Partner and close female friend

[coalbucketblues]

So they’re friends for years. Both mid fifties . She’s unhappily married , he’s divorced and seeing me for the last eight months .
He’s attentive, affectionate, consistent and loving. It’s what I’ve always wanted and never had.
He is so outgoing, chatty, popular.. you know the type .. everyone loves him .
i get it .
serve been away last weekend with his hobby group of which she is part.
She approached him three times in our company, hugged him, touching his arm
amd
leg while they spoke, arms around him
for photos and then finally leaned so far into his face to talk about something, their noses nearly
touched.
He was affectionate and demonstrative towards me all weekend.. holding hands, touching my leg and stayed nearby as I didn’t know anyone.
His friend and he organised the hobby activity and it took months of planning. They meet every week and have done a couple of times.
He says he feels sorry for her as she has a hard life but cannot leave. He is kind and supportive.
I got upset after their last interaction and he genuinely has absolutely no idea what he’s done wrong . He is so apologetic for hurting me but he cannot see the flirting, inappropriate space between them etc and major issue is that he’s never shut it down.
Again, I have no doubt that he cherishes me. He’s been consistent from the get go . But I’m not willing to tolerate this disrespect as I see it.
What are your thoughts here?
PS She’s been incredibly nice and friendly towards me but I just feel that this has potential for emotional affair territory if not more although I don’t think he is romantically interested in her .
Am I being utterly ridiculous here ?
PS I’ve been incredibly hurt by infidelity in the past so my vigilance is always high and my stomach dropped when
i I saw the last interaction.

What are you talking about? 😂 I am clearly being sarcastic. Of course I am not the woman the OP is talking about! 😆

Anyway, didn't you just say it was a normal close friendship? (The OP's partner and his female friend touching and feeling each other all the time!) Make your mind up!

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Ah ok. You have comprehension difficulties. That often leads to hostility toward others.

I don't think I'm the one who has them luv. You assumed I am the woman the OP is on about, even though my posts clearly show I am against what she is doing. And you are the only one being hostile ... You started on me for no reason whatsoever...

I'm not speaking to you anymore. You are clearly spoiling for an argument. Go have it with someone else.

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I don’t buy his ‘innocence’ I’m afraid. He either knows and wants to carry on or - if he really doesn’t see this behaviour as inappropriate- then he won’t change and this dance will continue. Plus this makes him dense, which is not attractive.

The correct answer would have been “I’ve been so used to it I lost perspective but you’re right it’s not appropriate and I’ll stop it now’l

Have you asked him outright if he has slept with her?

Exactly. I feel that he is one of these men who 'just can't help it if he gets on so well with women.' 🙄 Not realising (possibly not caring) that he is upsetting his partner/wife.... He needs to stop all of this, tell his female 'friend' to back off as he is in a relationship, and give her a wide berth for a while until she gets the message.

He hasn’t slept with her. Her husband is chronically ill and she has very
little going on with him apart from caring for him. He says he feels
sorry for her that she has this life which has been very hard for many years. He’s very fond of her as a person and feels
massive sympathy for her

You should’ve gone to the Event!!!! You made the evening so much better for her, and I bet she coped her feels. If he wouldn’t say anything, I would say something to her, Something along the lines of, ‘ You’re married, aren’t you?‘ She would reply, yes, Then I would say something like ‘that’s so interesting, As a married woman, why do you think it’s okay to be touching up my partner?’.
I’d probably have a drink or two in Me before I said this lol, but I would confront it somehow.

I didn’t go because I didn’t have it in me to be watching the carry on when he and I hadn’t had the chance to talk it out and resolve it or just finish it up. He’s asked to come to
my village this afternoon to chat. The tone was very light but we’ll see what comes from
it

I wouldn’t tolerate this either. I wouldn’t be asking him to choose between us though, if he didn’t make changes after I had expressed that I was unhappy I would be gone, and he wouldn’t get a choice about that.

If it’s all perfectly innocent, I don’t see the problem with him asking her to quit all the touchy-feely behaviour as it’s inappropriate/disrespectful to his new relationship. I’m surprised you didn’t take the opportunity to ask the other women there if they had any thoughts about her comportment…

She is not your partner's responsibility though. I will ask again, is he so touchy-feely and affectionate with his male friends? if not, why not?

He is a hugger with his male friends and family but no he doesn’t touch their legs or backs or arms and go up face to face with them with intense eye contact when talking about mindless nonsense

If her marriage problems meant she's willing to cheat (or is already non-monogamous) and he's only been with your for eight months, then I'd think that they would have got together already (before he was with you) if they were both interested. But in any case, if the close physical contact is initiated by her, then the real benchmark of whether she's crossing a line with him would be how SHE interacts with other old, close friends and not how he does. It's not reasonable to ask him to stop seeing her altogether (and he'd be an arse if he agreed), but is there anything short of that that would make you more comfortable? E.g., do you want him to tell her that he wants to keep more a physical distance from her in public now that he's in a relationship, and if necessary to keep reminding her of this since it seems to be a habit already? And as he seems to have thought the contact was OK until you brought it up, would he understand what to ask her to stop doing?