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?

This.

He's betrayed your trust.

Why would your DH even entertain these messages. The initial one she sent was wildly inappropriate, DH got a kick out of it and has encouraged her. He should have nipped it in the bud immediately and told her she was being inappropriate. He’s minimising it to you, and minimising her also with the ‘bimbo’ talk. He’s only sorry you found out.

I would really be struggling with the way he is now talking about her, make her fail her probation, calling her a bimbo (not smart enough for it to fall back on him... makes it sound like he knew exactly what he was doing!)

Honestly OP,

I don't think she would be brazen enough to send that type of WhatsApp message to her boss - without something preceding it. For example - inappropriateness at work drinks/after work/away training days.

I just don't buy it.

Your husband has also been totally irresponsible by potentially jeopardising his job over this.

How silly.

You’re just going to move past this and put it down to the woman being a bimbo and coming onto him and the texts are all there is to it? Reaaaally 🙄

I think he is just going on the attack and trying to get you to apologise for questioning him. Not a man i would like to be married to.

Agree with all of the above. But surely you'd agree the woman should share the blame? It's not 'misogynistic', as the pp claimed, to call out a woman's behaviour for what it is.

And is asking for her to explain exactly why he wants her moved!

I guess the point is that her behaviour is irrelevant. It could be any woman ultimately but it can only be OPs husband!!

The Op says :

I have not accepted his apology , I’ve made it clear how hurt I am and that I need time to decide what I want.

And in terms of work - he is in the position of power. It will harm his career. Yes there will be whispers about her but she would win a tribunal if they didn’t treat her scrupulously fair

I didn't say her behaviour was irrelevant. But he's older. Married and her boss. He could have shut this down with one conversation

Dont see why some posters are struggling to believe that a fully grown woman might enjoy titillating a man even if hes a colleague. Ive done that myself in the past.

He’s a nasty piece of work.
Useless as a husband and as a manager.
Nothing going for him at all really.

Omg it's textbook, he's been caught and is pathetically trying to shift any guilt or blame on you. Is he saying if you asked him if he was flirting with a member of the team he'd have been honest and said yes!? Of course not.

Stay calm and resktr and remember, you'd not have looked if you weren't worried and you did find what you thought.

Behaviour is not ok.

But a man who at work sent sexual text messages to a women he manages and then called her a bimbo is misogynistic.

He's her boss. It's completely inappropriate on both sides. He's also married with a child

This. OP - how on Earth can you believe that she sent that message to her married boss completely out of the blue?!? Your husband sounds absolutely awful. Like a walking cliché. Your subsequent posts just make him look worse!

You have sent your married boss a message about picturing him having his way with you on top of a desk following a 1-1 work-related meeting? Completely unprovoked and out of the blue?

Would you really text your boss out of the blue with a sexually inappropriate message about having sex on the desk whilst in your probation period?

HR Director here.

He’s not going to get promoted in 12-18 months. I’d be amazed if he isn’t fired for sexual harrassment before then. Whether she has been leading him on or not he is her superior and should know better. He isn’t going to come out of this unscathed. Fucking idiot. (Technical term.)

He’s not a colleague. He’s her boss. He should have put a stop to it and managed the situation properly. He’s basically set himself up to be sacked by playing along/encouraging it.

I really like my current boss; we sit at adjacent desks and work closely together every day. He's super friendly and approachable, also quite funny and easy-going. Yet, if I were ever crazy enough to send him a suggestive text (let alone an explicit one) I would be fired for gross misconduct pretty much immediately. No one sends their boss sexual messages without there having been some kind of precursor to this.

Hate to be a spoiler here, but you can 'delete' the 'deleted message' blocks on your own devices. I do it all the time.