friend's husband sending inappropriate messages

[NEoysterplucker]

Long and short of it - the husband of an old friend has been sending me (very) inappropriate messages. He is famous for being pervy in an almost satyrical way but is harmless, these messages go beyond that. My husband recently found one of these very explicit messages and, quite reasonably, lost his s**t. I hadn't told him (or anyone else) about them as I hate conflict, put it down to drunk banter and honestly, (as someone on the wrong side of 45)was flattered that someone saw me as anything more than an aging, stressed mum hurtling towards menopause. BUT I also didn't shut them down. and I know I should have....(I told all this to my husband when he confronted me) However my husband said he was going to confront sex pest husband (SPH) and tell his wife. I gave SPH a warning that the messages had been found, while simultaneously persuaded my husband to say nothing. Fast forward a few weeks and my friend / wife of SPH has clearly been told something. She's ignoring me when I see her - literally crossing the street, avoiding me at all costs, not responding to messages. A few of her close friends are now doing the same. In short, he's lied to her to save his bacon and I'm pretty sure my reputation is getting ruined / I'm the subject of the worst kind of gossip. It all just feels a horrible, horrible mess. I'm feeling paranoid and anxious and fear this will snowball when I just want it to go away. I've thought long and hard about asking SPH what he said to his wife (and how the hell he got away with it!!), but I simply don't trust anything about him, and fear he'll spin this into something else. I very much don't want to tell the wife the truth - there are children involved on both sides (who go to the same school) and I don't want to play any part in the potential demise of their dysfunctional marriage at all...BUT, I do want to defend myself. AIBU to not know what the hell to do, and turn to the wise women of Mumsnet for some guidance?

Well you’ve either got to tell her all and risk her disbelieving you or just get on with how things are. If you want to tell her all it might come across better from yoir DH as he’s seen the messages and has no reason to lie whereas from her point of view you do.
Id see how it goes and if it gets worse or feels worse then tell her. You made a couple of errors in handling this but you’ve not done anything wrong compared to him. Don’t bother asking the guy, he will lie or frame it that you’re chasing him

I would leave it be.
He definitely shouldn’t have been sending those type of messages and you know you should have called him out on it straight away and told your dh.
By telling him your dh found the messages panicked this other man and he’s told his wife some lies to save himself.
To her, you’re now a woman who’s tried to steal her husband and she won’t want any contact with you. He’s probably begged her not to confront you.

I think it’s for the best that you and your dh separate completely from the group and move on. I know it’s hard as you want to be viewed as a good person who has done nothing wrong, which you haven’t really but you should have been a bit more honest about the messages.

Jesus Christ these responses on this thread are ridiculous. Call the police cos an attached man sent you a flirty text 😂😭🙈. Honestly .

OP you’ve done nothing wrong. You first ignored the messages and then told him to go away. I’d have done the same.
What else were you supposed to do.? You didn’t want to create a bigger drama and blow up a marriage. Totally fair enough, and in these situations it’s always a case of shoot the messenger, so telling his wife was always bound to come back at you.

You could have told your husband perhaps, but given he clearly can’t be trusted not to behave like an angry cave man, defending his female property, I’d say you were wise to keep that to yourself as well. You had no obligation to tell him- you were not responsible for the messages and in no way encouraged them.

people blaming you are ridiculous and this is all just misogyny- blaming women for men’s actions.

Unfortunately I don’t think there’s much you can do about the wife at this point. She’s angry and humiliated and is misdirecting part of that at you. Telling her the truth (if she doesn’t already know it) is unlikely to change that.

I’d just hold your head up high. Know you’ve done nothing wrong and wait for it to blow over. If there are other good friends you notice ignoring you etc, I’d def get in touch and confide in them about what really happened. Otherwise just wait it out - The whole thing will blow over soon x

Deleting all the messages but only keeping the one where you tell him to stop actually makes you look worse. Honestly, if that’s all you’ve got to show her then she will just think that you had to delete the rest of the thread because you were involved, so the other messages from him would clearly be replies to things you’ve said and your messages would be flirty… so to hide it and prove your innocence, you’ve deleted everything apart from the message were you end it.
You’re saying you didn’t reply at all and it was all him, but there isn’t any evidence of that anymore and she won’t believe you deleted them for any other reason that hiding your involvement.

Well, you walked right into this one, didn't you? And because you were "flattered". I'm sure what the ex-friend's husband said to her about you was far from flattering, and now the totally predictable has happened. You should have been upfront with your husband. All you can do is apologise to your husband and hopefully move on from it. It's a lesson learnt.

This happened to me once, it was a close friend's husband.

I text her the next day and said something like "Was husband drunk last night? I think he accidentally sent me a text meant for you! Hahaha"

I didn't show her the message as it had my name so was no accident! But left it up to her to mention to him.

I didn't get anymore texts!

I was newly single. What a wanker, chancing his luck.

Sorry doesn't help your situation. :(

or I would call the police

😂😅 😂 Good luck with that one - they'll laugh their socks off! "Friend's husband sending flirty texts, Sarge - quick, get the blues and two's on!"

Er...newsflash: they don't come out for assaults and burglaries - so no chance there.

You cheated on your husband and betrayed your best friend, you’ve not got a leg to stand on. Shame on you.

She said she ignored the messages. That’s not cheating.
She said the woman is an old friend from school whom she isn’t particularly close to anymore.

Why didn't you shut them down?

Send her the screenshot of you asking him to leave you alone and his reply. Then block them all and move on.

@Itslegitimatesalvage and how many people do you know that sit there and ignore those message, hide them from their husband and don’t tell their friend about them, then go and warn the other man that he’s been found out? It reeks of an affair and the OP desperate to cover her own arse.

Yes, I also told her in my comment that her actions have made her look guilty and look like she is trying to cover up. So she really can’t fix things with the wife, but your post was still utter nonsense.

This exactly, you keep on picking up that shovel to dig the pit deeper! I think at least your husband saw the messages and believes you. I think as for everything else you will just have to ride the storm and move on.

What I want to know is, why on earth did you warn him that your husband has seen the messages?!!! Surely at this point you let your friend know.... sounds very suspicious to me and I normally take things at face value!

He was wrong and so were you op. The betrayal to your friend and husband was terrible. I would maybe send her a message explaining the situation but know that the friendship is over.

Your first message reads different to your updates. Your first message suggests an emotional affair was about to break out, he was messaging, you were flattered.

Then your updates seem to minimise this.

Only you know the truth. But put yourself in her position. How would you feel the other way round knowing your DH had been messaging her and she had been flattered by it. That's unforgivable.

I would send her a text, so it’s less confronting for her, saying you hope/are aware that she now knows her husband has been sending you explicit messages and you have asked him to stop ( send a copy of your message that says so) Tell her you had no idea how to handle it because you care about the friendship and didn’t want to hurt or upset her. That you appreciate this is a very difficult discovery and you are sorry she had to find out like this. Explain your dh is very upset with SPH and that you feel compromised and upset being on the receiving end of said messages for no good reason, and you are there if she wants to talk, and then leave it.

This is NOT your fault.

Yes maybe you should have been more assertive. Maybe the attention was fun for a short while.

But HE is to blame here!
He was testing the water to see if you were up for an affair.

This has happened to me - you are not his first and certainly won’t be the last.

Your friend may well stay with him, and continue to ignore you. Hold your head up high, look her and friends in the eye. You have done nothing wrong. These things are a nightmare to manage, and you did tell him to go away and what happened? Nothing, he continued anyway. It sounds like you were paralysed and didn’t know what to do.

Leave her to her grubby husband - there is nothing you can do for her and op, talk to your dh about managing this together next time.

You need to work on your own relationship, the first person that you should have turned to was dh, additionally you should not be deprived of attention if you are happily married. Focus on those things.

@Itslegitimatesalvage its not nonsense, it’s exactly what everyone around her will be thinking too. Act like a cheating madam and people will treat you like one.

If you have nothing to hide ie not replied to his messages in a flirty way etc,I would forward her the messages. It's about time she realised what her SPH was like.

And just so happened to delete all the messages? Come on. Nobody actually believes that the OP didn’t respond do they?

If she didn’t have anything to hide she wouldn’t have deleted the messages.

In the interest of transparency she would have shown them all to her husband after he found the first one.

Instead she deleted the trail of messages to cover her arse because she bows that if her husband saw the messages it’s likely that this man’s name won’t be the only one on them.

And she didn’t tell him to back off, she warned him that her husband was on to them and threatening to tell his wife. Somewhat different, no?

Imagine this:

“I looked at my dh’s phone and found a sexually explicit message from my friend’s wife on there. I confronted him about it he swears that he ignored all the messages. Thing is, he’s deleted them all.”

How many people would tell her to believe him. Mmmm let’s think now.

@MayThe4th

She literally said that her husband read all the messages and told her to delete and block.

He read them all. It’s pretty pointless to reply to a thread if you’re going to ignore what the OP says, make up your own version and post as if you’re version is the true one.

She earlier wrote that her husband read only one of them. There is some inconsistency.

Golly, if there had only been something you could have done to prevent this entirely predictable disaster. 🙄

Of course he shouldn't - but the OP admits that she could have shut it down, but she didn't because she found it flattering. I think there's a difference between wanting to avoid confrontation/hoping it will all go away, and actively deciding to let it continue because you're enjoying the attention and finding it all a bit exciting.

He was, of course, the instigator and is certainly the one primarily at fault, but the OP did make a conscious decision to let it continue because she was flattered by it. She's a grown woman in her 40s and he's one of her peer group - it would be different if she was very young and being groomed by an older man in a position of power or something like that.

This.

You must be a pretty shit friend to not shut it down or challenge it, all because you felt “flattered”. Check your ego, I wouldn’t want to be friends with you either.