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?!

Invite yourself along to set a precedent. It will make it more difficult going forward to arrange meetings where you are not included.

If it was a male friend l suspect OP wouldn’t give a second thought to them going for a drink together. But it’s not a male friend is it ? So would you have an issue with your husband dating ?

The fact she wants to be your friend too suggests she's just a bit lonely/wanting more friends. I'd want to go for the drink though.

I have male friends, this seems a bit off though.

Let me guess your DH and you are mid 40’s and she is about 10 years younger? Your kids if any are quite independent as they are teens now?

Even my closest friends of 20 plus years, you don’t msg all day every day. That’s what lovers do, fuck that.

Respectfully, this is nonsense.
If you trust your partner, there shouldn't be an issue. And if you don't trust your partner that likely IS the issue!

And let’s not be naive here. Lots of female friends turn into romantic partners get alcohol involved that’s a recipe for disaster. If everything is on the up and up why can’t she be friends with both of them as a couple? If there is nothing to hide and it’s an innocent friendship.

And if it’s on the up and up you will have no problem inviting your partner along. It goes both ways. If he feels the need to keep this other woman separate from you as his own partner that’s the red flag. I have this funny thing in relationships where I don’t like my men dating other women when I’m in a relationship with them.

Yeah. Far less likely to lose her new friend if she's also messaging his wife.

What you call nonsense is pretty much the entire summary of Shirley Glass' book on affair prevention.

I think you have to have an extremely idealistic view of human nature to completely trust anyone.

I know multiple women who trusted their partners completely and they got cheated on. And some of those cheats seem to have sincerely regretted it and wish they could take it back.

And I know that all relationships have ups and downs and sometimes flattering attention that comes at a weak moment can lead to bad decisions.

Nobody is perfect, humans are flawed… so sensible boundaries are valuable.

ETA I don’t mind if you want to accuse me of talking nonsense (I’m not) but the “respectfully” is rather unnecessary.

I think she’s just trying to make more friends and connecting with you as well is probably her clearly establishing boundaries when hanging out more with colleagues who are married men?

This is exactly our situation!

We don't know your husband as well as you, if my husband did this I wouldn't mind at all - but I've known other men where it would make me wonder....

All humans are capable of doing something to shock us and if you're feeling uneasy I'd say listen to your feelings and don't push them aside

I'd want the messaging to stop too, and I know dh wouldn't tolerate it from me either. We're not jealous types at all, we're quite chill, but these are our unspoken boundaries. We barely get chance to speak to each other, let alone him spending time messaging another woman.

And if your husband suddenly struck up a friendship with a female colleague from work who he messaged daily and went for drinks with alone, you would be perfectly happy.

Yes I'm sure you would.

Why would you invite yourself to something you've already been invited to?

They should not be wanting to meet up for a drink (date) alone. Why would they need to do this? What reason would they have to go out for a drink without you? Ask him what they will be talking about that needs to be done just the two of them. I wouldn’t like this and many others would feel the same.

I think some posters on here are completely OTT. If you trust your partner, why shouldn't they go for a drink with a friend after work. It's not about being a "cool wife" it's about respecting and trusting your partner to have friendships.

If he cares about you he won’t do this to you.

If he says he wouldn’t care if you did it, a) you’re not in that situation - and b) that’s testament to how little he values your relationship - it’s quite an apathetic approach, purely bc he has someone new and shiny to get excited over himself. Nip this in the bud asap. She’s likely messaging you so you don’t see her as a threat. She has no business befriending a married man when there are loads of women and single men out there. Her relationship is over and she doesn’t give a shit about yours, her priority is probably to secure a new relationship for herself, you and your kids are collateral damage. If it isn’t what she’s after then she’s totally thoughtless as to how her new friendship with your husband would affect you. Not a nice woman, though I’m sure your husband would disagree.

On the face of it there is nothing wrong with friends of the opposite sex, however a, she is separated, b they are frequently texting and c your DH should have invited you along too for a drink with her. It does sound dodgy and I would be confronting him more.

Normally I would agree with this, but I think it would have been respectful of her husband to invite her along seeing as it's such a new friendship, thus dispelling any hope this woman may have at getting more than friendship out of it.

Yes. Ask if you can come along too as you have nothing planned and will just be sat at home alone or whatever. He’d find it hard to say no and justify why it’s important they meet up alone.

All this talk about platonic friendships and someone mentioning old friends have to start to somewhere - there’s a WORLD of difference between meeting someone at school/uni, basically years before your current relationship (and remaining friends), and meeting and befriending someone new while you’re in the middle (or at the end) of one. Why is that a difficult concept to grasp?

If you’ve remained friends without anything happening, it’s unlikely anything romantic would develop, particularly if you then embark on a new (current) relationship, so it’s clear that it is genuine friendship (unless either is secretly harbouring a long-term crush, but even then, it’s still unlikely to be acted upon).

The likelihood of something developing between two new ppl, however, who find they really get on, to the point of texting each other regularly - one in a long term relationship in middle age, the other a lot younger who has recently come out of a relationship - has a far higher risk of sexual things developing, and if you can’t see that I don’t believe you.

I wouldn't go and just have a drink with a married man I've just met. You say your DH takes people under his wings...well maybe that's what she wants but in term of getting a husband and stepdad. I would say that I'm not comfortable about the situation and see how DH reacts.

If they want to hang out together outside work, you need to be invited, too.

Here's an idea: Invite her over for dinner. If it's genuinely just friendship, that should be fine with them both in place of just the two of them going for drinks. I'm all for new friends, but the friendship needs to be with both of you equally. It can't be between just him and her.

I would only do so if his wife was coming too.