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?

Ha ha I forget people use smart watches 👍

Surely this early run and meet up with a friend were planned, so the thing that would piss me off is him not telling me the day before that he would be going out at the crack of dawn and coming back several hours later.

My ex was messaging one of my neighbours and best friends for months - around 50 texts a week.
When I found out, I confronted her after I’d confronted him.
Side note: I’d been confiding in her for months as I was convinced he was having an affair because of his weird behaviour with his phone.
She’d had the opportunity to tell me that I had nothing to worry about as it was just her ‘being a good friend to him’ …but chose him over our friendship and watched me crumbling into despair.
They both denied anything had been going on.
Unbelievably she told me she ‘couldn’t believe I didn’t trust her’ !!!
They’d both deleted all the texts.
I should have kicked him out then.. his behaviour just got worse over the years after that and he said it was my fault that she (and her family) were no longer friends with our family…!
So trust your gut. If his behaviour is out of character, then you could speak to her about it.
But be on your guard - if she’s a narcissist, she’ll lie. She won’t get ‘girl code’ and you’ll be the one who’s humiliated.
You could confront your husband with your suspicions - but be prepared that he might lie too.
Trust your gut.
And don’t trust them.

So long as it was the crack of Dawn and not the crack of Cathy.

Overnight oats on a windowsill sounds like something Bob Mortimer would come up with.

What does Fishy say

WeeJay is actually called Cathy

Apologies to the OP but this reply made me lol and wake my husband who was gently snoring in bed beside me 🫣🤣

Heathcliff, it's me, I'm Cathy
I've come home, I'm so cold
Let me oats in my window

I second that.

I would ask Cathy. Asking your partner is a waste of time, he is already being evasive, speak to her, face to face. The longer you leave it, the worse it will become forever you.

Overnight oats. WTAF. Least likely gift to tempt you into an affair.

The fact he's disappearing off to her house at the crack of dawn and lying to his wife about where he is for starters.

If you think it's healthy to behave like that in your own marriage, do carry on.

However your implication that others are killjoys for holding their partners to higher standards of honesty and integrity? GTFO.

The lying by omission and cagey answers are highly suspicious! As someone who has used Strava as an alibi it is possible to cheat the system and make it look like you were somewhere else or engaged in a different activity. Did his run have a route map and did the start / finish times & duration look right? Was his swim on Strava too? Could he have paid for his pool session online with the joint card? He posted a picture of his swimming buddy as 'proof' but not his running one? Did you see the 'proof' picture on Strava or on his phone?

So he took a bus, his running gear and swimming gear and then presumably a change of clothes and shower stuff as he went into the city for a while? Maybe he packs light but I'd still expect to see a big sports bag of gear with him on his return!

It could well be that Cathy’s fine but husband is lingering around her being a bit creepy.

Is it mentioned anywhere that Cathy is physically attractive or not? If she isn't, he may just be being kind in paying attention to her.

Yes, it's clever not to hide things others might have seen and mentioned. Get ahead of it.

It's such a specific gift that it actually shows how much effort he went into, to be thoughtful.. the oats.

Ask the woman. Pretend you already know. "He told me, I just want to know when it started". If she denies it then tell her to give him space so you can get your peace of mind back.

OP, your ups and downs over the last few years - have they involved him lying or having crushes on other women?

OP is asking if her feelings & responses to this situation are too controlling. How can a wife objecting to her husband disappearing unannounced before 6am then cavorting (sorry running) about with another woman & worse lying about the circumstances be described as too controlling. What next, a weekend away under the umbrella of a fun run event the OP is too busy to attend. The mind boggles.

I explained that I felt it had stopped being an innocent friendship when he decided to lie to me about it.

He lied/did everything possible to avoid telling you he'd been with Cathy. I'd have a long think about that. Why did he lie?

Oats are involved here and he would like to make it overnight.

Get your ducks in a row and then dig, dog and dig some more so you know what is happening in your own life.

It would be if he woke and you were gone and then were very cagey about where you had been.

I think you did fine. Does he act like this with his other friends, taking them food and sneaking out of the house with no notice?

I explained that I felt it had stopped being an innocent friendship when he decided to lie to me about it.

That's a good definition right there. If he's keeping a lot of messaging and contact from you or lying, it stops being an innocent friendship.

I think he was going to try his luck. A lot of posters have said that they were hit on by married men after a breakup and I've found that to be pretty true.

But the oats on the windowsill? That's so weird.

Is the best bet for both of you is that he stops and takes this secret to the grave, or would you want to know?

WTF! Have you actually meant to post that?!