Help me maintain a dignified silence please

[Squitch]

Brief bit of back story - me and OH have been together just over 6 years and have a 5 year old dd. When dd was about 1 I discovered that he had spent the night with a female 'friend'. In normal circumstances I wouldn't have a massive problem with it, but he lied to me about where he was going and it was only because his mum dropped him in it that he eventually came clean. I was furious at the time and made him text her whilst I was there to ask her if she would like to come and meet his dd and his partner. He claims she has never replied and she has never spoken to him since. This means to me that one of two things happened, either a) something DID happen between them and the text made her feel like crap or b) nothing happened but she wished that it had.(I appreciate that neither of the above scenarios may have happened and it could have been entirely innocent but this was the conclusion I reached at the time and I haven't thought of a better one yet)

I have never met this friend, though me and DP do share a few mutual friends.

Skip to the end... DP has always had her as a friend on FB. I've begrudgingly accepted this. Out of the blue today I have recieved a friends request from her. As far as I know she doesnt even know what my name is. DP has his settings set to 'in a relationship' but does not specify who with. I have the same. I have spoken to him tonight (he works away and is only home at weekends) and asked him why on earth she has done this. He said that he has no idea. He also says that he hasn't spoken to her since the incident 5 years ago.

I have checked her profile (as you would) and she only has a handful of friends, which makes me think that she isn't just 'friending' me in order to take her total to 1,000 or some other equally juvenille reason.

I have ignored it. But I really am having to fight the urge to ask her why. I know it is much much much better to just ignore it, but what on earth could she want to say to me? Argh! I fucking hate FB! I just want people to tell me that I'm doing the right thing by maintaining a dignified silence. (I'm really angry now though, it took us a LONG time to get past what had happened and now it's brought it all back)

Delete the request and block her. And ask your DP to do the same.

There is only one way to find out why she would send you a friends request. If you don't want to know why she did, then don't accept. I am not sure I'd be as strong as you...

Delete and block. That is the dignified thing to do. And as your DP is actually no longer friends with her if he hasn't been in contact for ages, ask him to do the same. In fact I'm annoyed he didn't agree to do that at the time! Don't open old wounds if you don't need to.

Nah sorry all I couldn't resist. I'd have accepted, asked her a few q's, got the story straight before blocking and deleting. And I wouldn't have told my OH until AFTER I'd done all that.

Ignore, block and your DH does the same, or there will have to be a discussion as to why. Set your FB privacy to friends only.

What if it was innocent, and the only reason he kept it from you was because he knew how you'd react? What was his explanation of events?

I'd think it was very unlikely that he hadn't spoken to her since 'the incident', especially if they have remained FB friends. That would have been more believable frankly if he had deleted her from FB there and then. Spending the night with a 'friend' you hadn't even met, despite presumably some longevity in your relationship at that point, was odd to begin with; lying about it made it even more suspicious. I also notice you say he works away during the week, so plenty of opportunity for meeting others.

I think you could put your head in the sand about why this woman would contact you out of the blue, or acknowledge that rather than getting over what happened 5 years ago, it has always nagged away at you so that you were never quite sure what happened or why he lied. I'd accept, hear what she has to say (though he might have 'got' to her first now) and if necessary afterwards, block her.

I bit agree with ohdearwhat , but I wouldn't accept her request! I would only send her msg asking who she is if we know each other and get more info from her. After I would delete and ignore her.

The problem is, if I speak to her she can tell me whatever she likes, just like OH can. Then it will be just a case of her word against his. At the moment I am, I agree, a bit head in the sand about it all, but it took a LONG time for us to get past this and get our relationship back on track. I guess this is probably why I have never pushed him to delete, because i dont want to open old wounds, but also because I honestly don't do jealousy. He can be friends with whoever he wants. I just don't do lies either.

If he has been speaking to her for the last five years in secret I can absolutely guarantee he has not been meeting her - I know he works away, but he stays at his parents when he is away and I have a fantastic relationship with them. We speak to each other every night on the phone and I do ring him at random times throughout the day, he's always exactly where he says he is.

When I see him on Friday I am going to ask him to delete her. If there's a problem with it, no doubt I will be back to ask advice as why wouldn't he delete her!?

My FB settings are all very private, but I should imagine that I would still show up as 'people you may know' on her feed. Oh fucking hell, I'm probably being really naive aren't I?

Yes but why would a woman want to tell you lies if she hadn't been in contact with your partner for 5 years? What motive would there be for that?

You could compromise like some have suggested here. Innocently ask her who she is and how you might know her, as her name rings a bell but you're not sure why. Or, if you don't want to show out that you don't know the names of your partner's friends, ask her why she wants to add you, seeing as you've never met?

What was the point of him having her as a friend all these years if they never communicated? Has he never done a FB cull of 'friends' that aren't really 'friends'?

What was his explanation of what happened 5 years ago?

If what he says is true and they haven't been in touch since then, it is a bit odd that she wants to befriend you now. It would be more likely to me that she would get in touch with your dh, as he's the one who was her friend.

You could say, hi there you sent me friends request where do we know each other from.

She was probably stalking your profile and accidently clicked to add friend. Or, she may have something to tell you.

I would accept her too. Though if she wanted to she could have sent you a message without you two actually being Facebook friends. There seems to be much more to this. If the initial incident and lies caused you and OH such trouble then I am very surprised your OH has her on his fb. Does the problem you had with him staying overnight with her predate Facebook? How long have they been fb friends. It all seems a little strange.

Accept the request and see what she does. Why do you feel the need to keep silent? And why do you think she would tell you lies?

Not sure if I'm correct here but is it possible that the request has come from Facebook themselves rather than from her. I often get requests from people I've never heard of but who know 1 person on my list. It may be the "find friends" feature and she may not even know the request has been sent to you. Maybe someone who know more can confirm.

Delete the request. There's no point hearing what she has to say, if anything, as you've already said you wouldn't trust it so no point. Why upset yourself. Need to make sure he deletes her though. No reason for him not to.

I've decided. (That's a very definite full stop)

I'll answer some questions first though, the reason he gave me at the time for secretly meeting her after I found out and went ballistic, was that he 'knew' I'd react like that! After I'd laughed at him and called him a twat he agreed that that wasnt the reason, and he didn't know why he hadn't told me. We were going through a really bad patch at the time, so perhaps he was going to meet her with the hope of sex, maybe they did have sex, maybe they didn't. The fact is that 5 years ago I made the decision to move on from this and this is what I have done. He has done nothing in the last 5 years to make me think that I made the wrong decision.

I don't know what the point is of him having her as a friend as they have not interacted for so long. I will say that he is notoriously shit at keeping in contact with even very good friends of his. They did, prior to us meeting, have a good friendship and shared a hobby. He stopped doing this hobby when we met and I guess they drifted apart (sorry for vagueness, but don't really want to be outed, though I suspect I would be if someone knew me).

I never asked him to delete her from his FB before because why would i? If they wanted to keep in touch secretly then there are a million and one ways that they could do it without me being aware. But as I said before, I made the decision to trust him.

So my decision is. I'm not going to contact her, I'm going to decline the request and get on with the rest of my week. If I message her I believe she will be able to see my 'full' FB and I don't really want her to. I will also ask DP to delete her when I see him on Friday. He has no reason to refuse. SHe has either accidentally added me and he hasnt spoken to her for 5 years so she can go. Or she has added me to shit stir in which case why would you want a friend who was deliberately trying to jeopordise your relationship. If they are in contact he would have to admit this to me as a reason not to delete and then that would be an entirely different conversation..

Thank you all for your advice.

Well done, OP. Only just seen your thread but FWIW I think your analysis is spot on.

I think if you're sure you're the kind of person who can put this out of her head, then that decision might work for you.

Not sure it's a wise one though, sorry.

If you message her or she messages you, without you being Facebook friends, then neither of you can see the other's full page. As long as your privacy settings are set that only friends can see you page.

I still think that your instincts might be tugging at you a little here and that's why you have posted...