn't like that one little bit.