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?

Legovernight oats more like

The bit that amazes me in this is that either part of a partnership is supposed to make the other feel like they are the most important person on the planet. I can only hope I did this for my wife.

She absolutely was the most important thing in my world. I consciously tried to never leave myself in a position where there was ever any doubt. Because I didn't ever want her to doubt that she was the most important person in my life. Ever.

If a man is leaving you in any such doubt, it is because there is reason to doubt. Once there is doubt, the rot sets in. What a fucking puppet.

I think every woman has been in Cathy's shoes at some point(ie a guy is being weird and she doesnt want to be horrible because maybe she's misread the situation but aaaa)

⬆️ What she said 😁

Affair. Best female friends cheat on their best female friends. Men cheat. You already have the evidence. If it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck….

im sorry OP. You will be fine long term. I promise.

That crossed my mind too.

He’s definitely trying it on. The effort of making the overnight oats in the first place let alone sneaking out the house at that hour in the morning to deliver them in person. It seems to be quite intimate too, as though trying to catch her when she’s just woken up and hoping she will think he’s so sweet etc. I find leaving the phone behind and going into the city a bit ‘off’ too. Who does that unless they don’t want to acknowledge phone calls and they have a good excuse for not doing so. Why couldn’t he have mentioned these plans before if she’s a mutual friend? He’s already in denial about it and will probably accuse you of being jealous, an unattractive trait which his “niceness” trumps.

I’m not going to leap to affair (I mean it’s not a leap, I’m just not going to go straight there). I think it’s interesting Cathy told you about the oats, and that he didn’t. To me, that in particular, reads like she’s letting you know about it, and he’s being secretive.

Today, maybe he turned up and wanted to talk about how your relationship isn’t going very well and he wants to confide in her blah blah blah. He was definitely being cagey and he only admitted what he did when he realised you knew from his tracker where he’d been. But we can’t say for sure what Cathy’s reaction was to him (imo) throwing himself at her/laying the groundwork.

I always know when DH is lying. I just know.
It’s never anything big, but he must have reason. Whatever it is, I don’t know!

I'm inclined to say married couples I read about here who have so few boundaries regarding close friends of the opposite sex never cease to amaze me. This is a typical example of how in the end it can often end in tears regardless of those in the 'just friends' scenario shouting about no sexual attraction. I hope this is innocent OP. In the future I'd be setting boundaries so as not to be subjected to this worry in the future.

Classic behaviour of 2 people in cahoots who don’t want you becoming suspicious. She (your bestie friend) is open about how ‘supportive’ your DH is. Aren’t you lucky!! It totally sucks OP. And I hope I’m wrong. Not my first rodeo. Sadly.

Thing is, she could be utterly uninterested in your DH. But he is sidling around her - she may think he's just being kind. She's probably oblivious if she's in the midst of a break up & its aftermath.

He's the one you need to speak to. He's behaving oddly, at the very least.

Good luck, @Weejayy

Should read muppet. Bloody spell check

Does he have form for this behaviour?

Sit, watch, wait...

As said, why did you blow your cover OP? You shoulda said nothing and waited until you had a clear picture of what was going on.

It’s 50/50 in my mind, tbh. Giving Cathy the benefit of the doubt, there’s no actual evidence as yet that she’s done anything wrong (emphasis on the “yet”). The husband though couldn’t behave more suspiciously if he was trying.

This is exactly what I was thinking! I’ve been there! Er… your partner just said xyz, and I’m letting you know because that wasn’t my idea/fault/I’m not sneaking around covering for him.

Thank you. And on her windowsill?

A married man makes overnight oats for wife's friend who just broke up with bf, sneaks out of the home at an ungodly hour of the morning to leave them on her windowsill, then is unreachable for some hours.

Does he usually make a breakfast for his friends and run over very very early to give it to them?

Another thing, isn't it hot where you are? How long are those things good for? And I'm shocked some passerby didn't just run off with those. That would be free breakfast for some early bird in my neighborhood. If someone left something on one of my windowsills, they'd scare the crap out of me lurking around at that hour plus it might be out there cooking for a while unless someone jacked it.

Doesn't he use an app or his phone to monitor his runs? Why would he leave it at Cathy's?

His story is very holey. It sounds like bullshit and smells like bullshit. Sorry. I think you need to press him on this.

I would not be happy to have a partner get up early to leave a thoughtful little gift with another woman & be evasive about it. Why not tell you so it would be collaborative? It's already not cool even if it's not on her. You should be receiving breakfast in bed. That thoughtful effort should be for his partner. Let him get up at dawn to go get croissants your favourite coffee ☕️ and wake you with it. If I'm not being romanced I'm already out.

No one would leave oats on a bloody windowsill. The birds would get them. Sorry OP, but it does sound suspicious.

Yes, and she might not be interested at all. Perhaps that's why he went into town alone - to recover from the rejection! Unless I've got that part wrong and his phone was still showing as being at hers when he said he was in town.

Urgh why are men such predictable shits!!! Has he fancied her for a long time and sees this as his moment? The oats thing is fucking weird and i do think Cathy might be a bit innocent in this - she might not even know hes a fucking lying scumbag - its him thats shit. Hows the marriage been?

Delicious is a stretch, imo, but they are good for you. Even if they do taste like dressed-up cardboard.

You know what is delicious? Eggs and crispy bacon.

I think the windowsill oats and being unreachable for hours early in the morning were two separate incidents.