AIBU to feel uneasy about DH’s close friendship with another mum?

[Underbeliever]

Hi all, my DH and I have one daughter, she has just turned 5 and is in reception. Since Christmas we changed up our working hours, now DH finishes early on a Wednesday and Friday, these are the days DD has gymnastics and swimming so DH gets her from school and takes her straight on to them.
The issue is I feel he has developed a close friendship that feels somewhat too close to me with another parent.
This other parent is a bit younger than most of the parents of DDs classmates, I don’t know her massively well, she will smile and pass a comment at pick up, I’ve chatted to her a little at the big class parties but she has her own friends and I do mine. DD has never asked for a play date with her daughter so I’ve never felt the need to get any closer to her than that.
I think she is mid-20s and she is frankly stunning, it’s hard to not see that about her! I also know she is single.

Anyway by sheer coincidence and it’s been this way since the start of the school year when I used to do the Wednesday and Friday pick up, her daughter is in the same gymnastics class and swim lesson group as our DD. For the entire first term we hardly spoke, we would both sit in the viewing area for the swimming and I’d just read my book, we did our drop offs at gymnastics and maybe smiled but nothing more.
Now DH is doing it he seems to have gotten very close to her

1. On a Wednesday our local tennis club has an afternoon social, it’s mainly stay at home mums, retirees and the odd shift worker who might not get to the evening socials. DH and this mum both go to this. It finishes just in time for school pick up
2. While the kids are in gymnastics, they meet up and go to M&S, DH does our mid week shop but they also seem to gran a coffee while they wait, it’s in the same retail park as the gymnastics so I get they may just happen to both be doing the same thing, but this never happened when I was doing the gymnastics run!
3. On a Friday he told me they sit together while the girls do their swimming, taking turns to buy the coffees from the cafe

I still see her the other 3 days of the week on the school run, we still don’t really chat, so it doesn’t feel like it’s just our families getting closer.

Now on Easter Saturday I have a wedding to go to, DD isn’t invited and it’s my old uni friend so we decided DH would just stay home with DD. He has told me he and this mum are going to take the girls to an Easter egg hunt at a national trust site while I’m at the wedding, just them and the kids.

While I don’t think it has turned to anything physical yet, and I do trust DH not to cheat. It does feel like an emotional affair.
Anytime I mention to DH it makes me uncomfortable he says I’m being weird and he is DDs parent too and has just as much right as I do to be friends with her classmates parents, especially in a situation like this where they end up seeing each other incidentally quite often.

AIBU to be uncomfortable with this?

I was thinking all friendly and ok until the Easter egg hunt. Absolutely not. Yanbu. You’ve never had a play date, your kids are not friends.

affairs start with proximity.

YANBU.

I know many of the dads from attending parties etc, but I would never arrange for a “play date” with one of them, just the 2 of us, when our children aren’t even friends.

Reddest flag of them all. He wants to spend time with the woman, it’s not about the kids.

Yes, but their parents are. Mumsnetters are continually talking about young children’s friendships being to an extent determined by their parents.

I don’t think this is mysterious, OP. You and the mum don’t particularly like one another, but she and your DH get on, and enjoy one another’s company during classes etc.

What is your gut telling you, OP?

Not to be horrible but is it just because she’s “stunning” that you feel uncomfortable? Your DH may not see her as stunning.
I know it’s easy to presume he would but is that not a bit of fear overriding reason?
Your DH will see lots of beautiful women in his life. He will possibly form some friendships with them ..
I personally wouldn’t like the Easter egg hunt thing much but it might be a natural thing from a conversation about what they are individually doing over Easter with the kids and he’d perhaps rather go with someone he knows than go alone.
I understand it’s anxiety inducing but what else can you do but see what transpires and trust him.
You said you are worried it’s becoming emotional.. why do you think that’s happening other than the proximity or frequency of them meeting

I’d contact some of those friends then and see if they want to go along on the Easter Egg Hunt. I bet this woman will change her mind about going if it’s not going to be just her and your DH.

Having seen an emotional affair in action, my advice is to nip it in the bud. Don’t bother talking to your DH, he’ll deny it or be too unaware to notice. Just think, plan and act, like arranging an Easter Egg meet up with your DD’s actual friends. I’d also look at arranging swimming lessons for a different day or time, or changing your schedule so you can take your DD instead. I was all ready to say your DH was just being friendly, but the coffees and the Easter Egg meet up is stepping over a line.

So many ‘cool wives’ on this thread!

If the girls got on and were driving the meet ups then that would be different, but they aren’t. Passing the time while the children are doing activities is one thing, arranging outside things is another.

When I was 25 I too would have been in the ‘I can’t believe you’d suggest men and women can’t be friends camp’. Now I’m older and have more life experience - and experience of men - I just think it’s stupid people put themselves in the situation. 90% of the time if it feels wrong, it’s wrong.

I mean, there must be a whole group of mums/parents waiting for their kids at these clubs. Isn’t it interesting it’s the younger, prettier and available one who your DH has struck up this friendship with?

Would you mind saying what happened with the emotional affair? Did it spiral out to a relationship break down? I think I've led a very sheltered life and never seen one (Or I'm very boring and unobservant, tbh it's probably that one)

It led to separation, then divorce after a few months, then my ex finally moved in with his ‘friend’.

I just knew there was something different about this friendship. Initially the woman just kind of used my DH as emotional support, then lines were crossed and she was intruding into our home life. My DH was at her beck and call. The more time he spent with her, the closer he got to her.

This. It sounds like they're just friends Just because you couldn't be arsed being friendly doesn't mean he's has to copy you.

Thank you for expanding and I’m sorry that happened to you.

Nor do two people in a couple need to like the same people. You're not the Borg. It's fine that you don't like her and he does.

I don’t think so though… Do men typically have affairs (or want to) with the older plainer one, or do they try to have it off with the younger hot ones? Come on, OP knows something is amiss here.

Chatting while DC are swimming is one thing but taking it in turns to buy each other coffee, going shopping together and now also going on a NT egg hunt together is too far. You acknowledge also that your DC aren’t even close friends so it’s even weirder! I don’t think it’d be half as dodgy if they were best friends.

He’s concocting ‘innocent’ ways to spend time with her because he fancies her. I wouldn’t stand for it but then I’m not a ‘cool wife’.

Just sounds normal
tbh they’ve probably struck up a friendship because from experience a group of mums aren’t very welcoming to dads
and she’s younger and single so probably out of the click

If she’s stunning, he probably fancies her. Is he attractive? If he is. It’s, at the least, A mutual flirtation. Or maybe he’s a bit sexless, is he? In which case she might perceive him as safe and just a convenience.
I am a single parent and have been ‘ discreetly’ propositioned by husbands whose wives never spoke to me, a LOT of times. And I don’t mean by obvious scumbags. I mean by ‘ nice men’ who are busy being ‘ good dads’.

Nah it’s odd
Chat coffee sitting together ok
Out on a weekend (while you are away )doing a family activity together especially when the kids aren’t big friends
Well it’s not about the kids is it ?
Time for a chat boundaries and respect.

Who has money to buy a coffee when waiting for a kids activity to finish and when doing the weekly shop in COL crisis?
Who organises a play date with a kid your kid isn't friends with?
Someone who wants to create nice experiences with the woman he fancies. Pathetic.

You have told him it makes you uncomfortable, he is ignoring this and choosing her over your comfort/marriage. Very weird he wants to spend so much time with another woman sounds like he fancies her and this will not have gone unnoticed by other mums so happy to make a fool out of you. Yes he has a crush/limerence/emotional affair with her. Get it stopped now it’s going to ruin your marriage

@Underbeliever I hope all of this is kindly recieved. (I also don't believe that the person being 'stunning' has anything to do with it).

I'd normally put myself in the 'cool wives' club - entirely comfortable with dh having female friends and going out with them (singly or in groups - even on a skiing holiday with one friend), and I've got male friends. We trust each other, and our friends. OK with all of that.

But a big strong 'No' to what your dh is doing. For a start, the class arrangements mean it is twice a week. Twice a week (or 3 times a week if you include the shared tennis group) when he is spending 'child free time' with this other person, often just the two of them. I wonder whether you and dh have the luxuary of a similar amount of child free time to enjoy a hobby together, go shopping at M&S, grab a coffee a couple of times a week? Count up the hours that the two of you have to yourselves (together), and what you do with them - coffees and a shared sport / hobby or housework?

The frequency of their time together and the 'alternating' buying coffees. That has already made it into a RELATIONSHIP, not a casual friendship (you can see that by the arrangement for the Easter egg hunt). The alternating paying for coffees seems a tiny thing, but I woudn't do that with my female friends. We just pay for our own. It signifies a 'next time' and a shared memory of who paid last time, and it's a relationship of 2 people - because if some other parent or friend joined them, the 'whose turn to pay dynamic' would be disrupted.

Why do they not invite any other person to join them for coffee? Or to go to the shop? The answer is 'because they want to do it together'. It's like playing at houses - let's shop together in a stress free way; let's buy the same dinner for us to eat in our separate houses (but together - oh how funny!);

Your dh may be wonderfully naive. And 100% intenional about being faithfull. But he is treading on very, very dangerous ground. There is a very dangerous combination: opportunity and propinquity.

I hope that your dh is in the wonderfully naive category, and that no boundaries have yet been crossed. But it is a 'yet'.

So, what on earth can you do? When my dh was in a similar but different situation (think close work team in an abroad stressful situation with potential for 'who knows what...'), I shone a big bright light onto what was happening. e.g. "You have 6 hours a week child free 1 on 1 time with [person]. You and I have 2 hours when my Mum looks after dc. How can we swap that around so that you and I have 6 hours together? "

"You are taking our child to an event with another child that they are not close to. Please can you either canel that or invite other families."

"Oh dh, have a look at this report about opportunity / proximity / propinquity... Isn't it interesting how affairs can start unintenionally.

If none of that seems right, then you simply have swap round the work arrangements so you are doing those particular clubs.

So many ‘cool wives’ on this thread!

I'm not sure that's true though as there's two parts to this, I'm friendly with one of the dads at the school gates and will always stand and chat, I think if our kids had a class together after school I could see us having a coffee and sitting together etc.. absolutely nothing in it, I wouldn't have a problem if my DH did it either.

But engineering a day out together doing an easter egg hunt is a different kettle of fish altogether, that's completely inappropriate in my book, it's been done because they want to spend time together. I'm pretty sure if OP arranged to go out for the day with a fit single dad who she'd met at school her DH would have something to say about it!!

I'd turn this on it's head and ask him what he would think if the roles were reversed?

However, I fear that your dh's responses to your discomfort show how much he already values this 'friendship'.

@Underbeliever "But we have friends with children DDs age, who DD actually plays with, he could go out with on Easter Saturday!"

Yeah but they probably aren't in their 20's, stunning and single. Men really are like dogs on heat aren't they.

I think that you need to make alternative arrangements. In fact I'd cancel the wedding plans. That would be interesting.

Does he have lots of other friends that are women op? I do raise a slight eyebrow at the fact it’s always the young, beautiful woman that these men happen to strike up a friendship with, rarely is it 60 year old Susan taking her grandkids along (or whatever fits the situation!)
I also don’t like that she’s really quite offish to you but all over your husband (and him her, of course!)