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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Husband and our (f) best friend on holiday

1000 replies

OfMyDog · 06/08/2023 14:10

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

OP posts:
Sugargliderwombat · 06/08/2023 15:43

Oh OP I so feel for you with these very blunt replies. But any friend would feel SUPER uncomfortable with this.

TaylorSwiftFan · 06/08/2023 15:44

AbyssiniaArms · 06/08/2023 15:13

What 'best friends' part of her makes you think this OP?

She is NO friend of yours. At the very least she should have done on her free loading Santorini holiday is give you and your DH space to have time alone - such a romantic location after all.

Instead, it sounds like you present as the paid nanny who accompanies a family on holiday. On the sidelines and never actually included, just there alongside them to pick up slack with kids.

She is no friend and he is an utter prick.

I am actually shocked that this was your holiday experience.

I have couple friends. A few actually, where I am friends with both sides of the couple. Never in a million years would I see the woman (and we aren't talking best friends) secondary to any conversation or dynamic.

They are both utterly shameful. Neither care for you OP.

This

Therealjudgejudy · 06/08/2023 15:44

Im sorry but you must be thick as a brick to not know they are having an affair in front of your face.

Advicerequest · 06/08/2023 15:44

Inappropriate. The fact it makes you uncomfortable is enough.
i ended up getting on very well
with my friends husband. One day she came out of the house and saw us chatting and looked taken aback. I realised we had developed an easy intimacy.
No best friend, nothing happened or even suggested. but I backed right off. It could have gone that way and i Don't think she was comfortable.
I only see him in her company now.

Dombasle · 06/08/2023 15:45

I can see your husband chancing his luck and suggesting to your friend that they leave you to babysit the kids and go off and watch the sunset because he is used to treating you like a doormat.

But so called what friend would agree to doing that unless they absolutely hated you and/or had a romantic/sexual interest in your husband?

I was going to call you stupid but if this is true then I fear you are so badly treated by your husband that your self esteem has been weakened and you are unable to speak up or stand up for yourself any more and I feel very sorry that you are in this position.

I hope everyone's comments have made you feel stronger in standing up to them.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe · 06/08/2023 15:45

What to do though?

a) OP leaves them to it and goes home?
b) OP sends her 'friend' and son home? Her own husband will likely jump in to friend's defence.
c) OP stays there until the end of the holiday in misery

I honestly don't know what the best thing to do would be? I think that the only thing to do is what would be least hurtful for OP, her choice.

It is an awful situation.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe · 06/08/2023 15:46

Therealjudgejudy · 06/08/2023 15:44

Im sorry but you must be thick as a brick to not know they are having an affair in front of your face.

Don't call the OP names, that's really unfair. It's a horrendous situation and it's not of her making.

Ellaelle · 06/08/2023 15:46

What kind of sister wives bullshi t is that?

readbooksdrinktea · 06/08/2023 15:47

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe · 06/08/2023 15:45

What to do though?

a) OP leaves them to it and goes home?
b) OP sends her 'friend' and son home? Her own husband will likely jump in to friend's defence.
c) OP stays there until the end of the holiday in misery

I honestly don't know what the best thing to do would be? I think that the only thing to do is what would be least hurtful for OP, her choice.

It is an awful situation.

They're home. It's in the OP.

Missey85 · 06/08/2023 15:49

LTB gets thrown around a lot but in this case I'd do it this woman isn't your friend and your husband is a arsehole

momonpurpose · 06/08/2023 15:49

I'm so sorry OP but they are not hiding a thing

truthhurts23 · 06/08/2023 15:49

neither of them have respect for you, you sounds like a nice person but sometimes people take kindness for weakness
if I were you I would be thinking about a divorce

Gingerlygreen · 06/08/2023 15:49

He's having an emotional affair.

My ex had one and it would've hurt less if he'd just gone and had sex with her.

It's not easy leaving a relationship but you need to decide if this is how you want to live your life.

Catsfrontbum · 06/08/2023 15:51

Never mind the male/female thing they are actively excluding you. On your own holiday. That you have paid for! It’s bonkers. He’s being really inconsiderate of you and so is she. It’s horrible.

wheatfield6 · 06/08/2023 15:51

He's your husband. You should be his number one priority. If this is making you uncomfortable, his first instinct should be to put your mind to rest by stopping his hurtful behaviour.

Pallisers · 06/08/2023 15:52

Op, I think you were put in a position here of being a frog in boiling water - it took you a while to be boiled but the holiday has tipped you over.

I don't know how you feel about your dh. Tbh he doesn't sound very nice. But it would be worth it to have one more conversation with him where you tell him he is way too involved with another woman and you don't care if he thinks you are clingy or boring or any of the other charming things he has said. Basically if this marriage continues it continues without the extra woman in it.

I don't know if he is having a physical affair or not with him but I've learned in life that things generally are what they seem rather than what pretzel shape you can contort them into. They seem to be having an affair.

And she isn't your friend and you are not super close. good luck. It sounds like your family have been wary about this relationship for a while. Maybe talk to them about the holiday.

Fairysteps11 · 06/08/2023 15:52

Ooosh. I don't think it really matters whether they're having an affair.

They're making you feel like crap, they know this, and are refusing to change it. That's all you need to know.

From this, immediately make yourself the top person and refuse to be his wife and her best friend.

Please know, you deserve to be treated better than this. It is bang out of order.

wlana · 06/08/2023 15:52

The best case scenario is that they are both treating you like shit. Why did they think it OK to bugger off to watch the sunset at the beach together and why did they think it OK for you to sit with sleeping kids whilst they go and watch TV on the sofa. She's treating your husband as her own husband! She doesn't sound like much of a friend to me and he sounds like a crap spouse.

The worst case scenario is that they are having and affair right under your nose. Lots of "best friends" do end up shagging the husband.

I don't know how you should proceed as if your dh has done anything, he's just going to lie about it. And that catch 22 is that it is your dh you need to deal with as you live with him and are married to him.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe · 06/08/2023 15:53

readbooksdrinktea · 06/08/2023 15:47

They're home. It's in the OP.

How on earth did I miss that? What a twit!

Helpisneeded100 · 06/08/2023 15:54

OP, I know this won’t be popular but can you check his phone? This might give you the evidence you need. So sorry to hear you are going through this. Xx

Wintersgirl · 06/08/2023 15:54

Therealjudgejudy · 06/08/2023 15:44

Im sorry but you must be thick as a brick to not know they are having an affair in front of your face.

Don't be so nasty, there's no need for personal insults...

AcrossthePond55 · 06/08/2023 15:55

@OfMyDog

I can only relate this to my 'experience' as far as being 'mutual best friends' with my husband's BFF. There was never 'anything going on' because he wasn't attracted to me nor I to him, so I'm trying to point out the 'way it should be'.

I'll call him 'D'. D and DH had been friends before I came on the scene. We all spent time together and became a 'jolly threesome' and had some great adventures. I considered D a brother and joked and chivvied him like I do my own DB.

I would NEVER have invited him into a hotel room on my own. I would NEVER have gone to 'watch the sunset' with him. Any invitations for walks, meals, etc would have had to have been offered and declined by DH with a 'you two go ahead' before I went on my own. It's just the respectful thing to do. But nor would D have ever asked me to do any of the above on my own. And if DH had spoken to either D or I saying that he felt we was 'getting too close' I know that D and I would have taken steps back in our friendship, no matter how innocent that relationship was.

It could be that your BFF is enjoying (in a platonic way) getting attention from your DH that her own isn't giving her. It could be limerence on the part of your DH or that he's getting his ego stroked by what he perceives as her attraction to him. But the bottom line is that the very least that is happening is that your DH AND your BFF are ignoring the fact that you have said that their behaviour is making you uncomfortable and neither is doing anything about it. And that the 'time they spend together' is more important in their minds than you feeling left out and/or insecure. Or it could be that they're shagging their brains out and are a pair of lying pieces of shit.

Up to you what to do about either situation.

PurpleSky09 · 06/08/2023 15:56

It sounds as though an emotional affair is going on at the very least.

Crikeyalmighty · 06/08/2023 15:56

She isn't your bf OP , as it will be obvious you feel uncomfortable with this. I would be wanting to see his phone- if all messages are deleted that's a red flag, otherwise read them and see if they flow logically

Or go away for a few days and leave an audio recorder switched on and hidden

Maireas · 06/08/2023 15:57

Also, going round to each other's when they're wfh? Red flag.
I'm just going to repeat what pp have said: she's acting like a sister wife.

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