DP having overnight work trip with woman he used to sleep with

[Fishoutwater]

I’m losing my mind about this, and my partner is just telling me I’m being ridiculous and can’t see why I’ve reacted how I have.

When we met 3 years ago, we talked quite openly about past relationships etc. He told me he was seeing a married woman who is quite a bit older than him over the course of about a year having met at work. They’d book hotels and used to travel to work together for overnights at another office. He said this was really exciting at the time and drunkenly told me once that before me, it was the best sex he’d ever had in his life.

They’ve remained working at the same (big) company but in different roles so their paths haven’t crossed much since. However, a few months ago he told me there was a project which required them both to attend calls about.

Last week, he told me that there was a big project meeting at the company’s northern site and he’d need to stay overnight (it’s today). The company provide a hire car but where colleagues are travelling from the same base location, they need to share rather than have a car each. So he told me that he’d have to travel up with this woman and another colleague.

Yesterday, he told me that the other colleague is no longer going so it’s just him and the woman. It’s a 2 hour journey and they are staying at the same hotel, and travelling back together tomorrow.

I obviously told him how uncomfortable I feel about this and he was adamant he had no other option and that I needed to accept it was just for work and he’s forgotten about her these days.

YABU - it’s just work, doesn’t mean anything so get over it.
YANBU - you are right to feel how you do

Wow a lot of possessive thinking on here.

I don't blame him for asking you not to ruin his night, you're displaying a big lack of trust.
OP has already overlooked that he slept with a married woman for a period (he didn't break vows, she did, doesn't mean he'd cheat) so you can't suddenly now hold this against him.

It's his career and you badgering him about it isn't going to help matters. You can't just drop out a work trip for this.

It's perfectly reasonable that you feel uncomfortable about this, but at the end of the day you've been together 3 years and presumably he's not given you reason to doubt him before.

I've dated people via old roles and bumped into them in my current one, it's actually really freaking awkward to tell a spouse you're going to see them. You know morally you should, but you also know there's no reason for them to worry unnecessarily.
Calling you ridiculous is probably a bit much but from the fact you'd text him twice with no reply I'm thinking you maybe are acting that way. Just calm down and let him enjoy his night.
If he was planning to cheat he wouldn't have told you.

I voted YANBU, but I mean you're not being unreasonable to feel this way. I think anyone would feel the same. BUT, he told you all about it. It's good that he was honest. If he'd wanted to get up to something, he wouldn't have breathed a word. I think it will be OK, OP.

Suggest that you will drive him and see some galleries but enjoy the hotel with him; knowing that now he would feel uncomfortable and placed in a bit of a pickle with ex in the car alone.. How disasterous for you, DH.

I think the PP who are judging his whole personality forever after for sleeping with a married woman when young are not necessarily correct. When I was in my early twenties, I was having a dreadful time with my abusive dad and then my beloved mother got breast cancer. Dad took it all out on me and ultimately kicked me out the house, so I had to move to London alone to find a job whose salary I could live on. I lived with a stranger from Loot, and I was totally alone. I met a lovely strong older police detective, and fell hard. (Daddy issues, I know.) Turned out he was married, but I couldn't let him go. (I wish I had known it was just the wretched cuddle hormone. No Google back then.) Anyway, eventually, I did let him go.

Fast forward a few years and I got married. I was married for 15 years, and throughout our relationship, I was fiercely faithful. Never looked at anyone else, never wanted anyone else. And I have never cheated on a partner, nor ever wanted to. I have never, ever been the sort of person to cast about looking at others when attached. Apart from the fact that I just don't want to, I cannot imagine hurting someone who loves me that way.

I tell this story to illustrate that not everyone who has done what OP's DH did is a bad person for whom there's no hope, ever. Sometimes they're young and stupid. Sometimes they were taken in by an older person. Sometimes they're afraid of commitment. Sometimes they're so lonely they can't stand it anymore and they get their needs met with a married person because there's no one else, and it's that or go mad. (This was before the internet, so you couldn't just go and meet people via OLD.)

The important thing is whether it's a pattern, imo.

What a dick. I guess you should be grateful he’s announced so clearly he’s a dick.

The important thing is also whether they recognise you have concerns re overnight stays involving alcohol with women he’s had an affair with, or if he’s just an arse who thinks you should get off his back and feel lucky ti have him.

That's the part that would worry me. It's almost like a softening up saying there was going to be 3, then magically it becomes 2. It really depends on whether you trust him completely, really. If a man is going to cheat, he is going to cheat. He doesn't need work to arrange the time and place and affair partner.

Difference is you were not an affair partner of your exes. It does point to personal morals, although she does point out he was young then.

If he's drinking though he may not be able to drive back. Maybe he should agree not to drink and then come home. Least he won't be in danger of a drunken fumble.

She wouldn't have to go to the meeting though. Maybe she lives in a village or town and if he's going to a city she could do some shopping for Christmas 🎄. Plenty of spouses ride shotgun on business trips if it's somewhere worth going.

Yeah, and the fact he actually discussed how great the sex was, just yuck. Talking about a former partner to a present partner like that just breaks my rules. Lack of respect for both women in my book.

Yes. Even if you accept that he has no evil intentions you can have no idea what is on her mind.

No she said he drunkenly said one night it was the best. He didn't say anything about OP. Recently he said he had forgotten all about it.

How would your DH take it if you shared a room with an older man?

@Fishoutwater, how are things going now?

I don’t think his message about not ruining his evening was that bad, pretty shocked people are telling OP to pack his bag. He is on a work trip, he didn’t even have to tell OP this woman was going and I bet he wishes he hadn’t now. I agree with him in that if his intention was to have a night of fun with this colleague, then he would have made up a male colleague who was going and not even mentioned this woman. OP you either trust him or you don’t, and it’s clearly the latter. You can bet he won’t ever tell you again if he’s going to be around this woman. You need to calm down about the whole thing.

Can’t believe people are telling her to go too. Work trips are for the people working. Taking your spouse is embarrassing unless you’re travelling completely alone. Why are some women so insecure they are tagging along on work trips. And no it isn’t to do some shopping, it’s usually as they don’t trust their spouse. It doesn’t look good in the workplace. Woman in my team did it once. Interestingly she got together with this guy via an affair and he left his wife and kids. It was so awkward for her 2 colleagues who had no idea he was coming and so they went to dinner just the two of them. Odd behaviour. He had driven 5hrs too for one night in a mediocre hotel in croydon.

If it's a two hour journey surely it doesn't require an overnight stay? My husband had to go to another site and that was 3 hours away meeting was one hour and then drive home again.

It's not a great situation and I can understand why you are worried. However he told you up front about the trip and the arrangements. I would be far more worried if he said nothing and I found out about it after the event.

Agreed. My husband used to fly to Amsterdam for business trips and come home the same day. Plane out at 6.00am and back by 10.00pm. Thank goodness we now have Teams!

It’s likely they have a second day of meetings, and that’s why it’s over night.

the lack of trust in some relationships really shocks me. How many people want their husband to come home, would go with him, some even say leave him, just because he has to commute to a meeting with an ex from years ago, one he works with, and will be staying at the same hotel as her.

how do people even function when they have this level of deep distrust, and insecurity in their relationships.

OP has ignored all the posts asking about trust, as that is the key issue here.

Either you trust him Or you don’t.

If she trusts her DH the other woman’s intentions are irrelevant.

It’s a strange one. It comes down to whether two former lovers can ever be friends, or in this case professional with one another without it resulting in sex again. I’d be concerned here because they weren’t in an actual relationship.

Often when relationships end, the romance has gone and they just don’t look at each other in the same way. Whereas when it was purely sexual, as in this case, they didn’t really get chance to find out about one another’s flaws so that initial sexual chemistry may still exist. They’re obviously also both in a situation now where, as in the past, they are alone together in a hotel drinking.

All that has changed for him is you so this all depends on how much you mean to him and how much he respects you. It’s tricky, you’re having to place lots of trust in him basically and I don’t envy this position.

But they work together, if they wanted to keep shagging, then fhey could have, the fact ghey stopped years ago means they don’t.