His new hobby and female friend - be cool?

[EvieR]

My boyfriend has recently started a musical hobby at his job. He played piano as a child but dropped it long ago. Suddenly he announced he wanted to get back into it.

Around the same time he started talking about violins then his colleague Rachel played violin. Other things she said. I was detecting a bit of mentionitis.

It turns out they have met once a week for a month between classes (both teachers) to play together. Now he's talking passionately about this hobby but not about her anymore. They practice together just the two of them.

As for our relationship, it feels stronger than ever and he told me how happy he is the other day. Outside of this I have no concerns.

Should my reaction to this new hobby and friend just be 'have fun'? Truth is I am a bit jealous. I love him and don't want to lose him.

Meeting on school premises, between classes, to play music = a weekly date.

MN is wonderful. 🤣

That's an interesting observation and on the back of it I think you're correct to have your spidey senses tingling.

Some posters seem a bit naive, how exactly do they think affairs start ? Most people don't deliberately set out to cheat on their partner but proximity and shared interests are contributing factors.

Not sure what I would do in this scenario. I guess meeting her is a way to go, maybe develop your own hobbies and interests although you probably have these already.

Or simply address it. Like you both myself and DH deliberately avoid situations where we would be on our own with someone of opposite sex on an ongoing basis. I'm sure some find that very amusing. But just state how you feel "I'm feeling a bit insecure about the time you're spending with Joanne, should I be concerned?" Of course he will say no, but if there is anything going through his head then he will need to face it rather than ignore it.

Can you imagine the reaction on the OLD threads if a man suggested that as a date!

I see we've reached the "spidey senses", "vibe", "gut instinct" section of the thread. All the most paranoid, jealous people I've met have used those phrases.

Yes, and the cinema is ‘date territory’. Which someone should clearly have warned my male friend about as, instead of being delighted to find someone else interested in a black and white documentary about a Russian Orthodox nun, we were clearly supposed to be in transports of sexual pleasure in the dark of the back row.

‘Come and try not to wince as I try to remember my scales in a free school music room at 11 on Tuesday? Bring your violin’. Surely a date that would whip the knickers off any red-blooded woman.

There was a recent thread where messaging a female friend about a film was condemned as "imposing on family and couple time" and tantamount to sexting. The previous week I'd messaged a male friend about Io Capitano, which we'd seen in the cinema a few months back. Had no idea that a text about the horrors of the Saharan migration route could be construed as so flirtatious.

I see we’ve reached the height of condescension part of the thread, where the cool confident women sneer down on those who understand how life works while using completely unrelated scenarios to justify their condescension.

Indeed. When I hear about ‘emotional affairs’ I tend to think: do you mean they’ve made a friend?!

Was it brilliant? I admit I wimped out of seeing it, despite the reviews, because it sounded as if it would be horrifying viewing.

But yes, texting about Senegalese migrants’ attempts to get to Europe is pretty much you filming yourself dancing clad only in baby oil and a smile, and sending it to your friend during ‘family and couple time’. (Which I be,iI’ve is what other people call ‘the weekend’?)

This is a classic mumsnet thread. Someone posts about their DH having a friendship with another woman (often with a reason for the friendship e.g. a shared hobby) and other posters whip them up into a frenzy of suspicion. All this stuff about "playing music with someone being especially intimate" - come on. If this were the case then nobody should have a relationship with a musician and orchestra pits would degenerate into orgies.

@EvieR It might be the start of an affair, but more likely I think it isn't (unless there's any other evidence). You just have to trust him because that's how relationships work. You can't and shouldn't monitor your partner all the time. To me at least, that's partly what love is - having faith that my partner won't cheat on me. I get that it can be difficult if you've been cheated on in the past, so maybe you should discuss this with him, but I don't think trying to stop him doing music with her is the solution.

How does life work? People have affairs?

Of course they do, but it’s literally impossible to prevent it if someone is minded to be unfaithful. OP could ban her partner from music sessions with this woman. That would be terribly controlling, and if he was minded to cheat anyway he keep seeing her in secret, or start chatting up the woman at the McDonalds Drive-Thru instead.

It was brilliant (and beautifully shot) and also horrifying, but while bleak it doesn't leave you feeling totally hopeless.

"Unwittingly seductive" is not a phrase I'd previously associated with it though.

Oh don't get them started on why no married person should ever need to make a new friend of the opposite sex.

(My most unpopular MN opinion might be that I don't think I believe in emotional affairs.)

Yup! Basically, ‘I have no rational basis for any of this, but I’m not going to let that stop me!’

Thank goodness it’s not just me. I leave the ‘emotion affair’ posts alone for just this reason.

🤣🤣🤣

Glad you’re all having fun but funnily enough I have male friends who I meet up with one to one but ALSO believe that sometimes normal people do get a feel for when their partner is having feelings for someone else. Perhaps OP is wrong and I hope she is, but she may be right and either way she should talk to him.

It’s not great to sneer at people having these worries, it’s clearly not a nice thing to feel.

Yes, I’m with you, @gannett and @DownThePubWithStevieNicks — ‘emotional affair’ seems to be a hostile way of describing a friendship that would be completely unexceptional if between two women.

I think it’s perfectly possible that, if you’re someone who’s never had an opposite-sex friendship and think it’s somehow inimical to marriage, that you might confuse the normal excitement of a new friendship with sexual attraction, but I’ve relied on male and female friends alike for emotional support at tough times and (1) have never slept with any of them and (2) am convinced it’s helped, rather than hindered, my marriage. No one should be dependent on a single person for all their emotional needs.

There’s a difference between a friendship which is open and honest. An EA is when the dp prioritises the ‘friend’ over his wife, ie, i s constantly texting her, having (often secret) rendezvous, tells the ‘friend ‘news before his wife, is emotionally engaged with her (eg sends text ‘missing her’ love hearts etc) etc.

And the black and white documentary about the Russian Orthodox nun (‘Mother Vera’) was mesmerising. If my poor friend had actually planned an assault on my virtue in the back row, he’d have found me very tough work, as I hissed ‘Get your hands out of my jeans, Martin, you’re making me miss the subtitles!’

Do you have a mutual friend who may coincidentally be looking to get back into their musical hobby or know one of their colleagues well enough to scope out what's going on through them if they're meeting up with them too?

I don't think there's enough information to say what's going on yet, but also the fact she is around his age, his physical type, and he was talking about her a lot and now they're looking for ways to meet up outside of school aren't especially good signs.

And off we go.

I think that ‘emotional affairs’ are almost always jealous nonsense. I’m not debating this with you.

But ‘open and honest’ in Mn terms often appears to mean ‘can only be conducted in my presence, and I must be privy to all text communications and pre-approve meetings, which I deserve the right to attend’. I couldn’t handle that level of suspicion and paranoia, and like hell is anyone vetting my friendships with anyone.

Yup. Also, ‘I will monitor your facial expressions around this person, count your mentions of their name (the dreaded mentionitis!) and also be extremely suspicious if you don’t mention them (what is he hiding?!)’

Bloody exhausting.

Yes, I think it's perfectly natural to lean on friends for emotional support, and in many situations a friend or even colleague might be a better source of it than your partner. When I had a crisis of confidence in my career many years ago I turned to friends in the same industry (some were men! in relationships! who I met up with one-on-one! and hugged!) because as caring as DP was, he doesn't really know much about the industry.

I also still enjoy meeting new people, especially when they share my taste in film or music or sport or politics, and frequently come home from events telling DP that I met someone fabulously interesting and witty (sometimes they are men!) and will hopefully see them again soon.

None of the above means I want to sleep with any of these people.