AIBU to think my husband is lying about another school mum?

[Ailiss]

So, I have woken up this morning to a fairly devastating message and my husband is not helping at all.
To cut a long story short, I have woken up to a message from one of the mums at DS's school telling me that both on Friday when she dropped her DD off (Scotland so we went back last week), and yesterday when she dropped her DD off at Gymnastics and went to sit in her car (DS goes to gymnastics too), my DH made some sexual advances on her.
She didn't elaborate, I have asked her to but she messaged around 9pm last night and I only just saw it when I woke up this morning, so she might be busy this morning and just hasn't seen my reply.
I asked DH for more info, and he said thats just not true. He claims he hardly spoke to her on Friday, and yesterday when he saw her parked up offered to buy her a coffee, so he did then they sat in her car together, he claims nothing else happened.
However last year he did make a joke about some of the mums of DS's friends being "smoking hot, 10/10s".
I know this woman fairly well, she is married, but much younger than us, maybe mid-20s, DH and I are knocking on 40. I actually went to school with her older brother and remember her when she was very small!

AIBU to think DH is just lying to me? What would she get out of sending me that if it wasn't true?

Me too. I did have friends at 20
who would stand their ground in any situation. But they were the few.

Agreed. Even now at almost 50, I remove myself from these situations quietly. I wish I had the courage stand up for myself but I just don’t.

What is your gut telling you OP?
(I have to say, it has the ring of truth to it)

You’re correct. We only know what OP knows for sure, which is what she has told us.

Stepping into your alternate universe for a moment, let’s just say your scenario is correct. With the information OP had given us up to the point you made the comment, we have the initial communication from the woman, and confirmation that OP’s DH has made suggestive remarks about school mums before. Then we have an outline of her conversation with him where he confirmed a couple of interactions with he, which included him making himself comfortable in her car with a coffee. At no point did he express shock or surprise, he just went straight to anger at the OP. These are things the OP knows as fact. If the woman had actually made a pass at him and he turned her down A) what benefit is it for her to contact OP but more importantly B) don’t you think DH would have thrown that into the argument? Doesn’t it make sense that he would respond with “yeah, she made a pass at me and I turned her down” as his defence in the situation. He has absolutely no reason in that moment not to mention it, so why wouldn’t he?

I don’t think we should believe all women, always, but I do think when the vast majority of the evidence says we should, then we probably should.

I, on the other hand, was more than capable of standing up for myself in my 20s, my friends would so the same.

I’m not suggesting she didn’t feel vulnerable or uncomfortable, I’m saying we shouldn’t assume that in her situation she was “extremely vulnerable” just because she is a young woman. We are not all delicate flowers who need to be protected at all costs, that narrative just allows the bad behaviour to continue.

Yes but having a newborn definitely changes the situation and vulnerability.
It’s possible she would react differently than you in this situation when he got into her car, with a sleeping baby in the back and when he also commented with her young children around.

‘If he said anything similar, it wasn’t meant as flirty’ - meaning he DID say something.
How did he mean it then, if not as flirty?

She's not just a young woman, she's a woman with a 3 month old baby - sleep deprivation, hormones etc - it's common to feel more vulnerable in that situation.

She won't be gaining anything by lying about this. She is telling you because she doesn't want him to do it again and is hoping you can tell him he is too old to be hitting on women half his age who are happily married with kids. He obviously thinks he has a right to rank women, so this entitled behaviour wouldn't surprise me from him. He clearly hasn't realised he is a creepy old man.

It sounds like it happened as she described. His version wasn’t all that different actually, it’s just that he completely downplays the impact of his own gross ‘flirtatious’ comments. I think he was testing the waters with this woman, and not being fully rebuffed on the Friday was a green light to him. His advances sound calculated to be something he can laugh off as a joke if needed (except being sussed out by the woman and his wife being informed about it in writing make it sound worse than he would like).

Literally the perfect take

Fairly obvious it is the man. He has confirmed that he spoke to her where and when she claims. There's disagreement about the words used but he's not expressing concern that his words and behaviour have made a woman feel uncomfortable and unsafe.

The Gift of Fear talks about when men approach women and offer to do them a favour. The book calls it loan sharking, he bought her a coffee and barged into her space without invitation and expected something in return. That's your husband.

She was trying to shut him down when she said we're married. But he didn't accept that no.

She was extremely vulnerable. She is still in her 4th trimester and her baby was strapped in the car seat. She couldn't escape. Would you leave your baby with a rando school dad who's been sexually suggestive and touched you and then barged into your close space? He violated multiple boundaries here.

I would bet she called you because your husband scared her. She's likely to warn other school moms she knows to watch out for him.

And lock your car doors for your personal safety.

I am in my 20s and have three kids. I’m a stone cold bitch, but many of my friends (with and without kids) are just not. I don’t blame them either, men can be really fucking scary. I think some people are people pleasers and women are socialised like that.

Yuck he is disgusting

Never in a month of Sundays would my DH get in a car with a woman outside a gymnastics hall. He just wouldn't. I mean, is that a thing that men do? None of the men I know.

I think a degree of people pleasing is natural anyway, or at least observing social niceties, when you know a person in a particular context. We probably all think ‘this is how I would react if some hypothetical person said X to me’, but apply it to real life and it’s being said by someone you are used to exchanging polite but limited conversation with, and it’s harder to code-switch into stone cold bitch mode. You’re thrown by it and still anticipating innocuous conversation that you would politely smile and respond to.

Nope none of these are necessarily true it all depends on the person not the age.

He made the remark about her skirt looking better on the bedroom floor when there were people around, including small children!

I can't see why she would say stuff like this if it wasn't true. She didn't know how you would react - you might have not believed her, gone off at her and slagged her off to the other parents - so she took a significant social risk to alert you to the fact that your husband is sniffing around.

I'm sorry.

I think I’d have to ask him to take DD this weekend and I’d have to find a way to go and spy on how they seem together…

Your husband is a sleazeball.

OP I would text her back and ask to meet to talk this over. And the first question I would be asking would be, given that he had allegedly made unwanted advances to her on Friday, why did she agree to have coffee with him in her car the following day ? Sorry, but that just doesn’t make any sense. Once would be enough to give him a wide berth.

ETA just seen the updates. Sorry OP but it does seem plausible that she didn’t want to make a scene on the Friday if there were others around, including her children.

He shouldn’t even be sitting in the car with her, it’s totally inappropriate and no man is ever wanting to be just friends with a woman half his age. His comment from before this about school mums being smoking hot said to you is also so disrespectful, he doesn’t care about your feelings. He is a creep. I’m sorry OP you deserve so much better.

Fair play to her, she could have not told you, avoided him and just gossiped about it. This is tough for you but I sincerely hope the victim does not end up getting the blame here.