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

I would never be naive enough to presume my husband wouldn't cheat. I believe everyone is capable of it if the timing and circumstances are right, depending on what else is going on in their lives.

So very many, many men cheat on their wives. Just read the relationships board here. You'd be deluded to think your relationship was immune.

Exactly. Add into the mix a works overnight trip, a willing other person and I seriously do not believe any man would turn down the opportunity.

So very many, many men cheat on their wives. Just read the relationships board here. You'd be deluded to think your relationship was immune.

But if you're going by the relationships board you are going to get a very one-sided point of view. Nobody with a happy marriage is going to start a thread there. It's a completely skewed demographic that won't show the millions of people who rightly trust their partners

This is what pisses me off about some men. If I was in his position, the first thing I’d have done would be try and get out of it. If I couldn’t, I’d have tried to get the train or asked not to car share and said I didn’t feel comfortable car sharing. Lastly, if I couldn’t do that and had to go, I’d have told my partner how I understood how uncomfortable this must be making them but that I wanted to reassure them I had no intention on doing anything and would say and do everything to reassure them.
id have called / text as soon as I arrive and just keep in contact so at least they’d know I was thinking about them and understood they were fretting at home.

It’s not so much about being controlled, it’s about understanding you’re in a position that has made your partner extremely uncomfortable and doing all you can to show empathy and reassurance. Not telling them they’re ruining your night, or saying they’re the issue which then totally feeds into the worry. Even if he has zero intention and is as good as gold, it’s the way he’s handled it that’s the biggest red flag!

There are countless threads here from women who have been blindsided in ‘very happy’ marriages. It can happen to anyone. And unexpectedly.

This is not to say OP or anyone should stay in relationships they distrust with the aim of control. But it is a reason to expect your partner to act – always – as a safe place for you.

This is green flags all over.

Of course but you can’t live your life in fear and let it turn you into a controlling twat.

Nail on the head with all that. The way the OP's OH has acted and responded is a complete lack of respect.

Also If I'd have had an affair with a work colleague, I'd have changed jobs to avoid contact afterwards. I'd certainly not continue working in the same place if it meant there'd be a chance of having to work together in the future.

There’s no evidence OP is doing anything like that.

This- who is worse the married woman cheating on her husband or the single male ?

It wouldn't occur to me to make inconveniences for myself in my professional life to pander to someone's irrational discomfort. And I just couldn't be in a relationship with a man who had this level of discomfort with the idea of me being around someone I'd once slept with.

This whole "it doesn't matter if her feelings are irrational, it doesn't matter if he doesn't intend to cheat, he has to put her feelings first" line of thinking is backwards to me. Someone who has irrational, jealous feelings is not someone I want to be in a relationship with. I consider them red flags, not things to pander to.

Putting them in ‘worst’ order has no bearing on OP’s dilemma.

You’re free to choose that standard for your relationships, but you’re still mischaracterising what’s being argued.

No one is saying people must ‘pander’ to irrational jealousy or sabotage their careers. That’s your framing, not the reality. The point is that this discomfort isn’t irrational in context: former sexual partner, overnight travel, shared transport. That’s not fantasy – that’s history.

There’s a difference between chronic jealousy and situational discomfort. Putting your partner’s feelings first doesn’t mean obeying every feeling or demand. It means taking them seriously instead of dismissing them as stupidity. You can acknowledge feelings without capitulating to unreasonable requests – emotionally competent adults manage that distinction all the time.

If your baseline response to a partner saying ‘this is hard for me’ is ‘that’s your problem’, that’s your choice, but it’s not emotional maturity, it’s low relational investment.

So yes, you don’t have to be with someone who feels this way. But calling it a red flag to feel uncomfortable in this situation is just emotional rigidity dressed up as independence.

And even then he could have fitted in a quick fuck with one of the prostituted women displayed in the windows of that city. If you trust, you trust. If you don't you don't.

"Former sexual partner, overnight travel, shared transport" is a complete non-issue to me. I've been there and done that without anything sexual taking place. Yes, if a man objected I would think he was being irrational (as well as insulting to me).

I find it completely insane how many MN posters assume everyone will be overtaken by sexual desire at the drop of a hat. Completely detached from reality where most people possess a modicum of self-control and morals.

Low relational investment??? That's rich. The person with low relational investment is the one who assumes their partner will cheat if given the opportunity. I would not stay in a relationship with someone who thought I was so untrustworthy that simply being around an old flame would be enough to make me unfaithful.

Well, the equivalent situation would be that he used to fuck prostitutes in Amsterdam on work trips and that one was the best fuck of your life, and then telling your wife she’s ridiculous for feeling uncomfortable when another work trip to Amsterdam comes up and hey presto, that prostitute is in the doorway, so no it’s not really ‘if you trust, you trust’ or anything to do with OP’s situation.

As I said, you can conduct relationships however YOU want, but don’t disparage other women for having different, and still rational, emotional needs to you – especially needs that are being dismissed by their partners.

Again, OP isn’t saying he will cheat. Her issue is the way he is treating her feelings.

I wish the OP would come back and tell us what transpired. I did conferences as a presenter for something like 20 years, 4 of 5 a year, mostly in the States. From my experience (don't know about the attendees) my colleagues and exhibitors were around 80% sensible, treating the away days as just part of the job. The other 20% partied like it was the last days of the Roman Empire. When you are out of your usual environment, life can often be about the 'here and the now'. Contact with the normal home life can feel like an intrusion. Not good, I know, if one has a DP, but some people can compartmentalise---live in parallel worlds. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas...and all that.

That's not very nice of him 😮

Yes he obviously doesn't give a damn about OP's feelings.
I would be wondering what " enjoying his evening" involved . No doubt reminiscing about what they used to get up to in hotels with his ex mistress.
He wasn't so honest in the past when he was having an affair with another man's wife so it's very hard to believe honesty means much to him now.

100% shagged her

@Fishoutwater
I hope you're OK, and that you'll come and update.

And no doubt now admitted it and blaming the OP for giving him the idea as of course he'd never have thought of doing it himself!! Gaslighting at it's finest!!

Hope that whatever happened, the OP is OK.

Personally I wouldn't feel too comfortable with this. I understand it's work and he has to attend but there is plenty of opportunity for him to misbehave if he wants. The fact he has been open with you about this woman previously and now means his conscience is already eased and he may think he's free to do whatever with the woman. Could also mean he's been open because he doesn't want you to worry and he's got no interest in her and it is purely work. You will have to guage how he acts when he gets home. If you think he's acting different then maybe question him.