DH slept in same bed as another woman - would you be annoyed?

[onesiebore]

DH was away with work this week for a night and since he's been home he's been a bit odd - a little jumpy and quieter than normal. I asked if something was wrong and he said there was something that he felt I should know but he didn't think I'd be very happy about it although he hadn't done anything.

He'd already told me that his colleague Beth had had to leave early as her Dad had died suddenly while they were away and last night he said that he'd ended up staying in her room to make sure she was ok. Apparently she'd found out when they'd been drinking, had gone to bed upset (had been drinking and couldn't drive), he went to check on her and she'd asked him to stay. He swears nothing happened other than giving her a hug and sleeping next to her.

I believe him that nothing else happened but still feel uneasy about it

what I find rather sad is that people would rather believe the worst of someone than believe that there are basically decent people out there who do thing while, which perhaps misguided, are entirely innocent and with the best intentions. To the extent that people have actually gone so far as to suggest the bereavement could have been made up in order to facilitate this (although not sure why the woman would have had to leave early then though?)

The idea offered by some that the man is only offering this explanation because he might have been seen just isn't plausible either though, and tbh I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned further up this thread. Some posters said that the op's dh could have just slept on the floor/in a chair if he'd felt the need to stay. Well if he'd needed to justify staying do people really think that he would have owned up to sleeping in the woman's bed? He could have said he had slept on the floor/in a chair and the op wouldn't have been any the wiser, nobody would. So why would he need to tell the op he had slept in the woman's bed when it wasn't likely to become public knowledge any other way? Fact is he didn't.

Although I suspect that if the op had posted that her dh had spent the night in the woman's room albeit on the floor the all-men-are-bastards brigade would have said that he was lying and that of course he slept in her bed, and shagged her, having just helped her to concoct the fake death of her father.

OPs use of the word uneasy is a red flag to me and she posts she believes him when he says nothing else happens but by voicing this and posting her concerns here then she is uneasy and also doubtful of what went on and what could go on.

In a sense this has opened a can of worms as OP has now heard affair horror stories and I can imagine if it were me I'd still deep down have my doubts.

But as others have said its a public forum.

Having said this I hope wake up call for both parties to wife to open her eyes and husband to stop if he were up do anything else or think twice before sharing/comforting Beth or other female colleague in future.

Why is he STILL saying she didn't pick up the phone (as a reason to go to her room)?

She DID pick up the phone. You have seen his call log which tells you a 20 second conversation happened. If voicemail picked up, you only need 1 or 2 seconds to realise they haven't picked up, not 20 seconds. So of the only thing you can check for sure - you know he's lying.

I would not care whether he shagged this woman or he didn't. He crossed a line when he got in to bed and 'slept' with her IMO.

I once (years ago) spent the night with an ex when he had that day lost his father. We were in bed together but did not sleep. We talked. We cried. We kissed. We made love.

Sleep was the last thing on our minds.

Umm, I've slept with male friends loads of times ... and this was before I was old & ugly! It mostly happened when a bunch of us had got drunk & tired.

What happened with OP's husband is different, and I feel strongly that there is a risk to their marriage in the colleague's weak boundaries - as I posted. But I'm really fed up with reading that men only ever get into bed with women in order to shag them. It's pathetic, insulting to both sexes, and kind of sleazy - as if the only reason for men & women to be friendly is to have sex.

I just feel the unusual circumstances around this event do explain what happened, and he seemed pretty keen to get it off his chest. As long as this honesty - and much more caution around the bereaved coworker - is maintained, there's no reason why they shouldn't be fine.

I'm with curlew etc. and suprised there are so few of us. Thinking about it some more, I think possibly the majority of men wouldn't be comfortable acting as the op's dh did unless there was an attraction / something inapproprite going on. Many posts saying posters dh's and friends say so support this. But, even if he is a minority, I can imagine my dh acting as the op's did.
I think, for the majority, the scenario doesn't ring true, while for a minority of us its entirely plausible. Op, you know your dh and seem to believe him. I would trust my dh in a similar situation.

I missed out a few pages in the middle but all I can add is that the night I was told my Dad had died over the phone too far away for me to do anything, the last thing on my mind was a shag. Dh wasn't home so a friend came round and sat with me for the 4 hours it took for dh to get back.

I don't know the Op's dh. I have skipped through the thread so could well have missed crucial details. But I think it plausible that he stayed in her room, in/on her bed with nothing untoward happening on that night.

I could also imagine dh being in that situation and me feeling hurt and angry BUT I trust dh not to shag any female he meets, regardless if their beauty.

When I heard my Dad had died all I wanted was to go home.

Not one person in the entire world would have been a comfort to me. (I would say here apart from my DH but my DH was crap anyway).

I would not have sought the company of anyone for consolation because no one could have made it better.

I cannot envisage having to spend the night in the same bed as a work colleague! No matter how much I was grieving.

I do not think that I am unusual in this!

If I had wanted company it would only be with someone I was very close to.

So?

But that's you. We've had other posters admitting they would have taken comfort from whoever was available. Just because someone makes different choices to you, it doesn't make their behaviour suspicious.

Look. If your husband spends the night in bed in a hotel room with a young attractive woman, it is possible that he did not shag her. But it is probable that he did.

Also, I agree with the poster who said that there is a huge red flag in the husband saying he couldn't stop going to lunch with this woman because 'that might seem odd to her.' Boundaries are being crossed here, whether you want to see it or not.

Don't panic OP, but do follow your gut.

The point I would like to make is that there is a long and slippery slope before 'anything happens'. So this thread is trying to work out 'what happened' and you will never know.

What is more important is to understand that he is on that slope, and to develop a huge backbone. The plus in this? He told you - that means he is still connected to you. He was shifty - that means he is troubled and concerned.

So look him calmly in the eye and tell him he is on a knife edge. That you will not tolerate at all ANY betrayal or disrespect at all, and if he chooses to turn to someone else for emotional comfort, fun or sex he really really is choosing not to have a wife and family any more.

Make this crystal clear NOW. Ask him to live somewhere else for a couple of days because you need some space to think.

Then, when he comes back you can talk about how the arrival of children has pushed him to the side etc. Men feel a lot more jealous and abandoned than women will admit to.

oh flipping hec. I'm a man and I have slept in the same bed as women I know loads of times without having sex

Looks like the OP has gone now. Most sensible if she wants to put this behind her and move on, I reckon. And then that kind of makes other people offering her advice a bit pointless really.

'I am really sorry this has happened, but I had better say goodnight now. Call me if you need anything.'

At the point at which he chose not to say the above, his boundaries and priorities were all skewed.

I think that is the point which you need to address.

I can say without hesitating that my husband or I would stay in the same room as someone grieving who did not want to be alone whether they were 'male' or 'ugly'

Are these really things you judge in such situations?

With the greatest of respect, this thread isn't about you, -

I understand that, Curlew, but what you are doing is denying and minimising the experience of the people here who you regard as frightful cynics, maybe because it is inconvenient to you?

I truly envy your secure relationship with your H. You are so lucky and how I wish I had that. But maybe your comments [people who are mistrusting have a problem/the way you look at it is a problem] are also all about you.

Just sayin'. We don't suck these boundary issues out of our thumbs you know. We also were in happy and stable marriages once.

well you need to take your own advice. This thread is not about you either and actually, some of us would rather live in a reality where we implicitly trust our husbands until given cause not to, rather than imagine that they are doing the dirty all the time.

My point was that not all people have such narrow views, my husband would stay close to anyone who needed him while grieving, as would I. We are not, I'm sure, unique in that respect.

Personally, as a happily married woman with a wonderful husband, I want to enjoy the knowledge that he loves me and would not cheat on me. If it come to the stage that I have to accept he has cheated on me, then I will deal with that emotion but right now I am enjoying this one.

There is no need to put all marriage in the same box just because yours did or didn't work out. It's a bit like first becoming a mum, you think you've got everything all prepared and all that you need and that nothing you bought will be pointless and it's a nice feeling. Even when you've realised that half the shit you bought is pointless and you are trying to understand the crazy little beast, you have still enjoyed those moments of thinking you've sussed it.

This has been one of the most anti-male threads I have read on this forum, there is no need, 'all men' are no more the same as 'all women' are.

There is nothing here that is anti male - ridiculous to suggest it.
Dh would be hurt, suspicious but mostly utterly mystified if I decided to share a bed with a grieving male colleague.

Also the idea that people don't shag when they're bereaved is ridiculous too. Some don't want to - some really do.

Oh it is very anti male, pages and pages of discussion about how 'a male' would react or how 'a male' would only comfort someone young, pretty and female. I could go on.

The boundaries issue is a different one, different marriages have different boundaries and if this is something the op is (understandably) really upset by then a clear boundary can be put in place encompassing in-work relationships and the levels they reach. But assuming he has absolutely cheated on her when we have no idea, saying that people 'know the signs because they have been through affairs' etc is nothing but scare mongering. We don't know this man so cannot judge based on this one incident.

How is it anti- male to say that he has crossed boundaries here? That is what most posters have said and he has.

calling 'man hater' whenever women raise the bar is so easy. Most husbands would be put out if their wives spent the night in another man's bed. Most men married or unmarried wouldn't lie beside another man all night to comfort him in his distress. and as a poster upthread said, I'd bet a vital organ that he wouldn't have done it if she had been overweight, older, and unattractive. So it wasn't her distress that made him stay. Whatever the posters calling man-hater might cry it's not an unreasonable thing to ask is it ? that your husband remember he's married.

Re read my post, I specifically talk about boundaries and there is no point repeating it when you could just read it properly.