...to believe that my DH's female colleague has ulterior motives?

[Icantbelieveitsnotcrap]

Name changed for this one.

I know this may be hard to believe as many men are not, but my DH is a lovely, sweet, shy and innocent man. He was surprised once before when a woman he was in an orchestra with developed a crush on him and he had to let her down gently.

The woman I am probably unreasonably worrying about this unnecessarily has been working with him for about 7 years now. Without wanting to say anything to identify any of us, she is an equal at work, no career climbing thing going on and it's not that kind of environment anyway.

She always seems to be somewhere in his close vicinity when I see them in a big groups (ie when out at restaurants with colleagues, etc, or when I drop into the office at lunchtime...)

I asked my DH about this last night, as he failed to mention that he was playing Scrabulous against her amongst the few other people he is playing that he did reel off (he's only playing about 4 games, and one of them is against me). I happen to know that he is playing this woman because he left himself logged into his scrabulous page on my computer the other day.

I should say that I do not think there is anything untoward going on between them at all.

I just get the very strong feeling that she is ready and waiting should anything go wrong between my DH and me. My DH said last night that she wonders why I am frosty with her. I wondered that might bother her in the slightest since I hardly ever see her, and frosty only inasmuch as I do not want her to be in possession of any more information about our family than she already has.

My DH says that they are just friends, that he does not speak to her about anything personal apart from "why Icantbelieve doesn't like me". He also said that he does not understand why I do not like her.

I want to know if this seems as mad on the outside as it's beginning to feel on the inside, or whether in your collective experience a vague feeling can be more often right than wrong. I have NEVER felt this way about any other person with whom my DH comes in contact- I am really not a serial jealous person.

Message withdrawn

CD - no evidence that the woman is a trouble maker..just suspicions. Not the same thing.

I disagree with cod and MP and anyone who says this isn't dangerous. I think the woman IS after your husband, I think he is probably not quite aware btu getting that way and I think I'd be pissed off too. So I'd ask him 100% not to discuss you with her. And why tf should you like her? She;s not your mate or your work colleague. Disingenuous question on her part, designed to make you feel uncomfortable.

Btw, I HATE the idea of giving a man a blow job just to ensure he's thinking about that rather than xyz. Give one if YOU want to.

Ermmm well I don't keep track of his phone

To be really blunt he has to be back to bath the children because I get pissed off with them by 6pm, beyond that I don't really analyse much

Anyway the OP here hasn't mentioned ANY of those things.

oh yes elf sorry was confusing with another one where he is doing all that

And TBH I would be more pissed off about him having nice long childfree lunch breaks where he got to travel to someone's house, enjoy a relaxing lunch and then travel back to work

Annie - you would not be calling him just as a normal course of events though - THIS post makes that clear. Anyway, it does not matter because you are kidding yourself if you think a phone call removes opportunity. I have known someone be on the phone to their other half whilst in bed with their lover....

You cannot "remove opportunity" unless you are going to chain them to a bed.

"So that is why I am a firm believer in removing the opportunities wherever possible.

Ok you can't stop the conference but you can let your man know that you will be suspicious of this woman and that you will be calling him while he is away to make sure she hasn't got her nails into him (make a joke of it).

Then do call him in the evening.

That alone will make it much less likely that he could ever fall prey to opportunity (eg, willing woman throwing herself at him in hotel where conference is held, too many drink and wife who doesn't seem to suspect anything, won;t be calling him to say good night etc). I know others will think this is controlling and untrusting but I don't think so. I just call it mitigation."

I stopped giving BJs when DH farted once.

Maybe that's why my shoe collection is crap.

I don't get the phone call thing either

I've taken plenty of phone calls while in bed

Admittedly chatting to the Mother In Law does make me rather lose my stride

here new thread

thanks for that lovely image Elffriend

Annie - for what it's worth - I do call DH if he is away or I am away. But that's because I want to talk to him - not because I am "removing opportunity". I am questioning your mplied reason, not the fact of calling.

I like to share!

Just to clarify:

1. I trust my DH completely. I even trust him to take his leave gently if he gets into a difficult situation with this woman

2. I do not feel that he is the best judge of character ever. Although I have not told him I feel he is encouraging, as some have said on here, I feel that that is what he doing.

3. Yes, Cod, granted, if he wants to have an affair he will. That does not mean I need to take it lying down or not to take preventive action. Nor does it mean that I do not reserve the right to bugger off and leave him, his new woman and the children in a nice cozy tete a tete (much as I love my children, and know they will be fine with him, I would like her to know why people (ie me) might appear the way they appear to her- child-rearing is not the same as the carefree life of the solvent single person).

4. If I have doubts about it, and have kept them under my hat, and a few things happen to rekindle the doubts (like say, the OW splitting from her 2 yr relationship and suddenly becoming needy/ demanding of my husband's time) I think I am right to have suspicions re her motives, no?

5. I would certainly not give BJs to stop him from straying (and certainly NOT for shoes!!!). I would however make sure he was not thinking with his goolies should he find himself in a situation that it might be hard to get out of.

6. I have no intention of stalking (although admittedly am displaying certain stalkerish/paranoid tendencies at the moment). Merely trying to gather enough information to stop me from going crackers

I think the best way to stop yourself going crackers would be to get to know this woman. If she becomes a friend of yours and dh's, you will be in a much less stressful situation than with her being just a friend of his.

Icant, good for you, I am laughing all the way through this ladt part of the thread, bjs for shoes, prostitution, jesus. we all want you to be ok, and dh is no doubt adjusting his relationship this very minute with the ow, because of your doubts. Leave it in his hands for now, see where it goes, as for bjs for shoes Iore, must be a way to back date, or as my dp says, did you get a purchase order number, no, well tough! hang in there Icant it will all be a distant memory soon, I'm sure of it.

Seems to me this woman, who you describe as 'one of the lads', has a bit of a disastrous love life, gets on well with your husband, and is just treating him as a safe male sounding board for her thoughts on her relationships. I expect she thinks that she can talk to him about personal things because he is married, and therefore not interested in her. And perhaps she invited him to lunch at home because she can't afford a restaurant! I think it's quite sad, to be honest, that you have been brooding on this for so long. Trust him, (as he seems worthy of your trust) and let it go... as morningpaper says, expand your own life and stop obsessing about his.

I had a friend who was a mistress to a married man. She still is, probably (it had been going on 10 years at last count, his son is the same age as mine). Her married luvvverrr had a wife with 2 small children. Wife was pregnant with 1st child when this man started a relationship with my ex friend. Ex friend had LOADS of time to devote to

flattering him
buying fancy underwear
cooking delicious food
making her house immaculate
pampering herself
thinking up ways to use her wiles
trying to persuade him to leave his wife
giving him lots and lots and lots of filthy sex

my point, laboriously made, sorry, is that single childless women do have TIME to do this stuff so being predatory is easy ish.

Elffriend, the image you left in my head has me feeling sorry for you, but also somewhat glad that my imagination doesn't come with smell-o-vision

not that I think all single childless women are predatory

not that I think this woman is necessarily

not that I think OP has let herself go or anyfink

just saying, if this woman does have an agenda she has more time than most of us to pursue it.

hey Icant, I've been following but not posted in a while. I still think you're quite right in how you've dealt with this and I still don't think you're being at all unreasonable.

I really don't get the many exhortations to make friends with this woman.

Do people really seek out friendships with people just out of insecurity and in an attempt to neutralise a potential competitor?

If so that's just tragic.

Skidoodle that's not it at all about making friends with the woman. It's more that if she is part of the OP's dh's life (which clearly she is whether she has designs on him or not) then it seems reasonable - and much less worrying for the OP - if she is friends with both of them rather than going out with the dh alone all the time.

Who mentioned anything about giving a BJ for a pair of shoes!!!!

DH mentioned that if the OP were to give him one he wouldn;t be thinking of getting one anywhere else - why does this make you a prostitute?!

I don't know about all of you lot, but when I had my children for quite a while my life was totally dedicated to them and I have to admit to neglecting my DH in many areas - too tired, didn't feel sexy, forgot what it was like to be me, etc. Now DH is a sensible and mature man and he knew this was nothing personal about him and that it wouldn't last, to be honest he was just as knackered as I was, but there are men out there who aren;t all that mature and will take these things personally and use it as an excuse to go and get it elsewhere. There are other men, also sensible and loyal, however if it were handed to them on a plate may well think - well why not. Now obviously that is very simplistic (and probaly rambling), however I have seen it happen to many marriages, I don;t know why some men have affairs and others don;t but surely if you feel your marriage or relationship is in danger from a 3rd person what is wrong with using everything you can to prevent it from happening? And if I were in the position and decided to give DH a bj or sex or whatever, you know I would be doing it for me too - men are not the only ones who like sex, I would also get something out of it!