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?

its the Easter Egg hunt that crosses the line. It would’ve been a bit uncomfortable for you even if it was driven by the children wanting to get together but you said the kids aren’t even friends, so it’s him and her driving it! It’s the kind of thing a family does together. Sounds like they are trying a new family set up out for size and seeing if the girls get on.

Which doesn’t necc mean they are having an affair. Just a bit dazzled by each other. Nip it in the bud if so.

I read your first post and it was almost like reading what happened to me. (Except she really was a downgrade) The coffees, the walks, the supermarkets, the kids didn’t even hang out with each other. The coffee culture kept going until he ended up at her house while the kids were in school. And it was game over. The hell that began from there was awful. The school runs were soul destroying. All under the guise of taking the children to places. It was sickening and the pair of them knew exactly what they were about to put me and my kids through.

hey it might be innocent, but you’re uncomfortable and that’s what matters.

I would personally check his phone and have a look on any socials (hers and his). Don't let him dismiss how you are feeling- you are not being unreasonable and your feelings are valid

How did the working hours change come about?

This may sound a bit paranoid but could he have arranged the Wednesday and Friday afternoons off for this reason? It seems suspicious that that they two days he can now finish early just so happen to be the two days that he meets up with her at after school activities?

Yanbu im sorry but this is always how it starts.

Taking turns to pay for eachothers coffee at swimming - weird.
Meeting up and going shopping together - wtf
Going on an easter egg hunt just the two of them and the kids - are you joking?

I bet they will relish in people saying what a beautiful couple they are and what gorgeous kids they have.

Is he close with any other mums there? Or just the stunning 20 odd year old who happens to be single?

Come on now...

No this was a change we had to make as I got a new job and could no longer finish early and we wanted to avoid using after school clubs everyday, but this was driven by me and the Wednesday and Friday was purely as they are the days DD has hobbies straight after school.

YANBU OP. It's just not on.

A few years ago I really hit it off with one of the few dads on the school run. We have a lot in common and a freakishly similar sense of humour. Despite there being no attraction on either side, I was very aware that you can't just become newly close friends with guy in the same way you can with a woman. I made a conscious effort to get to know his wife, who unsurprisingly is also great fun, and our families have become really good friends.

I just don't buy that sudden, close and exclusive friendships between a heterosexual man and women can be platonic on both sides.

No it's weird OP. I'm sorry.

They sound very close and it could just be that they're close friends but the fact is it does make a difference that it's a male and a female and they don't seem to be including you.

He doesn't seem to care that you're uncomfortable. What do you think he'd say if you suggested all doing something together since they're becoming such good friends? What if you approached her and invited her over when it's just you and DD given that your Dads are spending more time together - how do you think she'd react to that?

sorry but driving to the Easter thing together is a red flag.

I personally think you might be being a bit swayed by how attractive and young she is.
It doesn't actually sound like anything is going on really. There's no secrecy.
Id personally try and be more friendly towards her and start up a friendship with her myself because then you'll get a sense of whether your concerns are founded or not.
Right now you dont know her at all so you can just project all your insecurities and fears onto her.

I've just re-read your OP and realised they already meet up every Wednesday afternoon without the kids at a tennis club social!.. When did that start happening? Surely that was the start of crossing the line from being at the same place at the same time as the kids and being friendly with each other, to arranging to meet outside of the what the children and becoming 'friends'?

It's definitely not appropriate for him to be 'going out' with a single woman and having that 'friendship' exclusively away from you/the home.

OP - how would he feel if you decided to come to the easter egg thing? The bottom line is - you are uncomfortable - and that is more than enough for him to act upon. If he doesn't, then you have to question why, is he willing to lose a marriage over something thats apparently innocent? It doesnt matter how many of us think its normal, or not normal (i HATE the term cool wife - what the fuck does that even mean) - YOU dont like it and that matters, speak to him, hopefully he sees sense and understands how you feel.

I just reread that about the tennis club social too. Doesn’t he have work?!

Yeah, that’s a bit weird. I think it’s one thing having a chat while sitting by the pool. It’s another thing buying each other coffees. I’d never treat another mum I chat to at swimming to a coffee. Similarly, I definitely have a few dads’ numbers to organise play dates and we drop off and collect from each others houses. I’d never invite one of these single dads out for a day at the NT. Both those scenarios are very date like. I’d offer to organise something to do altogether and see if they’re as keen when you join.

Occasional meet-up when the girls are at the same event, fine.

It seems, however, that now his entire week and social life is structured around these meet-ups (three a week?) including when the girls aren't there, and they are becoming great friends.

No, this wouldn't be ok with me, although once my husband did have a friendship with a very attractive lady and I was jealous, but immediately I was included, I became friends with her and her husband came along loads and so I could see there was nothing in it. It is hard, though, when a model-type turns up in the school playground and befriends your husband. Another time, though one mum did have a thing for him and had no interest in befriending me whatsoever, and tried to ask him only when I wasn't around and we both clocked this pretty quickly and he decided not to be friends.

If it's all open and friendly and the two families drawing closer, fine. If it's him making a new close and private friendship with this 20 year old very attractive woman, then it's pretty obvious that he's enjoying the attention of her and her him, which whilst isn't a crime, isn't a transparent, let's invite everyone along, type of a male-female friendship, is it?

Another easy way to tell if it's marriage-threatening is- does he spend more time, energy or do fun activity events with her, or you? The same goes for texting- who does he text with a funny meme or whatever? I had no problem with my husband having female friends, meeting them for lunch or dinner occasionally every few weeks (or less), but that's because I always felt the priority, he spent his weekends and times off with me and I was his go-to for texting and talking about his day. If he's spending more social or fun time with her than you...then that's going to shift everything. Do you get coffee with him, or do a social event once or twice a week? If not, there's the tell.

He doesn’t have work on Wednesday or Friday afternoons anymore, he works 0.8 to account for this.
I think she has been going to the tennis social for years, he just started going now he is free on Wednesday afternoons, but he started this on the fist week of the new work hours before he’d have had a chance to meet her.

God, I wouldn’t be comfortable with this AT ALL and I don’t care if it makes me ‘uncool’

Sorry but surely this woman must know going on a day out with a married man on a weekend alone is inappropriate?

I think the thing that would ring alarm bells for me the most is that the girls aren’t friends. If they were best friends, it would make a lot more sense, but the only two people here who want to be ‘friends’ is your DH and this woman and the kids are being dragged along to facilitate it. They have alot in common too and she’s attractive and single?! Yeh, no sorry, this isn’t innocent.

I think it’s perfectly reasonable to chat to someone at a club while your kids do an activity. Fine to buy coffees. Possibly both of them were slightly on the exterior of the demographic of the other parents.
BUT..
Going shopping together EVERY week is strange.
Her not making any effort to get to know “her new best friend”’s wife is strange.
Them arranging a “family day out” type trip is really strange, especially if the girls aren’t particularly close.
And your husband is kinda trying to make you feel uncomfortable for feeling uncomfortable- which is a red flag in itself. He ought to be trying to make you feel more comfortable- inviting her round when you are there so you get to know her too. But he’s not. He’s not hiding anything, perhaps there is nothing to hide just yet, but I would be pretty unhappy and uncomfortable in your shoes. I think I’d tell him that you weren’t going to go to the wedding and you’d be joining him at the Easter egg hunt. See what his reaction was like. Or perhaps just turn up at the hunt and see how they were!

I think it’s weird he’s potentially making your DD feel awkward by forcing her to hang out with a girl she doesn’t even really get on with, just so he can flirt with the mum! He needs to get a grip of himself frankly. Driving an hour in the same car makes it even worse, hardly like it’s around the corner.

I wouldn’t be massively comfortable about this. Just sheer amount of time he is spending with another woman, and only this woman, would be enough for me to feel pushed out. Add in the kind of cosy nature of the activities and it feels like a bit of a breach. Like a pp said, I’d set out why you feel uncomfortable about the Easter trip and suggest he goes with an actual friend of your daughters.

No point asking him about ‘if the tables were turned’ as it would be very easy for him to say he’d be totally fine with it, safe in the knowledge that the chances of you getting to spend time with a smoking hot single dad is slim to zero.

OK, I've never posted about some of this on here, for fear of (justifiable) judgement, but here goes.

My husband, DD's dad, left me for a mom.of a girl in dad's class. Or rather, I left him when the affair became embarrassingly obvious.

He didn't want me to leave, yet is still with the woman years later....

While I was processing the loss of my marriage, I became close to a dad of a child in dd's class. Of course he gave me the usual spiel - wife didn't appreciate him, no intimacy marriage on the rocks. (All lies, he loved the bones of that woman. Tho was also a promiscuous twat, very like my own ex husband - he admitted he has cheated before).

I came very close to an affair. Luckily stopped myself because I am not that twat! I didn't love him anyway - in many ways he was quite boring - but it was so tempting, I was so lonely and here was this guy, a loving father, there were so many opportunities to spend time together, taking our kids to activities and so forth....

When the kids are little, I just think the school gate is a rife place for affairs. So many people going through changes and problems in their marriage, adjusting to a new kind of lifestyle, maybe intimacy is low in their marriages, but everyone is still young enough to crave it, and believe there could be something more or better out there....

Maybe my experience is unique - but somehow I doubt it. So be wary, OP. Explain your reservations to your husband, calmly and kindly.

His reaction will show you everything you need to know.....

I sincerely hope I am wrong!

It’s never the old, fat, married ones they strike up a friendship with is it?

But then why isn’t OP included in the friendship? And why isn’t he striking up a friendship with any other parents? It just so happens that this young good looking 20 something year old he just happens to share common interest with? Spare me. Something tells me if this woman was a 300 pound pimply faced woman he wouldn’t be all buddy buddy with her.

@Underbeliever If i was the friend whose wedding you are going to on Easter Saturday and you confided in me about this i would COMPLETELY understand if you wanted to leave early to join the Easter egg hunt and surprise them or come along later to the evening do instead