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?

You are spot on when you say he didnt really shut it down!
In your OP where you say you found he messaged her a saying "please walk past my desk again so i can look at your arse"!
He isn't simply being sent inappropriate messages that he is not shutting down hes being inappropriate too. Your DH is giving you a plausible narrative re this woman but...
My guess is theres more to this and i imagine her story could be quite different .
Either way this could escalate in many ways for your DH. Hes been totally inappropriate with a junior colleague who he has some managerial responsiblilty for in the workplace ,he has stropped off when you discovered this and is now back tracking to make you swallow his narrative. He only responded with appropriateness when caught. He not sorry hes sorry he got caught.
Do some more digging.

You dont send messages to your boss about having sex on his desk if there isn't something physical going on with him. The fact she says that's she was thinking about after their one to one meeting makes it highly likely that's what happened then.

Of course OP doesn't know for certain but the sexual content of the messages makes it very likely it is a physical affair.

This woman is moving through the ranks of management, so obviously has some abilities.
DH has been incredibly stupid and the only thing that would put his job at greater risk is engineering this woman to fail her probation.
He has risked his marriage and his career for an office flirtation possibly a fling. He is taking little to no responsibility for any of this.

I wouldn't be surprised if they're already sleeping together which is why she was so confident in sending the message she did about wanting to have sex with him on the desk....

Honestly this relationship is dead in the water, I wouldn’t be spending any more time or headspace

Yeah I realised that and posted to say, when I went through the messages last night there was still some inappropriate ones on there. He said her bum should be announced as the 8th wonder of the world (cringed so badly) and she said about being at the gym and as if she needs to work on her stamina. Eww stuff like that.

I'd be very surprised if they were actually shagging on a desk in work tbh. It probably is. Just not sure it's happened in work

What an arse he is. This is all the script. Sorry this happened to you.

Me too

Did he say "as if she needs to work on her stamina" or did she say it? Because if he said that then they're 100% already sleeping with each other

No that was her, I was scrolling through quick as there was a lot to read. But nothing in the context either side of that message appeared to suggest that

Text book minimising. Only admit to the kiss and then you might get away with not having to confess you've screwed her..

Actually gross. Really think he should be open with his line manager about moving her to another dept and the reasons why. The longer he leaves it, the worse it is. It’s so inappropriate and gross. I’m just fed up with sleazy men in the workplace. Even if she instigated this he should be shutting it straight down! Urgh

You know this yourself but these messages are sexual - the working on her stamina one. I think you really need to ask him if it's been more than just messaging. You don't know that they are sleeping together but it certainly sounds like this was building up to something

I'm not married. No kids but an ex of mine once asked a Co worker out and sent her a Valentine when we were together. She told him to bugger off politely but obviously it's possible to be fixated with a Co worker without their wife or partner knowing anything about it

Yep, it doesn't matter who instigated it, he's the married one (and the boss) and he lapped it up and continued it

Omg what a disgusting man he is. Lying. Trying to shift all the blame into the woman.

Please remember that he only owned up at all because you looked at his phone - or he wouldn't have.

He left them because he wasn't sure what you saw. When he stormed out, he likely deleted the worst of them and anything else he had. He left the tamest and his lesser responses because he decided you'd buy a little trickle truth.

The OW has everything he sent. He's worried about this blowing up and being career suicide and that's why. You haven't gotten the whole story.

This is likely to come out at work. This has been more than her texting him, there's no way she would have sent the desk message without his encouragement and I would bet there's been more than 1 one to one meeting. His ass is toast.

Do you have separate finances? If not, get yourself an account in your name ASAP and be ready to set your pay to go there and transfer funds. Get yourself to the doc. Think about where you might find housing if necessary. Have a plan and don't be caught flat footed.

This.
Also this thread started with you telling us he was encouraging her. The only response from him should have been to tell her to fuck off. Not ask her to walk by his desk. And his reaction when he blew up and got angry at you is inexcusable

This is gross. And sorry but by the time they get to that level of flirting, this has been going on for ages and is likely already physical. Just bin him off, he’s vile. He has no respect or love for you.

And I’m sorry if that message is blunt. This is hideous to be going through, I’ve been cheated on. I just want to say, don’t waste any more of your life on this man. Time is too short. He’s disgusting.

What an absolute pig.

And so misogynistic as well - good enough to (at the very least) flirt with, but she's too much of a bimbo to do anything about it?! He's so obviously doing damage control by acting contrite and like it was just harmless flirting that went "too far". Flirting with someone else when you're marriage is too far; with a colleague you manage is so much worse.

Well actually we don't know where the one to one meeting actually took place.

The assumption is it was in the meeting room of office of course. But it might not have been.

And actually thinking about it we don't know at all whether anything this man has said to OP bears any relation to the truth at all.

I’ve just tried this. Deleted an old message and doesn’t say this message has been deleted. Like it used to do

so yes dh could have deleted messages from him and her and you wouldn’t know @Welshie2

this is a new ish thing as used to say message deleted

And he’d be accused of sexual harassment, so there’s that.

She's a clever wee thing if she is on probation and has her eye on him already - he is her back up plan in case she doesnt pass her probation without forcing his hand (so to speak).

She sure isnt the thick bimbo he is hoping she is!