Husband and female colleague

[Lovetoread2024]

I am worried about my husbands close friendship with a female colleague and just looking for some perspective.

We have been married 10 years and have a daughter (6) We generally have a good relationship and all get on well.

A new woman started at husbands work about a year ago, they worked very closely together and would occasionally text but he has always been open about the texts, nothing secretive etc. She also is married with children and he says they have bonded over having kids a similar age.

I want him to have good relationships with colleagues but more recently I have been concerned about the nature of their relationship. He took a new role (same company just a different team) but they had a catch up and she got tearful saying she missed him. He told me about it and I thought that was a little odd, I said it sounds like more of an emotional connection than is perhaps healthy and perhaps he should back off.

Anyway turns out they have been meeting for one on one lunches out of the office during work time. I only found out about this as I saw a message on his Teams that popped up saying she was looking forward to seeing him. I asked him about this saying why have you been doing this and why keep it secret if you didn't think it was anything wrong? I said I didn't feel comfortable with him spending time out of the office, going on walks etc just the two of them as this feels like more of a date! I asked how many times had they done this and he said 2 or 3!

He said she was going through a rough time and he was providing some emotional support- that they are both married with kids so nothing would happen and he didn;t mention anything as he knew how I may react!

I am angry and told him I didn't want hi going for one on one 'dates' anymore out of the office. I said hanging out as a group/with others over lunch to catch up is fine (they work in the same place so not realistic to never see each other) but this was clearly becoming something more than colleagues/friends!

Am I being unreasonable/jealous?

Edited to say you’ve already answered my question sorry!

Could you work out how many times they had actually met up? I bet it’s more than 2-3.

I remember that thread too. It was a few days after I'd been to see Challengers at the cinema with a male friend, but not DP nor his girlfriend. Was very surprised to learn we were having an affair.

All these things are such normal activities. I sometimes think MNers don't have much experience of friendship or the workplace.

Again you are talking about YOUR relationship with YOUR Dp and YOUR friends.
A good percentage of the posters on MN believe there can be good friendships between male and females. However most of these posters acknowledge that sometimes a certain relationship between a partner and their opposite sex friend appears to be crossing boundaries. That something doesn't feel right about the friendship.
Your go to position seems to be that every male / female friendship is just that. That there never ever could be a friendship that crosses into emotional or physical affair territory. So either you are extremely naive or you are just posting your "stupid to worry " mantra for the purpose of undermining OP.
it's OP's relationship. She knows her DH and she knows when there is cause for concern. Why can't you respect that?

In fairness most posters are talking about THEIR relationships with THEIR cheating exes and projecting. We don't know the OP or her husband but literally nothing from her description of the facts has crossed a normal boundary. The only boundary crossed is demanding how he is allowed to interact with colleagues in his professional space, and demanding to see work-related messages.

OP specifically says she encourages her DH to have good relationships with his work colleagues. That she was OK with his relationship with this woman colleague until her DH himself told her about the colleagues emotional attachment to him. And OP, quite reasonably asked him to back off the relationship with her. What do you think she should have done at this point then? Should she have told him to crack on with the friendship even though the woman in question had openly displayed an inappropriate fondness for him?
And then after she asked her DH to step back from the friendship he actually intensified the friendship by going on one to one outings to beauty spots and on shopping and drinks excursions with the woman. And these outings were deliberately kept secret from OP. Isn't deliberately not telling her a form of lying? Is that not crossing a boundary in your view point? Is deliberately misleading your partner acceptable in your relationship?
So yes boundaries were crossed: by OP's DH.

Hopefully you’ve given him the wake- up call he’s needed, and have nipped it in the bud.

I think all of the men I've known who have lots of women friends though tend to be sociable beings who have quite a few female friends, you are just one and it's all very open and it's not one specific female friend that he's keeping secret and not being open about- those of you who have lots of male friends that you do stuff with - do you just have a specific male friend and hide the fact you are messaging or meeting up from your H or long term partner? or are you or they in tears because your team splits etc?? It's not friendship that's the issue , it's the specifics of individual friendships, secrecy , dependency etc that cause mistrust to creep in ?

This made me laugh so much. I never heard that before. (Sorry for laughing at such a hard time for you OP.)

I also believe it’s crossing the line but am unable to advise you on how to stop it. It’s happening.

I don't see any inappropriate fondness either, is the thing. A friend is going through a tough time, you support them. Perfectly normal.

You can say "one on one outings to beauty spots" all you like, that still doesn't make it a date or even an intense friendship.

Gannet i really don’t know why you’re on this thread. You’ve clearly got an axe to grind. No one gives a shit whether you think a line has been crossed or not. It’s not your marriage. It’s the ops and she does think a line has been crossed.

Its strange you are here supporting this man’s right to tell lies to his wife.

@MakemyTeaPlease exactly - in a marriage you know how your partner ticks and if something just doesn't sit right - and secrecy and hiding messages or meet ups doesn't sit right for lots of women- nor does rather extreme shows of emotion towards your partner - it may well be nothing untoward us going on - but if that is the case he needs to not put himself in a situation where it could be seen that way

So is it normal in your place of work for someone to break down in tears because their work colleague has moved departments? You must work in a strange environment if this is considered normal professional behaviour and not an inappropriate display of affection for a colleague.
And you have a strange view of appropriateness in a relationship if you think deliberately lying to and concealing behaviour from a partner is normal in relationships.
You do you by all means but don't expect other people, including OP to conduct their relationships with the same none -existence of boundaries

We don't know the OP or her husband but literally nothing from her description of the facts has crossed a normal boundary

It has crossed a boundary because the op clearly told us it had for her. You don’t seem to understand that people have different boundaries. It is not for you to tell other people that their boundaries or feelings about a situation are wrong. You obviously have issues in this department yourself or you would know how inappropriate you are being.

Your posts are almost a stealth brag about how poor your boundaries are. No wonder people thought you were having an affair.

I agree with @MakemyTeaPlease.

@Lovetoread2024, your H is minimizing the extent of his involvement with this woman. You don’t have the complete story. He may say that he wouldn’t want to do anything that threatens me or our marriage, but his covert actions don’t back that up. His clueless act doesn’t wash.

You now know that they have been enjoying coupley activities since last year, and the London trip was not likely their first rodeo, so his estimate of 2 or 3 times is a fabrication.

How would he react to your having secret lunches, walks, private nature outings, and London dates with a man who had cried and expressed missing you, and who was over-reliant on your demonstrative emotional support and comfort?

Thanks again everyone

yeah just for further clarification I am absolutely fine with him having friends male and female. I am definitely not someone who thinks men and women can’t be friends and spend time together without it being inappropriate. For most of us workplaces are a mix of male and females so it’s bound to happen that people will spend time together.

but the nature of this relationship has upset me. The secrecy, the type of things they do and always seeking out opportunities to hang out just the two of them. Even if it was catching up over lunch in the work canteen etc then that would feel different but it’s the fact they have been specifically arranging these catch ups and planning different places to go. I guess this reminds me of what me and husband did when we started going out which is why it’s painful, especially since we don’t get to do that very often ourselves!

that combined with the emotional attachment and secrecy has put me on edge. I understand others might not be bothered about that but it definitely has made me feel uneasy how’s it progressed.

@Lovetoread2024 please ignore people who have no idea as I said below what feels normal in your relationship and what doesn't - I would feel exactly the same , indeed I've been there, the secrecy, the never mentioned texting , the very weird look this person gave me several times when I encountered her - turns out my gut feeling at the time was right but didn't discover till 10 years after it was happening and totally by chance . Personally I would breeze on as if itsall forgotten and see what happens whilst being on alert for stuff - never leaving phone lying around, always turning it over, finding reasons to nip out that seem a bit odd - etc, etc

Look @Lovetoread2024 you should be uneasy. My colleague and I went far over the line without actually tipping into anything too bad, but there were hugs all the time and occasionally we held hands, we gave all of our emotional efforts to each other for quite a time.

This sounds very familiar to me, and I think anyone dismissing it isn't reading into it with any insight that some relationships are more 'innocent' than others.

Of course men and women can be friends. But these two can't, because there's an attraction there. They've given parts of themselves away to people outside their marriage. And yeah, they definitely want to fuck.

Agreed. And OP, if he’s giving this work colleague more of his emotional energy than he is giving you, his wife, this is a huge issue. Energy to go out for drinks with her, but too busy to go out with you. Energy to go out for meals with her, but not 1:1 meals out with you. Energy to go on walks to admire nature with her, but not going on 1:1 nature walks with you. Energy to go shopping with her, but not 1:1 shopping trips with you. Energy to be a listening ear to all of her problems/to console/to advise her, but not to actively listen to/console you.

I was going through a really terrible time when this happened, and let me tell you, my needy emotional trauma state was all kinds of interesting to him. The hero/saviour thing is a real trip to some men.

Now I'm doing pretty great, I'm no longer as interesting. His wife was truly the boss at home, and he got to come to work and be all masterful with me. It turned him on 🤷‍♀️

I see the energy spent on other friends as being ‘repaid’ back into the marriage by the person coming back home with new ideas/experiences, or just plain energised from another source. That’s certainly how it works in mine. DH doesn’t fulfil all my emotional needs, and mor should he.

Sure @BrunetteHarpy but this isn't that: these people fancy each other and want to fuck.

Ain't no bringing that energy back into the marriage!

I think you’re missing my point. No, my DH can’t meet all of my emotional needs. However, if he is giving his full self to another woman at the expense of me getting my needs met within our marriage, then yes, it’s a huge problem. If he’s giving the energy to her that matches the energy he used to give me when we were dating, and not giving me that energy, we have a problem. I struggle to understand how my DH basically courting another woman will bring him home energised to do the same with me. Red flags abound.

I recently read an article where a woman who likes to have FWB/FB relationships with married men tried to justify her actions as “doing a favour” to the unwitting wives/helping the marriage. This comment is giving me those same vibes.

I was going through a really terrible time when this happened, and let me tell you, my needy emotional trauma state was all kinds of interesting to him. The hero/saviour thing is a real trip to some men

Most people don’t realise that the hero act is present in nearly all affairs. It’s my view that this is one of the key indications that an affair is happening and people shouldn’t ignore it. People who are uncomfortable with the hero act are usually told they’re being nasty and their husband is a good person who is just being supportive to a good friend.

If your husband is acting like a ghoul and eagerly listening to an attractive woman trauma dumping this is a sign that he is exploitative and predatory, not a sign that he is a good friend.