To think there’s no coming back from these messages between DH and his colleague?

[Queens26]

‘D’H and I haven’t been in a great place for a while but both have said we want to try to make things work. It has mainly been the stress of having a young child and a couple of other big arguments.

I know he is quite friendly with an older colleague (late 40’s, he’s 32) but have grown a bit suspicious for a couple of reasons which meant I have checked his phone. The first time, what I found gave me reason to look again, and I found really (to me) explicit messages.

I don’t believe the colleague is single, but she’s in a very casual relationship which she isn’t happy with and sounds like it has been over for a while.

I think this is the most upsetting exchange, I took photos on my phone so he couldn’t deny things. There are various emojis which I’ve not added in:

Colleague: I feel like we’d have so much fun, you wouldn’t need to complain about a lack of excitement with me:
H: I just feel bored, we never do anything different and it’s the same thing she wants every time
C: I am always up for trying different things
H: I am all ears haha
C: I am open minded, there’s nothing to be ashamed of if two adults on same page
H: Yeah I don’t want anything hardcore just something other than missionary once in a while would be nice
C: What do you class as hardcore?
H: No idea, S&M I guess haha
C: That’s tame
C: Most men want anal
H: Yeah I think I’d get punched if I suggested that at home haha
C: I wouldn’t punch you but my rule is you’d have to be willing to receive for me to agree haha
H: Sounds scary haha
C: I’d be gentle and start small
H: You wasn’t lying when you said your open minded haha
C: That’s what you get with someone experienced

I confronted him last night, he became upset and said he hated himself for sending these and didn’t mean anything by it and that it was a ‘fantasy’ and no more.

I can’t help but think a line has been crossed, I am sure they haven’t done anything physical but for me messages that extreme have to be deemed cheating?

@Candy24 I agree with you, Candy! Me and my DH are the same with phones. No problem to read each other's messages if we want to, nothing to hide, we fully respect each other etc etc

I would be telling him I’m not surprised none of her relationships worked out. She clearly doesn’t respect boundaries and over sexualises conversations. She is putting out there that she is primarily interested in a sexual relationship — those don’t last. He shouldn’t feel sorry for her. This is her doing and he’s encouraging her to continue that pattern.

He should be more concerned about what his
behaviour says about him and his ability to maintain a long term loving relationship. With his attitude, in 10 years time, junior members of his team will be feeling sorry for him that his wife left him and he’s still constantly chasing new thrilling sexual conversations with colleagues rather than investing and communicating in a real relationship.

Agree

Wow that’s bad I’m afraid he would be gone after reading those, that line has well and truly been crossed and gone too far.

IMO? The 'rough patch' you are having is because he's already separating himself from his married state by his heavy flirting with this woman. The flirty sexual messages aren't the result of your marriage struggling, they are the cause of it.

i think you are equating ‘we are having a bit of a rough patch but that’s enough about that’ with ‘my wife would never do anal, or <other topic discussed> or <other topic discussed> sex with her is really boring.’
these two statements are… not the same in any way.

I don’t disagree. I would find it too stressful to be worth it (and I wouldn’t want to anyway).

The person I’m talking about is pathological about cheating. He has been diagnosed with NPD so doesn’t represent the male populace in general. But before he got “smart” and bought the second phone, that’s how he was with his phone. It was glued to him. Nobody else touched it. Everything was password protected and “private”. He makes me shudder.

I don't understand how you don't see that the derogatory remarks about his DW and him betraying the most intimate details of their sex life is something which has totally destroyed trust and any possibility they may have had of getting through their rough patch.

How can OP ever have sex with him again without recalling what he has said about her?

And she has only seen his messages. She can only imagine what the real life conversations with this woman colleague were like if they were both comfortable actually messaging each other like this.

If the relationship doesn't change course something like this will happen again. But IMO it is fixable, it will require work, ground rules, give and take. Hence my remark OP has got to want it.

No coming back from this.
I'd class this as much more disrespectful than an actual one night stand on a work trip away with a stranger that I'd have to snoop around heavily to discover.

Repulsive.

Crikey. I couldn't have him anywhere near me.

More of a betrayal than a ONS. That's how I see it.
Oh and pick me × million.

None of this excuses the "If only I could get more than missionary" comments. He hasn't even acknowledged that he implied really negative things about you in that text exchange.

I'll go even further if a man I was in a relationship told me about his sex life with an ex it would be a major red flag.

Indeed I tentatively tried to get back with an ex once who told me about his sex life with the woman he dated. years after me. The mother of his child ffs.

In fact he was spilling his guts about the most personal stuff.
Not only was this repulsive to me, but he was too stupid to work out that I might think that he may have been shooting his mouth off about me to her.

No John I don't think that we can resurrect this relationship. Bye..

Men who do this are scum imo.

In some cases, it's worse than actual cheating.

Of course it is. I read the detailed messages between X and the other woman and the way he spoke about me it was as if X and I were strangers. He’d completely disassociated.
She was the object of his attention, the good girl
And the comments about me were frankly worse than you talk about someone that had caused you actual harm as opposed to ironing your shirts and looking after your children.
It’s very difficult to come back from once the line has been crossed. It really is never the same.

C: I wouldn’t punch you but my rule is you’d have to be willing to receive for me to agree haha
H: Sounds scary haha
C: I’d be gentle and start small
H: You wasn’t lying when you said your open minded haha
C: That’s what you get with someone experienced

Apologies if this has already been brought up or if I'm reading this wrong but reading this it sounds like HE wants to be dominated? (Or that she wants to peg him as she says he 'has to be willing to receive' and she'd 'be gentle and start small')
The way he's described her as 'statuesque' and 'intimidating' also reads like she's naturally dominant at work (and in the bedroom).
And going by these messages it sounds like they've definitely talked about this/she's brought it up and he's willing.

Certainly a tricky one to come back from 😬

Yes the 'banter' or any sexy flirting is totally lacking. It's just a very desperate woman trying to impress a man with her anal attention seeking 🤢.

Op, you've said things haven't been good at home for a while, this is just a symptom of that. Unless you've more evidence that anything else has gone on for now I'd watch and wait. Keep an eye on his phone, any secrecy or deleted messages would be obviously the last straw. Tell him to block and ignore her.

She sounds horrific. You need to sit down with him and work out if you do want to stay together and take it from there.

There is absolutely no coming back from this.

He sounds vile and has zero respect for you.

What a f"ing manchild. Loathsome prick.
I couldn't respect this at all.
Get him for every penny you can and kick the f*er out.

Doesn't even own his mistake. He'll be no good in a crisis anyway. Let him go and be with this replacement mummy/ball breaker and hide behind her coat tails.

On the one hand, yeah, she's obviously being pretty sexually assertive and largely leading the conversation.

On the other, he's a grown arse married man who's clearly going along with it, and he's responsible for himself and his commitments. And he shouldn't be talking this way about his intimate married life just because he both pities and is intimidated by her (apparently). If she was physically repulsive to him, I'm pretty sure he'd find a way to shut it down. His marriage is on him; she's irrelevant really. Either you can trust him or you can't.

It really does come to something where your main offering to a Male is quite literally the hole in your arse that you’ve shit through
That’s what you’re looking to tempt him away from his wife with
She’s doomed

I don't see how anybody could think there's any coming back from this.

I'm being serious when I say that I'd view this a being worse than a ONS with a stranger whilst away on a trip that I'd have to do some serious digging to find out.

The embarrassment, the knowledge that he's telling another person about our sex life, the fact that he's a wimp who doesn't own it.
Fuck that. He's an odious little manchild.

'Rough patch' my arse. Own it you prick.

Oh and another thing, a famous psychologist, David Buss, found out that men's cheating has little to do with how happy they are in a relationship so rough patch is bollox anyway.
Gaslighting on top of everything else.
I despise men like this. Truly I do.

H: You wasn’t lying when you said your open minded haha

On top of everything else he is, he's illiterate.

David Buss, found out that men's cheating has little to do with how happy they are in a relationship so rough patch is bollox anyway.

I can believe this. Haven't got any hard empirical proof so I'm not stating it as fact, but based just on what I've seen over my life, I would say that men will often cheat when they're actually perfectly happy in their relationship, but when women cheat it's usually when they're unhappy. Neither is an excuse of course, it's an absolutely shit thing to do, and of course not all men, not all women etc. But I can believe it as general tendencies.

Right, so it’s not his fault. His fingers inadvertently typed out sexy texts to the overconfident Amazonian because he was scared. Add that to the ‘fear response’ collection, we’ve got flight, fight, fawn and philander now.

For me I think it would be the pretending to be scared of her. And to profess to hate himself, like he wasn’t in control it’s one thing to decide to cheat and engage in this manner, but to come over all sacred and incapable is for me as ick making as it gets,

it does read like he wants to be dominated, which does tie into the I’m scared of her, it’s clearly what he gets off on, but he’s obvs has previous convos on this as her first line is about not having to complain about her, which means he’s been doing that.

but the I’m scared of her she’s a big woman is utterly cringe.

So sorry op x