Husband has stormed out because I found messages on his phone

[Welshie2]

My husband has been acting strange/secretive with his phone for a couple of weeks now so I took it on myself to look at his phone. Yes I know it’s morally dodgy but we have each others log ins and I looked at it whilst he was feeding DS dinner (it was charging upstairs).

There is a woman who is obviously a co-worker. I only had time to look at messages from the past two days. He was in the office today. He messaged her to say please walk past my desk again so I can look at your arse. She said she’d be back up in an hour and she will walk slowly this time. He then messaged again (after about an hour) to say that was the highlight of his afternoon to which she replied she knew her trousers would get attention today and sent a peach symbol. That was the last message.

I confronted him straight away and he stormed off and hasn’t come home yet. Said how dare I look at his phone. I have tried to call him and he just declined the call. He sent a text to say I’ve betrayed his trust and he can’t believe I did that instead of speaking to him.

Am I wrong to have done this, I think that if you know something is up then it’s within your right to investigate?

Please don't hang onto his every word. He's pulling the wool over your eyes and coming up with every excuse in the book because he's been caught.

He hid it from you, he was caught, he gaslit you, he came back because he backed himself into a corner, now he's trying to put you in that corner with him while he wriggles his way out. He's probably cheated with her in work and kept it mostly off of whatsapp.

Raise your standards, not your tolerance. If you stay with him, this is going to slowly eat away at you for years. You deserve to be with someone who respects you and doesn't lie to you. The trust has gone from this relationship. It happened when you needed to pick up his phone.

He sounds very manipulative. He hasn't taken responsibility or accountability for anything. He has moved into minimise mode, just messages, her chasing etc. He has done this by blaming this young woman as some sort of siren temptress. All classic stuff, textbook again.
I don't believe that good looking young women who are probably not short of male attention start sending and saying very sexual things in one sided way. I can't imagine saying things like that unless I was having sex with someone.
Professionally this is very bad as if he ends things or rejects this woman she can go straight to HR. He will probably be trying to keep her sweet then. And you. Very worrying.
Wattsapp is not the only way to communicate. This is really shaky ground.

Absolutely no one messages their boss out of the blue to say they had only thought of having sex throughout their 121.
come on OP you know this is a load of bullshit.

they’ll have been flirting for ages before that. This woman isn’t a bimbo or insane. She’s been led on by her boss who isn’t some helpless victim. He told her to walk by his desk so he could see her arse.

not to mention the fact that he told you he felt like the spark had gone and he’d been unhappy for weeks when you found them.

hes simply realising he’s up shit creek now in his job and in his marriage. And us trying to keep you both for now at least.

do not let him get away with outright lying to your face and treating you like a fool.

This is not what you said in your previous posts. In them you were talking about women going into the office " feeling sexy" and saying to themselves '" arent I gorgeous"
Quite frankly you sounded as though you has been watching the Sexy secretary/ Sexy PA genre of porn which is popular with a lot of men

I've never watched Red Dwarf so I have no idea who you are talking about in your reference to that

Of course women should, and need to be, confident at work. Confident in their abilities and interpersonal skills. Feeling in a good place at work is totally different from.your original point that women should feel sexy at work and think they are gorgeous.

The woman at work goes from a schemer who took advantage.
To a bimbo with no awareness and easy to fail her on her probation.
There's only one schemer in this scenario and it isn't the young woman.

I am really sorry that this has happened to you OP. Have read your updates and do not think he is coming off well at all. He's flipping the narrative round to suit himself - one minute she's a brazen woman who has been coming on to him and being inappropriate while he told her not too and the next, despite being in a managerial position, she's simply a bimbo who won't have the foresight to make his career difficult even though she directly reports to him.

I would be seriously questioning the validity of his apology, men are always sorry once they have been caught out. But he certainly wasn't sorry when he was messaging her about her arse being the highlight of his day.

If you want to stay with him he has some serious work to do!

Jesus OP please don’t be daft enough to buy this from him 🙄

Im sorry you're going through this @Welshie2

can you try and get hold of him again and check snapchat, texts or imessage, instagram and FB messenger. Search also for frequently used or more recently sent in case they're using pseudonyms.
Sounds like he's on the back foot at the moment and worried about what he's done.

hope it works out and you can get a clear picture so you know your next steps x

Just to let you know... WhatsApp has a delta message "for myself " not " to all", that deletes them from tour iwn phone chat (not the other’s) and it doesn't show messages were deleted on the chat.
I would bet he dis that ans completely re-engineerwd thw chat history dwlerinfmessages in between.

@Bestfootforward11 "In short the storming off etc gave him time to create a new story. No. Highly manipulative and not a decent man"

I wouldn't have any respect for a man who messed up a woman's career like this.

And your husband really isn't thinking this through. If they've been sex-texting each other for a few months, then he unilaterally stops, and then she fails probation, don't you think she will put the two things together and go to HR?

I really hope she proves him wrong.

OP, I think this thread shows that sometimes it's exceptionally easy for the Mumsnet hive to chant LTB in the face of the evidence, but the person in the situation will actually look for any excuse to minimise it.

The ' DH' will be massively relieved that he has got you on his side, and he has because your tone has changed.

You've seen a way to excuse this and paint your DH as a helpless victim of a scheming vixen..or is she a bimbo? She can't be both so you might want to get that straight in your head.

Why need misogynistic men when we have women like @Welshie2.

Seriosuly read back how you are writing about this woman.

So much for the sisterhood.

Ok I will bite. How am I writing about her, other than factually relaying what I’ve been told? And comments I have seen for that matter.

Are you saying women such as OP is describing don't exist? You'd have to be extremely naive to think that.

An ex of mine cheated on me twice. We didn't live together but he was sleeping with someone behind my back for three months then he took someone else out on a date. Op. You have no idea whether he has slept with her or kissed her - but flirty texts don't come out of nowhere

Do you honestly think someone would text their boss saying that they want to be on a table with their boss doing things to them from nowhere?

You do understand that the fact that he's hidden this from his bosses could see massive repercussions for him if she decides to tell them what's going on.

He can't be trusted around women in the workplace. That's the bottom line.

He encouraged it. However it started. He didn't close it down. He's the boss here.

I didnt know this - quoting you to share this useful info for others to be aware of!

Oh my goodness, he is VILE isn't he.

Now if she (hopefully) causes him trouble, he is already bad mouthing her - if only to you - by calling her a bimbo.

I really hope for the sake of all women he takes advantage of by being their manager, that she reports him. As a manager, he should have shut it down and arranged a transfer for her straight away. Instead, he encouraged her behaviour and if she has the audacity to cause him trouble, he will denigrate her character!!!!

You may well suffer, but there is a bigger picture at play and vile men like him need to be help accountable for their actions. As does she - however it is HIM who is married to you, not her.

If you hadn't looked through his phone OP this would still be going on. You found out by chance. He wasn't going to tell you was he?

Edit: I am quoting someone else in error, but when I was typing I thought I was quoting OP!!!
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OP, he has disrespected you HUGELY but by talking about her in that way, the other woman also. So do you see how he switches? He should have shut those messages down immediately. He played along. He enjoyed the attention...and when he was caught out first he tried to blame you...and now he's blaming her.

I can't imagine how painful this is for you but he's behaved appallingly and isn't taking any accountability.

Tbf op is just relaying what her H has said.

It is obvious the H is throwing the kitchen sink at this, he cant even get his basic story straight and op can see this i think, I can see why she must be feeling a bit all over the place.

Seriously though op, if you do stay with him you really do need to prepare yourself for some very hard times ahead. I would be really surprised if this doesnt blow up at work, seen it happen so many times. Man behaves very inappropriate towards female subordinate, turns into a dick with her and is very naive regards the consequences, thinks he's untouchable and she has as much to lose as him, man doesnt realise the standard is much higher for a manager as there's a power imbalance, woman complains, shows messages, man gets sacked.

He really needs to polish his cv up and get ahead before he has a gross misconduct disciplinary.

Your husband has proved that he can’t be trusted so this is your cue to stop believing what he tells you until you have figured out the truth for yourself.

If you are going to just take his word for anything at this point, I think that is very unwise.

Can I ask how old your children are?

Oh, please.