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?

If my husband met up with an attractive single woman on a Saturday when I was away, I would not be happy at all. Nor would he if it happened the other way around.

Also, if my partner felt weird about my relationship with another man, the last thing I'd do is tell him to suck it up and go and meet the other guy for a day out.

You could be forgiven for suspecting that his interest in spending the day with this woman is strong enough to override his consideration for your feelings.

Plus the slightly hoity-toity tone of "he has just as much right as I do to be friends with her classmates parents" sounds a lot like gaslighting to me. That lovely combination of ignoring the blatantly obvious difference between you becoming close friends with a single woman and him doing it, plus turning the guilt onto you for trying to stifle and control his totally innocent friendship.

Came to say this, youve said when you did the meets that you just sat and read your book, that you didnt try to create a connection- which supports that you dont have a connection. So initiate one; and how she responds will tell you everything you far more than a raft of MN comments.

This - a bridge too far.

Other Mum and OP also have time to kill whilst waiting for the kids... but its never evolved into shopping trips and Easter egg hunts....

The school activities seem logical, though DH needs to spread himself around more and spend time with the parents of your DD's actual friends.

Suggest that to him. It is important to get to know and trust parents who might ask your DD to sleep oversand parties..

The Easter Egg hunt is not logical at all.
If he wants to go he needs to ask DD's best friend to go, and on the Sunday.
Easter Saturday is too early.

Who goes on an Easter Egg hunt before Easter Bunny has been?
No, I would veto that. Stand your ground and say that you would like to go on the hunt as a family the following day.

Ask him to help DD prepare special Easter food for the picnic.

Yes, but they don't like one another and the DH and the other mother do.

This is a difficult one as of course, your husband should be able to have his own parent friendships as he is actually doing half (ish) of the childcare and is the present parent at various activities. So it seems obvious to me that he would chat to other parents and have coffee and such. I take my son to football twice a week and I have some parents there that I always chat to - men and women. Otherwise I am beyond bored. If we are lucky enough to have a coffee van at the games we might get each other a coffee. But it's not like one set person and I've never seen any of these people outside of football.

Did you ask your daughter if she even wanted to go on the Easter egg thing? Would be interesting to know who is driving this get together.

I think the issue here is that he and this other person are the main characters in this friendship - it's not from the kids. So that would make me more uncomfortable. My husband sometimes goes hiking with my son, one of his besties, and his mum - her husband and I hate hiking, the boys love it, it was their idea, and it's not a regular thing. They sometimes have other people around too, it's not exclusive or anything. So it doesn't bother me at all. So if it was more casual or more of a group thing or more driven by the girls I think it would be less concerning.

I would ask him to cool it down probably although I'd also feel a bit ridiculous...

Yeah but do you take your kids out for the day with kids they’re not close to, just you and another dad so you look like one big happy family? That’s the weird bit.

Sorry OP I wouldn't like this and think they're off on an Easter date using the kids to cover what they're doing. It's odd and it's gone too far.

I wouldn't even do this with male friends who are part of couple friends of ours and who Ive known for decades.

I would tell him it's making you uncomfortable and upset and if he respects you he will cancel the trip and pull back on seeing her as much. Chatting whilst watching an activity is fine. Arranging to do your shopping together so you can have coffees etc is trying to spend as much time together as possible.

It’s never an older, less attractive woman in these situations, or another man that becomes the new sparkly friend. I wouldn’t be happy about this either.

If you are friendly with any other school parents, could you let them know about the great Easter egg hunt trip - the more the merrier 😁 plus your DH’s reaction will be your answer here.

We don’t really do the Easter bunny, we are a religious family, Easter is centred around Jesus for us. An egg hunt is just a seasonal fun activity, we usually do it on a Saturday anyway.
I have suggested he goes with other parents and his reply was I’ll invite some others but I’m not uninviting a 4 year old that’s already been invited. He also disagrees that she isn’t friends with DD, he feels they might not be close in school but when he went to the watch day at gymnastics they stuck together and are always happy to see each other.
I asked why he felt this mum never made an effort with me and he said, they knew each other from the tennis club and maybe if I just spoke to her she would chat to me too, but she probably feels she can’t approach me as I’m always with another group or reading etc.

I don’t really know what to think anymore

If he's genuinely concerned that its troubling you OP, and agrees to back off as a result, that's good. But if he prioritises his meetings with her over YOUR feelings, you've got a problem.

I agree there's a fine line between healthy friendships and an emotional affair developing right under your nose. Your gut feelings will guide you here.

If he is religious surely he is breaking the rules about prioritising your marriage etc

It is black and white as far as I'm concerned - either you trust someone or you don't, if you only trust someone to a point then you don't trust them. To my mind there is absolutely no point in being in a relationship with someone that you have to monitor and question - if you really believe they will cheat on you and lie, then the whole foundation of the relationship is rotten and that has to be dealt with before anything else.

Of course not because she is just a friend, he isn’t remotely attracted to her, oh no he’s just constantly hanging out with her as a friend…

I think your attitude is a bit weird -- she doesn't need to make friends with you because she and your husband get on. I can think of numerous parents in DS's primary school class where I really liked one parent, and the other was not my type of person at all. Glum Anna's estranged husband was very nice, and the lovely class rep's husband was so dull people used to avoid his corner of the yard on the days he did school pick ups.

Suggests you go out the three of you on another day. You can check out the vibe and if they are both happy for you to come along. With any innocent friendship they should be.

My husband made friends with other mums at my daughter's swimming class, and has met up with them one on one sometimes at the park at the weekends (with kids in tow). He's always had female friends from work as well, same with me for male friends, so maybe I'm just used to it. I feel sorry for dads if it's mostly mums that do these kids activities, that they might find it hard to make friends and I think it's nice when they do. Sounds like he does a lot of things with her coincidentally, starting with the tennis club, and makes sense they're close if they see each other at 3 activities. I personally wouldn't have a problem with it, but everyone has their own different relationships. As you're suspicious I would try and join them at an activity (maybe take a wed off) to see them together, then you can tell what the relationship is like and it might ease your mind.

Exactly! All of this bullshit that gets said after the affair starts - ‘I didn’t mean for any of this to happen, feelings just developed’. You put yourself in this position! This is how affairs happen, by playing too close to the fire for extended amounts of time.

Exactly my point….

Sounds like he has an answer for everything.

Id want to see their messages. I’d also want to know if he has other female friends he sees regularly?

If she is such a good friend wouldn’t she be looking after your DD while you and DH both go the wedding?

Blimey, poor bloke, this seems very controlling. Be hell on if a husband said his wife couldnt speak to dad at school.

You never get OPs posting about friendships with older, less attractive women, but does that mean they never make friends with school dads?

This doesn’t make a lot of sense. In one breath you say you beleive he wouldn’t cheat then immediately your next words are you think he’s having an emotional affair, so he’s cheating, declaring his romantic interest to this woman.

clearlh a lot of the issue is you’re jealous as she’s young and pretty and you don’t like him hanging around with a young and pretty woman. Which is fair enough, not many would,

you also say you’re a religious family does his religion not prevent him shagging round?

the main question is do yoy genuinely beleive your husband is that hot to other women this young, stunningly attractive woman would be remotely interested in him.