Dh has new female friend

[Saladdays01]

DH (married 20 years) has recently become good friends with female colleague. She is separated with a young DD. Met her at a social event last month, she seems nice and has asked to meet up just with me too. However she messages my Dh nearly every other day now. Sometimes work stuff but usually sharing links to stuff they are interested in etc. I think it’s just friendly and she’s done the same with me (to a much, much lesser extent as we don’t really know each other yet). They do share a lift occasionally too. AIBU to be worried about all this? Dh says she’s just a person and I have absolutely nothing to worry about. They are talking about going for a drink at some point but I feel a bit uneasy about this. Should I invite myself along too or is that weird?!

I can assure you I don't have an idealist view of human nature at all; I don't like most people. I'm just blessed to have found, in amongst them, my person in DH.
He's proven time and again that he only has eyes for me and I've no reason to doubt him.

As people have mentioned abusive childhoods/therapeutic breakthroughs, looking back this was what happened to me.

I was a "cool wife" because I didn't know I was allowed to have boundaries, and thought I was lucky to be merely tolerated.

The only thing I don't like about how that term is used, it when it's insensitive to those of us who felt we had no choice, no way of drawing a line.

Of course not. We were talking specifically about messaging.

But to answer your question, I wouldn't need to worry because it's not something my DH - or I - would want to do.

Well, I can’t help that — it’s an extremely famous, multi-million-selling international bestseller, adapted into an equally famous film directed by David Fincher with a high-profile cast and lots of award nominations for Rosamund Pike who played the lead.

The reason you hear on Mn about opposite-sex friendships developing into affairs is the same reason someone posted on Mn the other day saying Mners must all have terrible marriages, as so many posters were divorced compared to anyone she knew, or why you’d imagine that every woman turns into a tactless, interfering dragon the second her son gets married, or that every man is either dragging his heels about proposing, or a lazy, feckless slob who can’t ’see dirt’.

The people in trouble post. The ones who are fine don’t. I post on these threads as a corrective. I could not be in a marriage that limited something as fundamental as my friendships. No marriage is affair-proof. If you want to live in conditions that severely limit your life in the belief that this will affair-proof your marriage, go for it, obviously. You do you. But other people have good, longterm marriages while choosing differently.

I understand your point, it's not nice to name call but equally a lot of posters (I'm not saying you) accuse other women of being jealous, controlling, needy etc when they aren't happy with their boundaries being pushed. Then on another thread that isnt even about other women they'll be told to have self respect for themselves, lay down the law and not stand for any nonsense etc!

I could be wrong, but I think a lot of people see it as a universal term rather than an insult x

I seriously am really glad you have a good marriage.
I'm not looking to criticise it and you are perfectly entitled to have your own views on friendships etc.
I just don't think it's helpful to tell some one who feels there is something untoward with her DH's new friendship with a younger female colleague that she should be OK with his friendship because otherwise she is controlling or insecure or abusive. Some posters actually seem to think it's ok to tell her this wheras she is entitled to feel, as she obviously does, that the boundaries of her marriage are being broken down.

Don’t really understand the responses here. I have a male work friend who I message but it’s completely platonic. One of the things I love about my male partner is he has an equal mix of male and female friends, sometimes he meets his female friends for a drink. I like that he doesn’t just consider women as sexual but as people he can form fantastic friendships with. Really can’t get my head around women being insanely jealous like this. If you don’t trust your husband then there’s an issue in the relationship

Not an issue for me at all. Other people's relationships are none of my business.

I just know in MY own relationship, there are boundaries my DH wouldn't cross, so he can be friends with whomever he chooses. I respect him and trust him enough to know where those boundaries are and I'm confident he would soon spot the 'red flags' in a woman like this and cool the friendship.

But do you intensively message every day ? I mean I don't even do that with my family or closest friends. That's why alarm bells are ringing

These two are building a false intimacy... It doesn't look good, one or the other will cross boundaries soon. It's like a runaway train.

Would he be completely cool if boot was on the other foot?

Well, we know that most affairs start by a slow crossing of boundaries. They don't start with someone just waking up one day and deciding they want to shag someone else. Of course it can happen like that, but mostly it doesn't.

It's much easier to build an emotional connection to someone else if you are having late night message chats and meeting alone for drinks. Can start off innocently enough with no intention to cheat. Life isn't as simple as you 'either trust them or you don't'. But yes, people have a point, it is always someone quite attractive they start friendships with in cases like this.

I don't have to micro manage my husband, neither of us would like the other building a new friendship with someone of the opposite sex and going to the pub alone and texting daily.

Lol, at the posters who would be okay with their DH taking another woman to dinner/drinks.

Incredibly naive.

Yep, that is more appropriate isn't it? They are DEFINITELY naïve, to think that their husband having regular contact with, continual messaging back and forth with, and socialising alone with a newly single (or not newly single) younger woman, isn't going to result in an affair.

Tale as old as time.

And 'that term' about certain wives in not misogynist, and it's ridiculous to suggest it is! 🙄

And yeah, why is it always younger single women who these middle-aged married men become confidantes and BFFs to?

.

I have a male friend of 22 years and we’ve never had sex or even kissed. Neither of us have tried either.

I bet he has thought about it now and again though.

I work in a male dominated industry too. We have gone through loads together: redundancies, toxic work environment and industry existential issues.

They came to my wedding. I know their spouse and kids. They know mine. My DH works in a more gender balanced industry. I wouldn't restrict who he is friends with. I am more wary of people who are friends with him, hoping to get something out of him, instead of cheating. I want him to be happy and have genuine friendships.

Cheating is a trust issue. Can see many netters have trust issues with their spouse.

Same. Have male friends of decades. There are reasons that we are friends and would not have it any other ways!

Oh god I definitely text colleagues outside of work. Both male and female. I will think about it before I ever do it again now.

I'd love to hear a conversation between anonymous men on this subject. Honestly, I don't know what they'd say

Why risk a relationship for a new friendship? Not worth it in my opinion.

I'm a few years older than my closest male friend, and extremely plain. Like a pp, I'm hardly a trophy female friend. (DH's closest female friend for years was fifteen years older than him, and they'd met at an awful team-building away day when the company he worked for bought out her company -- unfortunately she died of cancer in her late 50s. I never liked her very much, but DH valued her, and was very sad when she became ill and it was clear she couldn't recover.)

I don't 'continually message' anyone, of either sex, but I certainly see my geographically-nearest male friend regularly. (Others are harder to see as they live at a distance.) I'm married. He's divorced and dating. Our respective relationship statuses have made no difference to our friendship. I have other male friends where our friendship has outlasted more than one of their marriages. I'm not 'risking' anything, and I'm certainly not naive. It's possible to value friendships as well as your marriage.

But then again, I'd hate to live in the world of paranoia and suspicion that so many Mners appear to live in. Not just with opposite-sex friendships, but the posters who see 'cliques' and 'exclusions' everywhere, and approach the school run, workplace, or hen party invitations as some kind of war zone. I assume that attitude is what feeds the paranoia about friendships.

I'd suggest you try an opposite-sex friendship. It might cut down on the loneliness so many Mners complain of, if you don't disregard half the human race as potential friends, and you'll be amazed how easy it is not to develop a roaring attraction to a perfectly ordinary, nice man.

And yeah, why is it always younger single women who these middle-aged married men become confidantes and BFFs to?

Yes, of course, the poor little wimmen being manipulated.
Agency both parties have it.

@Saladdays01 re the group chat thing, I think you should play it cool at the drinks outing you'll presumably be going to, then maybe start the chat based on something you talk about on said outing. For example, if you all start talking about a TV show you all like, you could send a meme about it to the group chat and then keep an eye on it from there. See how quickly that chat dies down vs how quickly they turn back to their own private chat. Then extrapolate from there 🧐

I cringe to think what I'd have written on here before life experienced forced me to understand human nature better.