AIBU for thinking who TF does she think she is?

[CFornot123]

Aibu for thinking this is overstepping the fcking mark

Long story so will try to condense and keep to relevant details.

Been with ‘D’H for 13 years (married 6). We have 2 DCs aged 4 and 3. He’s 38, I’m 31. He has been bestfriends with a woman, let’s call her Jane, for 25 years (since they were teens) and there’s never been any romantic history between them.

In general she’s not really my kind of person. She’s quite blunt and a bit rude, uses racist language (I’m Asian) like it’s a casual word and tbh is a bit of a bully. However, knowing she means a lot to my husband, at the start of our relationship I made A LOT of effort to be friends with her and she was even one of my bridesmaids when we got married (the theory being that if she’d have been a guy, she’d have been a groomsman so wanted her to feel involved in the wedding as she Hs best friend). We were on maternity leave at the same time, both had baby girls at the same time (she’s married) etc. but around this same time (so 5 years ago) she stopped engaging with me, started ignoring messages, every plan I made with her she cancelled and then we weren’t invited to her daughters first birthday. Throughout all of this she maintained contact with my husband and they met up regularly for coffee. I raised concerns with H at the time and he brushed it off as “it’s just what Jane does, she’s a bit flaky, don’t take it personally”.

I’ve not spoken to her now for about 4 years, bar the odd hello if she happens to be at a family/friends event (a lot of shared mutual friends/large friendship groups). But she frequently meets up with H for drinks, dinner, brunch, they have regular video calls.

H and I have been going through a lot recently (we relocated from California after spending two years there for his job, I quit my corporate legal career to basically follow him around the world for his high paying role and have moved 10 times in the last 10 years) due to stress with house moves, redundancy and, me trying to figure out what career to do around the kids following a career in law (I’m a high achiever, degree from Oxbridge) and taking a back step. He works very long hours, lots of traveling as we moved to be closer to family as the girls are starting school soon so I said no more following him.

He met up with Jane last Saturday (they’d both been invited to their mutual friends wedding - I wasn’t) and when he came home on Sunday, he asked me to “make some time in my calendar to meet with him on Friday afternoon” (like I’m a business associate…). He told me today that he “discussed me at length with Jane” and THEY had decided that WE don’t communicate in our marriage enough. SHE also, in her expert opinion as a mental health nurse, diagnosed me with a borderline personality disorder based on everything she’s heard and seen from my husband over the last 13 years and that he should gently suggest I go to the GP. For context, like (so it seems) every other woman in their 30s I’m undergoing an ADHD assessment (VERY different to BPD).

So my AIBU - wtf has DH been saying to her about me that has led her to diagnose me with BPD after not speaking to me for 5 years? And who TF does she think she is?

We had no falling out, no cross words were said, I simply stopped making an effort with her and suggesting meeting up because she never made an effort with me and somehow that’s my fault and she hates me enough to say I have BPD?

Frustratingly H said she’s sent him to information to read up on about it.

So far I’ve not reacted or responded to H. I told him that I needed some time to process the conversation we’d just had and I’d discuss it with him when I felt ready

Bullshit....an interesting word to use on thia thread tight enough....

The fact that Jane has ignored you for years and your husband takes her words as the solid truth rather than talking to his wife makes me wonder if it is either of them with a personality disorder or ND. It's just weird.

And I say this as someone who has a husband who is both ND and has a personality disorder. It is the type of thing he'd do. Coming back and telling you 'he has discussed with Jane' is a triangulation thing. She sounds like his flying monkey.

Seeing as they are throwing diagnosis around I thought I'd join in.

You've had loads of eally good responses, OP.

At it's core, this is a husband problem. He should be talking to you if he has concerns on his relationship and not running you down to another woman.

But she also bears a lot of responsibility for her behaviour.

She might be his friend but she is NOT a friend of the marriage. That doesn't mean she has to be your friend too but, as his friend she should respect his marriage and she doesn't.

As his friend, if he uses her as a sounding board about his relationship (which a lot of people do with friends), her role is to empathise and support not create a greater divide. As is the role of any friend.

Whatever her motivation (because I actually think it's irrelevant), while he continues to prioritise his relationship with her over his relationship with you, you will have problems.

I agree that the only way your marriage can survive now is if he completely removes her from the equation.

But I don't think he will. I suspect, like many men, he'd choose the woman who sooths his ego over the one he has made a commitment to.

A lot of the sacrifices you have made won't be valued or even recognised by him (eg following his work) because he'll just see those as 'what a wife does' without realising that they were sacrifices to you at all.

The conversation you had last night has put you at a bit of a crossroads.

Given everything you have said and considering that you are financially stable and that this situation is very unlikely to change, I know which path I'd take in your shoes.

I also know that there will be a voice in your head saying you can't challenge it too much because, "What if he chooses her?" But he already has.

If he ' doesn't get time to himself' how come he is spending the (seems to be quite a lot) of time spouting off to his OW about his wife?

OP, I’m so sorry to read all this.

If I were you I’d do three things:

1. Collect yours and your daughter’s passports and all financial documents you can find, to prepare in case he is planning to divorce you;
2. Look for a job for yourself;
3. Suggest you go to marriage counselling. This will buy you some time, and whatever happens it sounds like it would be helpful for you both to talk about all this with a third party present. Men who disregard and mistreat their wives often gaslight the wife into thinking they’re the unreasonable one. He can’t spin that in front of another person.

I’m appalled at the sudden 10 day trip to the UK without you after losing his job, and maintaining contact with Jane when she cut you off. How he expects there to be love and trust in a relationship when he’s done that is beyond me.

OP, you’re 31 with an Oxbridge degree. You have everything ahead of you. Based on how he’s treated you, I think you’d feel so light if you didn’t have to deal with him anymore.

This.

Never takes time for himself? Which you admit is true? But then you said he took off to the UK for 10 days to discuss things with Jane and left you alone with your kids. He takes enough time for himself with Jane over coffees and meetings. You are being seriously gaslighted and can't see the woods for the trees. Jane needs to go, or your husband. Get your own life and career in order.

Oh My.

He is an incredibly skilled gaslighter, isn't he?

His opinion is that when he takes weekly trips to London for work and stays in hotels etc or goes on regular trips to Europe again for work that he’s in work mode so it’s not really time for himself and he’s making that sacrifice for us. He regularly stays in London with his friend (male this time) who meets him after work and they go out for drinks. But again, this isn’t time for himself

He is full of shit.

Where does Jane’s husband fit in with all this? And what is he like?

What does he think ‘time for himself’ looks like?

@CFornot123 you are his housekeeper and nanny who provides him with (I guess) sex and household administration. He has zero respect for you or your marriage or your children.
Are you going to continue to put up with this?

The more you post about this OP (the racist crap from her is vile) the more I’d be consulting divorce lawyers. Surely it’s better divorced than being married to this man? Think about your children too.

He has zero respect for you, your feelings and opinions are irrelevant to him and he'll listen to anyone apart from you. You're highly intelligent and a high achiever in your own right, and essentially parent and run the house alone. What does he bring to your life? I'd leave him and go back to work. Separating and staying in the same house just sounds like business as usual for you both.

If you really want to work on it in the long term I'd be insistent on couple's therapy and putting in some boundaries with Jane.

Very true. Maybe he needs a nice brunch meet up where OP and him can talk about Jane and diagnose her with a personality disorder.

How have they managed to keep such a close contact ( you say they meet up regularly ) if you've moved 10 times around the world in 10 years ?

What someone thinks about you is their concern , not yours . It shouldn't effect you in anyway .

Will add though , you don't have a ' Jane ' problem , you have a husband problem .

My dh regularly goes away for work and he's happy because it gives him some free time meeting up with friends in the evening. He gets a break from our autistic teen and he is very happy about that. He's gaslighting you over and over again...

Of course his travel is for work but work but he can also take time for himself. He doesn't work 24/7.

When he chats with the friend he stays with, goes out for drinks with him, goes out for meals etc - that is time for himself.

When he's meeting up with Jane for coffees, lunches and chats - that is time for himself.

Time for yourself is time you have where you are free to choose how you spend it.

Most people work/have family commitments so, for most people, time for themselves is fitted in around work and/or family commitments. It's the time you have to do what you want.

Of course he has time for himself.

I’m not sure how you can stop bursting out laughing when he says these things!

What someone thinks about you is their concern , not yours . It shouldn't effect you in anyway .

Well, I'm sure on paper that sounds very good but when what someone thinks of you is operating within your marriage, that very much affects you.

This expression is designed to help people stop ruminating about what strangers/vague acquaintances think about them. It doesn't apply to your husband 🙄

And what do YOU think? What HE thinks is pretty irrelevant to me. What you think and believe and how YOU are going to make choices about your future, is the most important and most interesting

Wow - what an emotionally manipulative, gaslighting twat he is.

In honesty, not sure how you could ever marry a man in the first place who has a bestie who is racist but easy to say from the outside with hindsight - but you can ditch him now!

Jane can have the awful idiot, sounds like they deserve each other

This. What on earth is Jane now? A marriage guidance counsellor? I bet if you probe deep enough into this there’s unrequited love from one of them.

As I said re this female friend of my stepdad, basically they’re both Irish and she and her sister moved to London and married English men and had kids. I was very friendly with her sister’s little girl as a child. But this female friend kept pushing boundaries. My stepdad would often go to see her by himself (that’s fine) and they were friends for years, but it was when she (I was visiting when this happened) repeatedly spoke about her and my stepdad’s friendship and made it more intimate - this was in our garden with her husband and my mum sitting there. This happened a couple of times, deliberately trying to alienate both her husband and my mum from their friendship and conversations. God knows what her lovely husband thought about it. My mum of course went mental and issued an ultimatum. She could see what was happening and it wasn’t healthy. She’d liked the friend before all this.

It’s fine to have close friendships as a man and woman but not when they veer into unhealthy territory. And definitely not in this case where she’s deliberately befriending your uni friend and somehow complicit in you not getting an invite to that wedding. Who knows what she’s been saying to people (friends) about you behind your back?

Every other person from the university friendship group was invited apart from me.

I keep coming back to this. There are still tensions within my old university friendship groups because of historic relationship breakups – and I graduated 40 years ago. But you haven't suggested that this is the case here. If you can't think of a valid reason for you to be excluded, then it's fishy. DH should surely have been outraged on your behalf. Either that or he's lying.