Female colleague calling and texting partner all the time

[N12251234]

So I’ve been with my husband for 10 years, married for 3. We have a 3 month old baby together.

Just before we conceived our child my husband got a new female colleague. He works 12 hour shifts with her 2 out of the 4 shifts he does in a week. She is 23 and single. We are both in our early 30’s. To begin with he didn’t really like this girl, called her annoying and some other not so nice things. Then as they began to work together more they became good friends. I just want to make it clear that I don’t think he is cheating with her or anything like that.

My issue is, I think she is being a bit disrespectful and so is he. They text each other all the time, send Snapchat pictures to each other, and she calls him at least once every day. Sometime several times a day. He often has her on speaker so I know the chat is innocent. She will literally call just to tell him what she’s eaten for lunch that day. She did this all throughout my pregnancy and when I had just given birth. My partner doesn’t see the issue and just sees her as being friendly and he said it would be rude to tell her to stop as they are good friends.

I just feel like a young single female shouldn’t be messaging and calling a married man who has just had a baby all the time. Am I being unreasonable to ask him to tell her to back off a little.

Weird and inappropriate. I have 23 year old DD and if she was doing this we’d be having words.

They work out 12hour shifts together? Are they police?

The reason I ask if because affairs are rife in the police. Everything you've written is what happened to my friend, right down to having a tiny baby. She then found out he had been doing some things that were definitely affair territory. They separated. None of what he is doing is normal. If it was a male friend, it would be just as weird. No adult should need this much contact with just a "friend" when they already work 12hr shifts together.

Is she calling him during work time ie when working from home? It might just be like the chat they would have in the office

Theres a lot of very paranoid commenters here

As everyone else has said, you’re well within your rights to not like this at all. You’ve told him that and he’s still putting her feelings before yours. Which is bad enough anyway but to do while you were pregnant and now with a young baby is a just beyond unacceptable.

If she’s really a proper friend he could tell her honestly that she needs to back off a bit, he could miss her calls, he could not open or reply to her messages and she would be fine with this. If they’re really only friends. But he won’t and that’s telling. It doesn’t mean he is cheating but I do think it’s on his mind whether he admits it or not.

She fancies him.

He loves it.

Neither of them care about your feelings, which is understandable from her side but absolutely awful from his.

It's definitely weird to have that much contact together. Your husband should be prioritising you and your baby and if the situation is making you uncomfortable (understandably!) then he should act on that.
The woman is also being unreasonable if she knows he has a wife and a young baby!
I'd really be pushing this with him.
They can have banter and a good friendship while they're working, not this level outside of work.

OP already said they’re paramedics

He fancies her too. He did from the start, that’s why he said she was “annoying” etc. It was annoying that he fancied her but couldn’t make a move.
OP the fact she tells him all about dates she goes on is most definitely not innocent.
Doesn’t she have her own friends?

I reckon she probably thinks there's "something there" even if he says there isn't, and he is secretly enjoying the attention.

I think he's very disrespectful to ignore and minimise your discomfort and he should have cooled it off a bit and had a word with his colleague as to why.

I have a colleague I quite often speak to for no real reason aside from a bit of a bitch about work/comparing notes on some of the nonsense, I'm acutely aware of what it might look like to his wife but I don't think he really is aware of that. From my perspective it's completely innocent but in my experience it's very easy for men to get a bit flattered by attention that's not really there.

Paramedics working closely together, experiencing trauma can create very intense relationships

this profession like the police is notorious for affairs

First issue is using Snapchat in your 30s 🙄 Your husband needs to shut it down.

YANBU. She is being disrespectful to you and so is he. They need to stop, he will hopefully understand this if you explain how you feel.

He understands it already.

She does initiate all of the contact but by him answering and reply to her he is encouraging it. Which he shouldn’t be. He just says he’s not being rude by not replying

He doesn't have to reply promptly, though, nor does he have to pick up the phone when she calls. Point out to him that his other colleagues don't feel the need to communicate to this extent and he needs to start dialling back so that the relationship with this woman is more or less on the same terms as it is with other people he works with. He could start answering her calls only occasionally and only when you are with him, and leaving lengthening gaps before he responds to texts. When he talks to her, he should keep it short, probably saying that he's in the middle of doing something with you and the baby. And show zero interest in either her dates or what she had for lunch.

They don't work in an office.

I was giving him the benefit of the doubt. Assuming they’re both relatively youngish.

As a not so youngish person my go to view would be that he’s a tit, if not having a real fling they’re having an emotional one. The other woman thinks she loves him, wants him to leave his wife and child for her and doesn’t give a fck about them. The man is a man and will usually (but not always) follow his dick. I’m hoping he’s a decent man and will just stop.

Precisely

I know a guy who was having an affair and he would purposefully get the OW to call him when he was his wife, with the pre-arranged plan of them just having a “friendly” conversation with him which he did via speaker phone.

It was all a ploy, it was all staged to make his wife think there was nothing suspicious going as he was happy to have the call on speakerphone so his wife could see it was just an innocent friendship.

There were a lot of speakerphone conversations going on to put a show on for his wife, but the ‘real’ phone calls with the OW were all done in private.

It’s easily done, and the same can be done with text messages. Don’t underestimate the steps a cheating spouse will take to cover up their infidelity.

Paramedics working in a pair, side-by-side, for long hours whilst acting as an emotional support for each other can lead to a very intense relationship developing.

You are obviously very uncomfortable with what is going on, and even if there is no affair going on (yet) then you need to be aware of its potential. The period of time after a new baby arrives on the scene is one that is highly inducive to affairs beginning.

Tell him how you feel and if he priorities her feelings over yours then you have a problem.

At the end of the day it all comes down to your husband.

All married people have plenty of opportunity to have inappropriate friendships/cheat.

I'm on maternity leave at the moment and if I wanted to I would have plenty of opportunity to text/call different men. I don't, because it's wrong.

What I'm trying to say: it's all your husband's fault. If it wasn't this woman, it would be a different one.

They're either having an affair, or will be in the future. She fancies him, and he either does to, or is oblivious to it.

If she's on speaker, ask them both why she's interrupting family time again, is it an emergency.

Why? Blame the husband who's picking up.

You'd just look a bit unhinged is he's saying 'hi Tia, you alright?' And you're in the back going 'this is family time, Tia!' Tell your husband

Sounds very shifty to me. My wife and I rarely bother telling each other what we've had for lunch and have friends of 30 years who aren't phoning all the time to discuss the minutiae of everyday life

Obviously I don't know your husband but I'd be shocked if he tolerated this level of contact with someone he didn't have feelings for

If she's his friend, suggest he arranges for you both to get together with her on a day off - coffee, lunch out.