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?

Ah he's gross and it won't be the first time..

Never in 20 years together has my husband expressed another woman was hot with the glaring exception of scarlett johansen when we were discussing who we'd have a threesome with if we were so inclined.

He's mentioned how nice some are, how good they are with all the kids, how absolutely nuts some fo them are on a night out, talked about their jobs and how cool they are same as me when we meet new people, particularly couples. He adores one of the single mums because of her politics and get things done attitude. Because he thinks of women as people. He talks about them like people.

It's understandable why women don't come forward because there's societal conditioning to think women are lying and they after some middle-aged paunchy balding creep of another woman's husband

She was quite brave to come forward

The husband seems to have form for this because both times he ambushed her when she was vulnerable and it wouldn't have been appropriate to make a scene

the first time with her children standing there and then the second time with her sleeping infant in the back of the car where forced himself into her car. His actions were predatory and aggressive

I think he’s completely freaked her out. The first comment about her skirt was disgusting but getting in her car is something else!
As soon as I read that I thought, he’s done that to intimidate her, disguised as friendliness, he could see he could get away with it. He’s a sexual predator OP, and that young woman has been very brave contacting you.

My thoughts exactly

I agree that she’s been brave to say something, she’s probably worried about future meetings with him.

Well she has zero reason to lie. Sounds like she’s a young married mother of three small children, why would she want to rock the boat and lie about your DH? His relaxed reaction speaks volumes too.

How embarrassing of a man in his 40s trying it on with a fellow school parent in her 20s. Did he seriously think she’d be interested? Buying her a drink would be kind but then asking to sit beside her in the car and making sexual advances is something entirely different. Poor woman just wanted to sit in peace! You know what it’s like when you’re young as well, it can be much harder to turn creepy men away.

Sorry to say but you’re married to a creep. Up to you where you go from here.

What on earth are you on about?

I think he probably did, but it's not 100% certai. There are examples of women making stuff up when they have mental health issues (I've been involved in sexual harassment cases at work) but these are rare. There's also a small possibility it's a misunderstanding. And a larger possibility that he did cross boundaries. But at the moment you don't know - you have to go with your gut (which is usually right) or gather more information if your gut is confused.

Yeah I think he did exactly what she said he did, because it's all very deniable and can be passed off as friendly and/or banter. He's a twat.

Id say she is messaging u as a warning !
She doesn't like it it makes her uncomfortable but also giving u a heads up what a dick your husband is !

This. Even getting in the car and sitting with her is weird.

He was testing the water. I couldn’t trust a man who behaves like this with other women!

as soon as i became divorced I had an unbelievable amount of inappropriate messages from married men or men in longterm relationships , that was just the messages on one platform. People trying it on with me irl too.
i remember from my very first jobs, 14-19, married men making advances towards me, I honestly thought I must be ‘asking for it’ because it felt like an unnatural amount of attention.
i didn’t know what I was doing wrong, I now realise that a large majority of men are just opportunistic.
i recently had a horrible sexual harassment experience at work with a married man over 70 years old.
they never stop.

It’s unbelievable isn’t it?

And truly believe they get more attractive with age. If only they knew what we are really thinking.
Totally delusional.

Why would she make this up OP? She’s putting you first. He isn’t. He’s trying to save his skin with very minimal effort. I’d ask him to leave and spend his time considering what he’s about to lose X

I don’t think she’s lying and I think she’s really brave to have told you. It sounds like she felt intimidated and uncomfortable.

I guess the question is what you want to do with it. For me, the thing that would upset me isn’t even the betrayal as such, it’s the fact that my husband was the kind of man who’d make a woman feel uncomfortable like that.

I am inclined to believe her, but as you say there is a remote possibility that she is misinterpreting or exaggerating what happened, she has a 3 month old and may be a tired for example.
But offering other mum a coffee and getting into her car for an hour is just weird on its own and he has admitted to that, that is what I would be reading the riot act over (at least).

Indeed. Same here. There is no way my DH would ever comment that a better place for a woman’s skirt is on the bedroom floor. That is wildly inappropriate.

OP’s DH is a creep. Chances are he’s always been one but she’s been unaware - perhaps just being perplexed as to why invites to things have dropped off and female friends are suddenly too busy to meet up with her. I think if she has a good think, she may see that this is absolutely not his first foray into sexually predatory behaviours with women of their acquaintance.

And if the penny drops that this is the case, I’d be booting him out if I were her.

This. Especially the assess your marriage bit. I'm old and have worn a groove around the block.

I would let this die down a bit but in a quiet moment, I would have a word with myself. Really think if I wanted to stay in a marriage like this. You don't

In my experience, once shit like this happens, the arguments you are having happens and you know he either has one foot out of the door or doesn't have your back, the rest of the time, you are in a soulless union but...he is not going to be the one to end it because the current set up suits him. It has to be you who knows in their heart what sort of relationship/marriage you want and deserve and who has to pull all the levers and push all the buttons to make that happen for yourself down the line.

I stayed in relationships that weren't worth a candle and I really really wish I hadn't but I got out of them and found DH. Looking back, I wish I hadn't wasted another minute on those total no-hopers. I should have had more respect for myself.

Have a really strong word with yourself, intuitive woman to intuitive woman and find better. Even nothing would be better than this.

I’m so sorry your husband is like this OP. It really stuck out to me that the woman was minding her baby, taking another child to an activity (so couldn’t leave) and READING. I’ve never had so many older men bother me as I did when I was early/mid twenties and reading alone, it’s like they see you with a book and interpret it as “she can’t pretend she’s busy! I can ask her about the book! She’s stuck!”

Did you ever have an inkling that he bothers women before?

Its a tricky one because to be questioning it there must be some doubt in your mind about his behaviour
If someone messaged me that about DH I would just laugh and not entertain it for a moment

Sorry but your dh is gross.

Oh god. That is just awful. She isn’t lying of course she isn’t why the hell would she . He must think an awful lot of himself if he thought she would be interested . And I doubt it’s the first time he has tried this with another woman. So sorry this has happened

Even if my DH was a saint I would not be “laughing “ if a young woman text me to say he made advances . I don’t believe anyone would be laughing this off regardless of what sort of relationship they have with their DH.