AIBU to find my husband's early-morning visit to our friend fishy?

[Weejayy]

My husband and I have a lovely female mutual friend, who we will call Cathy.

My husband (31m) left her some overnight oats on her windowsill after finding out she’d been through a bad break up. Sweet thing to do. He didn’t tell me about it but she did later and I was like oh, ok, maybe it just slipped his mind.

Then yesterday morning I wake up at 6am and my husband isn’t anywhere in the house. I get on with my day and assume he’s just on a run. At 9am I start getting worried that he’s not back so I give him a call. No answer. So I check find my friends and discover he’s at Cathy’s address.

Cathy and him have a running group together so I sort of assume the group have all gone running together and are having brunch.

I give him another call to let him know I’m taking the car and when I’m likely to be back from meeting friends. I ask him about his morning and what he’s been doing, sort of expecting he’d say he’d had a good run with the group.

He says he’s been getting on with his day. I say oh, ok, where did you go? (I was slightly bummed he hadn’t sent a courtesy text that he’d be out). He answers with the name of our nearest city. I said oh ok, who are you with? (Still thinking I’d get news from our friends but now feeling a bit weird that he isn’t really giving a straight answer)
he says he’s on his own. (at this point I’m plain suspicious) so I ask him, so where in [name of our city] are you? He says oh, you know, around [name of city] I go yes but where? He replies with the name of a side road I wouldn’t recognise. And I say who were you with this morning? (At this point I think he’s clocked I know) so he says ‘Cathy’ and I say ‘you were at her house?’ He sounds a bit panicked and says ‘I just left my phone there while we were out running.’
at which point I go ‘ok, I think that’s all I need to know.’

technnically, none of this is lying and they may well have just gone on a run together and the rest of group didn’t show up. But am I being unreasonable for finding the cover up to this whole thing a bit fishy? Like why didn’t he just tell me straight?

When someone lies like that to your face it is never for a good reason.
Dont ignore it

Who the fuck wants over night oats after a divorce ??

gin , yes , fucking oats never!

Sounds like an emotional affair (which typically comes out of unmet needs). His guilt shows that he does feel bad about it which is good. Definitely worth a convo...

What?

This. I don't believe he went for a run.

He snuck out of the house before 6 am (OP got up at 6 and he was already gone) and he went to Cathy's and he did not leave his phone. He was there where his location said he was.

You don't do runs (or rows or things like that) and forget your phone. If he's serious to be in a running group, exactly, he would be tracking his runs.

I don't think Cathy's an innocent put upon victim either. Who would be okay with a running friend coming over and lurking around leaving shit that's going to spoil on her windowsill or coming over before 6 AM and spending hours there. I sure wouldn't allow a friend's bf to come over at the crack of dawn and spend hours in my place, I'd send his dumbass home.

”Generally lovely people” do have affairs.

Unfortunately cheaters never come with a warning sign.
That’s why so many betrayed partners are completely fooled “my husband / wife is just not the sort of person to cheat”
I wish you all the best, it hurts like hell 💐

I'm sure you-re right he's up to no good, but I never take my phone on a run. My watch tracks my run.

Friends who've been divorced said men do sniff around often men they know socially through their wives.

I've had married men make advances in years gone by. Ugh it's so sleazy.

Thank you guys for your comments - I never thought I’d read so many oat puns in my life and thank you to everyone who’s given advice too!

i won’t have a chance to see Cathy for a bit, but I did get DH’s phone and it does all check out in terms of a run. It’s looks like took the 6:10am bus to our city, met Cathy at hers to drop his bag and they went on a 7km run. It’s on Strava too. He then went to the pool which he paid for on our joint account. And then meets a male friend and there’s pictures for that too.

I feel like a complete control freak for checking all this, but I needed to know.

So I’m leaning towards what a lot of you have said - that it’s either the start of an emotional affair or that it’s an unrequited crush. Either way I said to him that I wouldn’t feel ok in the marriage unless he stopped seeing her without me there. I explained that I felt it had stopped being an innocent friendship when he decided to lie to me about it. I don’t know if that’s controlling but I felt sick the whole day on Saturday and just don’t want that kind of stress or doubt again. It’s a ten year marriage and we’ve had our ups and downs so we’ll see what happens.

Thank you all for letting me vent and for the support ❤️

Prick.

What did he reply to what you’d said?

Thanks for the update OP. I’m glad it checks out but like you said it’s the lying.

what did he say when you suggested he not see her without you?

@Weejayy It's not controlling. His lies made it all an issue. I would still be wary about his intentions though and keep my eyes open.

I'd assume it was some sort of sick joke that my ex had put him up to tbh

Completely reasonable of you. The shady hiding behaviour is incredibly gross from him. Clearly a 6am run is planned in advance so seems weird to me to not tell you about it the night before, and not mention when you called. Frankly even leaving his phone at hers seems weird at this point and makes me question whether he wanted an excuse to go back there. Bleugh. Why are men so pathetic sometimes 🤮 sorry girl, hopefully just a passing moment of stupidity from him!

Have just realised you said he dropped his bag at his which makes more sense, but not telling you he’d planned to see her beforehand does not!

When a guy is cheating, somehow, because they're all stupid, her NAME will come up in the conversation, multiple times. Guys find it impossible to Lie. You will find that her NAME keeps popping up in his conversations. It's not Rocket Science. ....Looks like it's already started. I should pay Cathy a visit. And warn her to back off your Man.

Well, he didn’t love the idea ant first and said that he did value her friendship. I said the problem was that he valued her a bit too much and that it’d already gone too far and then asked him how he would feel if he woke up to find me at a male friend’s house and for me to deny it. He seemed to get it then and agreed that he would only see her with me if that’s what I needed to feel safe in the relationship. So that’s where we’re at x

Hmm. Keep an eye on whether he turns the tracking off!!

it’s good he can see from your POV by using an example the other way around. Maybe it’s the start of a little crush and he just didn’t think….maybe I’m being naive. But I’m hoping you’ve nipped it in the bud and it stops there.

But what is wrong with a little bit of a flirt or crush? We only live once and it is soon over.

FFS

“And I say who were you with this morning? (At this point I think he’s clocked I know) so he says ‘Cathy’ and I say ‘you were at her house?’ He sounds a bit panicked and says ‘I just left my phone there while we were out running.’”

I just found it odd that he said this but then the run’s on Strava. So he did have his phone on the run? Or has he added the run later manually or something?

That said, he’s a bit crap at having secret affairs if he blatantly drives to meet the person at 6am in the morning! Her becoming single might have changed the way he feels, even if unconsciously

This! If he left the phone there how could it record his run?????

If you record a run on a running watch, it will upload to Strava as soon as the watch syncs to the phone

Will anyone else be able to spot all the secret mumsnetters in the office tomorrow as they all suddenly have overnight oats instead of toast for breakfast as this thread has made them crave them?!

Sorry OP but he’s been sowing his early morning oats