Not happy with husband’s new living arrangements

[MidnightOrange]

My husband has a new job in a different part of the country. He lives away from home during the week and comes home at weekends. Up until now he has been staying in hotels but now he has rented a room in a flat because he wanted a more settled base. All fine. My issue is that he has moved in with a single woman about the same age as us. They are eating together and watching the tv together in the evenings. I am uncomfortable with this. It just seems too close for comfort. AIBU to say to him that I am not happy. I think he would understand how I feel and change arrangements if i pushed for it but he has struggled to find somewhere that suits him and he likes it there.

This is almost exactly the same situation as a friend of mine, and she had the same logic as you: re a married man and being practical.

It's totally normal! And yes, wildly offensive to both single women and the husbands they presumably trust to assume your situation will inevitably lead to an affair.

I am not assuming they are going to have an affair. As lovely as my husband is, I understand that not every woman will want to jump his bones.

It’s the familiarity and intimacy of watching tv and drinking wine that I am uncomfortable with. That’s how we spend our evenings! In any case, he agreed with me and would feel the same.

I was in this situation a few years ago because DP moved cities to do a degree and I stayed in London with a male colleague- we shared a one bed flat (he had the room and I had the converted sitting room). We did this for nearly 2 years. We did watch tv sometimes, walked back from work , and we did share food on occasion. I drew the line at grocery shopping together- we might walk there together but we weren't walking aisles side by side. Going together was great though because he carried that cat litter home.

There was no attraction and at times a bit of disgust. We had very different views of bathroom etiquette!

Meanwhile DP was in the exact situation in the other city in the flat I had bought. Nothing there either.

Eventually, IVF, Covid and a new job aligned things and we moved in together again. I'd say you let it play out with a view of moving together. And make sure when you visit him you speak to her too.

Well done OP.

Clearly you have an open and honest relationship with your DH. It’s great that you can talk to eachother and respect eachother’s feelings to find something that works for you both.

It’s such a shame this one didn’t work out to be as advertised.

Living away from eachother can be tough for both of you and it is tricky to sort the living arrangements. Treat this as a teething problem as you work out what you both want and are comfortable with.

It's easy to post an ad on Spareroom to show you.

@SunnieShinethat did absolutely not happen. My husband is not that person.

He'd presumably be unlikely to have a drink or two and accidentally fall penis first into another man. Very very likely to happen in Ops husband's situation.

That is the kind of paranoia everyone is talking about!

How on Earth did your mind get to this?!

You really think it's very very likely for a man to accidentally fall penis-first into a woman if they have a couple of drinks together?

This place is utterly sex-obsessed.

Excellent idea - and it would be earning extra income!

Trust your gut, OP.

You have to come to a compromise, but not at the detriment of your equilibrium.

No that doesn’t seem right to me. Without even realising it the situation could become too cosy and too alternative second home. Even if it didn’t develop romantically it isn’t the correct living situation for someone who is married, in my opinion. It’s too open to becoming a parallel domestic situation.

I wonder how many commenters have the experience of being a lodger or living in a shared house. I lived in various accommodation in my teens and twenties. I also did the period of where I had to commute another city to London. I enjoyed staying in hotels, however it is not practical for long term particularly when thinking about meals time. I think the layout determines how you interact with the other tenants.I definitely had more interaction with when there open plan arrangement - this was necessarily by choice. When I was cooking, I would talk to other tenant whilst they were watching tv or doing others due how the room was layed out. I think it lodger situation is slightly more complicated as they might feel unhappy about you eating in your bedroom etc and you have to make more of an effort to get along.

With that being said, I can see that why the OP would be uncomfortable.

@Justaname64 to be fair I think if the arrangement you have was what was going on the OP wouldn’t be uncomfortable. She agreed to the situation you described. What instead is going on is they are eating meals together, watching tv and drinking wine. Not just a pleasant chat when they cross paths.

My wife would one million percent not be happy with this. From my perspective I just can't see how it's remotely appropriate. I'd have to be extremely naive not to think that (1) this kind of setup is likely to cause exactly this kind of concern to my wife, and (2) it is asking for an emotional affair, if not a physical one. For a married person to consistently place themselves alone with someone of the opposite sex, to the extent they have basically shacked up together, eating together, relaxing after a hard day's work together, having all the little conversations and jokes that rightly belong to marital life together... it's just extremely naive and foolish of him at best.

I really really miss the laughing reaction cause this deserves it 🤣

We had lodgers of both sexes growing up, and it was so different to what is being described by the OP, because the lodger was coming into the marital home where husband and wife were for most of the time. Sure sometimes the lodger might be alone with one of my mum or dad, but that wasn't the norm. And there was no geographical distance between my parents.

In contrast, what OP has described is a married man living for most of the week with one woman, outside the family home. Unless I've misunderstood there are not even other 'housemates', it's just the two of them.

Yes it’s super weird. A married man shouldn’t be speanding most evenings living and watching TV with a single woman, with his wife elsewhere. Not really rocket science.

The lodging with a woman isn't the issue, it's the eating and spending the evening together that is. It's too familiar. He'll be spending more time with her than with you. I wouldn't voluntarily live apart from my DH in the first place, and he wouldn't voluntarily shack up with another woman. It's a bit odd.

This would be a hard boundary for me and I’m afraid I would be telling him to pack his stuff and get out or come home to divorce papers. His choice.

I wouldn’t be comfortable.

Working away all week is hard enough on a relationship never mind when one person is spending time bonding with someone else while away.

I lost all feelings when an ex did this.

Imagine if the woman flatmate was the married one working away somewhere and the bloke was single one …. no I can’t imagine it either. Women put up with a lot of BS that the vast majority of men would just laugh at, There’s trust, and then there’s purposely engineering/accepting a situation which might put a relationship in jeapordy.

Well done for actually communicating @MidnightOrangeas opposed to so many women on here who just vent and quietly resent their partner.

I wouldn’t have been happy either. The female landlord isn’t in itself too much of a problem (potentially). It would be the eating together, watching Netflix and sharing a bottle of wine that is the big no no here, especially if that’s the way you would both spend your evenings together.

I’m glad he’s seen your perspective but he really was quite naive to not think this set up would have been a problem for you.

I’d have to question his motives for moving in with a lone single woman in the first place. Were there really no better options? “He was told she would be away most of the time…” Hmmmm…

I may have missed, but do we know for sure that the single woman is actually straight? For all we know she could be gay.