A few months ago my husband was messaging a woman he used to go to college with. The messages were reminiscent, not overtly flirtatious or anything. But crossed the line for me… she told him she’d just ended her 12 year relationship and wanted to “catch up”. She lives outside of Europe and said they’d catch up when she got back. He mentioned our child and his career in the last decade or so but not me. His excuse for this is that she could see he was married as our wedding picture and recent pictures are on his social media.
She started sending him voice notes and he stopped replying. His explanation to me was that he “felt like it was weird” and “only you send me voice notes”.
It wasn’t the fact he was talking to an old friend, it’s the fact he lied. At first he said it was a random girl in the year below him, then that she was his sisters age (12 years younger than him), and then that they were good friends when I found the messages?
It sounds ridiculous writing it down, but for weeks before this, my gut was telling me he was talking to her. He was looking at me with contempt, less affectionate and generally quite mean. As soon as I saw he’d friended her (she came up on my suggestions), my gut was screaming at me. I’m not usually a jealous person but I knew something was going on.
He was very apologetic, reassured me he was just catching up with an old friend. It took months to get over it, it left me feeling awful.
Over the last few weeks he’d been talking about a woman who works in the same area of work as him. She’s opening her own company and was offering him a job. They are currently in the same office space, and have discussed it there. He said that she had suggested that they go for a coffee at the weekend to talk things through. I thought this was odd, given that they can talk in work. I didn’t say anything, but eventually they sorted it on text.
Tonight she popped up on my friend suggestions on facebook. My gut has been screaming at me for weeks - husband less interested in me, distant, critical. So I asked if that was the new manager from work. He got really defensive and said I must be looking her up and that I had a bad attitude. I found his reaction over the top. I’ve done this before with people from his gym/work (and he’s done the same to me), it’s like putting a name to a face?
He’s stormed out and said I’ve ruined another evening. Have I? Aibu to trust my gut ?