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'm a single parent and wouldn't dream of messaging a married work colleague. Why does she even have his personal number ?

I'm usually cynical about men befriending women and this article explains why:

The results suggest large gender differences in how men and women experience opposite-sex friendships. Men were much more attracted to their female friends than vice versa. Men were also more likely than women to think that their opposite-sex friends were attracted to them—a clearly misguided belief. In fact, men’s estimates of how attractive they were to their female friends had virtually nothing to do with how these women actually felt, and almost everything to do with how the men themselves felt—basically, males assumed that any romantic attraction they experienced was mutual, and were blind to the actual level of romantic interest felt by their female friends. Women, too, were blind to the mindset of their opposite-sex friends; because females generally were not attracted to their male friends, they assumed that this lack of attraction was mutual. As a result, men consistently overestimated the level of attraction felt by their female friends and women consistently underestimated the level of attraction felt by their male friends.

Men were also more willing to act on this mistakenly perceived mutual attraction.

I think your post also highlighted that your friendship with the married colleague had different boundaries than with the single one x

I am a decent human being: as part of this I understand that while I don’t want anything more than platonic relationships there are 2 other people involved- a husband and a wife. And that these relationships are therefore inherently complicated and need very careful navigation. Friendship with married men should not involve lots of texting and meeting up alone.

I wouldn’t be impressed at all and I wouldn’t want her friendship either.

Thank you. I think this be the only way because I’m scared about driving it underground and then me being on the periphery. At least if I’m in the involved I can (hopefully) get some reassurance? Like the idea but do you think it might look odd to start a group chat though?

Theres a difference between normal, healthy friendships and frenzied daily messaging and meeting for drinks though

I don't message any of my friends daily! and I do have a couple of good male friends but we meet for occasional coffees if there's something to chat about but more normally we meet with our whole friendship group.

It should be quite clear where the boundaries are and when things are straying into unhealthy territory but so many people don't seem able to check themselves

• don't slag off your spouse to them /them to you
• don't tell secrets to them you have kept from your spouse /vice versa
• no continual messaging.
• no messaging late at night
• no flirty messaging
• no secretive messaging
• not messaging them when you are meant to be on a date with /spending quality time with your spouse
• being able to spend time with them and your spouse and noone feeling uncomfortable or acting strangely
• Continuing to invest the most time and emotional care into your relationship with your spouse

Well yes that's the thing isn't it? I'm certainly not saying all men do it. But there's a lot to be said for when someone new comes along and starts saying to dull Dave - "you're so funny! We really get along great! I'm fascinated by your views!". And dull Dave starts thinking he's the best thing since sliced bread again.

Whilst Doris his wife starts being the bad guy, because she's asked Dave to do that thing over the weekend that's she's asked him to do the last 3mths, and he's said he will, but he hasn't. Doris then becomes the "dull Doris whose always nagging him, and doesn't think he's funny or fascinating" 😒

I disagree. I think you have to approach this on the assumption your DH cares about you and your marriage and hasn't quite realised the slippery slope he is heading down

So gently pointing out the importance of some healthy friendship boundaries to protect a marriage is quite reasonable. Say you don't think there is any ill intent right now but in not keeping these boundaries he is putting your relationship at risk

Her constant daily messaging makes me feel he would be doing her a favour if he backed off. She shouldn't be so reliant on someone. She needs him to back away so she can start to make other connections

All relationships are different but my husband wouldn't be texting or meeting up with another woman because he'd know that would be disrespectful to me.
He also wouldn't carry on doing anything that made me uncomfortable because my feelings would matter more than hers.

Yes, all of this, when I was younger and attractive I lost count of the number of times I had a "really good friend" who was male, only for them to reveal they actually really wanted a relationship with me. Time and again it took me by suprise!

R
Equally here though this woman is messaging at an intensity I would find unsettling in any new friendship. In fact I had a female friend message me this intensely soon after we met and I nicknamed her "intensive girl!" to my husband but didn't think much more of it... eventually she told me she fancied me ...

And now someone has thrown the misogynistic word in.

@Saladdays01 Depends how you do it. Keep it light - ideally find an amusing link about something you're all interested in (is there a shared hobby?) and start a new whatsapp group with the three of you. If she's a big texter hopefully it'll be easy to keep the conversation going. If her intentions are fine, she might prefer it that way anyway.

My DH has a close female friend from Uni over 30 years ago
I have no problem with it

My husband left me for 'a friend'. My female friends were absolutely amazing. Strangely their husband's also started popping round on their way to work/ home from work ( when they knew their wives would be busy at home with their own young children) to lend a sympathetic ear/ offer help. One offered money (a lot of money). Always with the caveat " Maybe don't mention this to X". I did not engage with any of this. My mum stayed over a lot in the early days. I used to get her to answer the door. That soon got rid of them. Really weird way to behave.

I've had an issue with the same flavour as this but a bit different in that my DH spends regular time one to one with a younger woman for their shared hobby. It's been going on for 10 years and I have spent the last 10 years trying to quash my insecurity, tell myself to stop being jealous/possessive etc, while DH has essentially kept the view the whole time that it doesn't matter because he's not and wouldn't cheat. But infidelity isn't just physical. We've met up all together too and that hasn't changed my discomfort. And as a friendship develops it becomes more and more natural or normal to be more emotionally intimate and in my experience I've felt like a boiling frog, never realising it was slowly getting too much for me in my haste to be cool, not be controlling etc.

Anyway, the last few months I've finally had the realisation that it doesn't matter what other people say they'd be comfortable with, ultimately if you aren't feeling good about a certain interaction or relationship THAT'S OK and your partner should take it seriously, not minimise you and ultimately should want to prioritise your feelings and your relationship. Obviously if you feel discomfort about every single relationship or friendship your partner has then maybe there's an inner reason that's you. But if generally that's not a problem for you but one person is bringing those feelings up, listen to your gut.

Please grab 'not just friends' by Shirley glass - get amazon Kindle on your phone and download it today. It's largely about recovering from affairs which won't be relevant but the whole beginning section is about how emotional intimacy and friendship can be a precursor, signs that it's crossing boundaries rather than just a friendship etc. It really helped me finally see that it's OK to have boundaries of what feels comfortable to you and that actually within a marriage there should be some lines - walls and windows is how she frames it. It's also helped me see it's OK to have an expectation that your emotional wellbeing should be important to your partner. I thought my negative feelings were mine to get rid of and inherently unfair on him.

Don't be me and let everything go because he hasn't 'technically' done anything wrong. I'm now here 10 years in and he's just the other day conceded that maybe he could no longer do the hobby with her but has also revealed he sees this as possibly temporary until I'm in a better place. I'm constantly second guessing myself and it's all because he wasn't prepared to make a concession to me for the sake of our marriage. It really sucks.

Definitely go along for the drink it's not weird. It's a good sign she is trying to include you as it suggests she has some awareness it could be difficult for you. But why do they need to message almost daily? Does he message with that frequency any of his other friends? What are they messaging about?

Every couple I know who introduced a new friend of the opposite sex has ended up with one of them cheating. All of them introduced them to their spouses, had them in their homes, made friends with the wife or husband etc.
So I'm afraid it's left me rather cynical. Interestingly each set were all vastly different ages and gender too.

Unpick your logic for me here, please, @stormyB — is he only allowed one woman in his life, despite there being quite a lot of them around? What exactly is disrespectful?

It’s normal to feel threatened and a bit unsettled by this. It’s instinctive. There’s another female on the scene and in basic ‘primal’ terms ‘on your territory’.
Ten years younger is such a cliche. I bet she’s not unattractive either?

It's not though is it, so it's irrelevant.

Yes, you should go along. She's been friendly to you.
You have been invited so don't let this friendship become special to yout husband.

I was a single parent in my 20s and it was ALWAYS married men with older kids who wanted to take me under their wing. It actually may not be her, but him who is initiating these texts. Just saying. It's not always the female

My DH has several female friends from Uni. Some I appreciate and others not just like with his male friends and he sees them on his own. Huge difference between longtime friends that I know as well and a new single female friend though.

I'd love it to be true that men and women can just be friends, in fact I passionately believed this, until I had actual proper life experience.

We can't ignore human nature.

After my divorce EVERY SINGLE ONE of my male friends who was single tried it on with me. Some I'd been friends with over 20 years. I was gutted, just when I needed frinds the most.

Men are generally attracted to a far higher proportion of women than the other way around.

If anyone thinks a wife is being "controlling" not allowing her dh to have female friends, don't worry, he's free to leave the marriage if he doesn't like it.

But all friends of either sex have to be new friends at some point! Or are you saying ‘men are not allowed to make female friends after university’ or ‘men are not allowed to make female friends after they enter a committed relationship’?