I've invited the OW for dinner - mistake?

[youvegotmail]

Brief background, altho I have posted about this before - my husband has become good friends with a woman at work. They work in different offices in different parts of country but for same company. He trained her etc which is how they met and they meet up with work eveyr month or so. They share a hobby in common and always go to lunch or for drinks when she's across at his office. She's a lot younger than him and is really stunning looking. She is married with children (as are we!) I've been very jealous of her and anxious about how much hubby seems to like her. He emails her several times a day including when at home and basically none of it is work related, just chat. He said he likes her tons and they are good friends. I've snooped a lot and never found anything dodge but all the chat seems a bit flirty to me not because they are explicity flirting but because they so clearly like each other and bounce mails back and forth. Not texts as far as I can see although hubs says they chat on the phone at work a bit.

Anyway, I've met her a few times at social events but I've kind of snubbed her and not been very friendly. Hubby mentioned that she and her husband and kids are coming to our area during half term to see friends and I've invited them all for dinner. I'm doing it as I want to see her and hubby together and I also want to get to know her. Feel if I can make it all 'above board' with us all friendly together, it will take any excitement out of it for them, or mamke it less likely to develop into something.

I'm worried now though as since they accepted the invite hubby has been bouncing around like an excited puppy. He even talked about what he's planning to wear?! I worry I'm facilitating something I should be shutting down. Should I cancel?

Good luck tonight Youvegotmail, I hope your fears are allayed as my friend's wife's were.

We don't know the motives of the woman- she may just be enjoying the banter and the ego-boost of his interest in her, especially if he's more senior at work; it's very validating.

It's almost irrelevant though, as the OP's husband is causing damage to what should be his primary relationship by belittling his wife's concerns and pouring the banter and best of himself, which used to be the way he interacted with her, into someone who fundamentally shouldn't be as important to him.

He is in danger of creating a permanent emotional rift with his wife and putting a strain on their marriage without seeming to notice, because he isn't listening.

Can you imagine any woman posting on here saying that her husband disapproved of a friendship and had put a stop to it? They would be told in no uncertain terms how controlling the h was and to ltb.

I agree that affairs can happen, and that sometimes it is naivety that leads people to a place where they end up at a point of no return, however just because someone has a close friendship with someone of the opposite sex does not mean that an affair is inevitable. If someone chats/emails/texts a lot with a friend of the same sex no-one bats an eyelid. It is perfectly possible to do the same with someone of the opposite sex and it to be equally innocent, and this notion that people should never have friendships with others of the opposite sex is actually quite damaging IMO.

I also don’t agree that just because a friendship makes someone uncomfortable that it is inappropriate, after all where does that end? I agree that if someone has reservations/insecurities about a friendship, and wonder whether it is/has the potential to go too far that these should be voiced and addressed, I also believe that you should never put yourself in a position where you might be vulnerable to an affair (my belief is that anyone is potentially vulnerable to an affair in the right circumstances), but I don’t agree that the person conducting the friendship should necessarily feel they have to end it/step back just because their partner doesn’t like it.

And as much as an affair can cause the death of a relationship, so can deep, invalid insecurity. There is nothing worse than being on the other end of unfounded jealousy/insecurity/paranoya.

I have always had lots of male friends. I have never had the inclination to sleep with any of them. Three years ago I began supporting a friend through a very difficult time, life-changing surgery which could have altered his life dramatically if it had gone wrong. We were friends, nothing more. He is a lovely person and we got on well, but I would never have entered into a relationship with him even if I had been single. I was absolutely up-front about everything with my dh, but this wasn’t enough. My dh became very insecure/paranoid about this friendship. I will add at this point that this was also at a time when I was seeking to make changes in my own life, e.g. going back to work etc which also fuelled my h’s insecurities.

Me being up-front about things just wasn’t enough. My h decided he had to snoop to find out more. He hacked into my emails/twitter accounts/checked my phone/put some kind of keylogger on my computer to try to check up on me. He gaslighted me into thinking I was being caught out at something, when I went out for a drink with said friend (all public, above board) he told me we had been seen in a pub, even mentioned the name of said pub, turned out he had tracked my phone through iTunes but led me to believe that we had been seen by someone who was concerned and had called him to catch me out. He accused me of being in love with this friend because I had mentioned his name in a dream (something which I obviously had no knowledge of nor could I defend myself against). These are all things which are regularly suggested on here to women who suspect their h’s of cheating, which while in isolation are understandable, conducted on a long-term scale when there is no evidence are not, and when you are on the receiving end and are innocent are very damaging to your relationship and your perception of your partner’s trust in you.

I hadn’t done anything wrong. I reassured him over and over and over again that there was nothing going on nor would there ever be. Should I have ended the friendship? No i don’t think I should – why? As it turned out all the insecurity did lead me to step back from it a lot because every time I spoke to this friend it caused issues and I just couldn’t carry on like that. But I wasn’t the one in the wrong.

Now, there were since other issues but suffice to say my h is now my xh, and I still wouldn’t sleep with my friend.

Op – your dh is being up-front with you about his communication with this woman. If he was having the same conversations about a male friend you wouldn’t have an issue with it. He isn’t hiding anything from you. Your thoughts that he must be attracted to her because of how attractive she is are your thoughts and have no bearing on what your dh is thinking. She is married with children and she is not hiding that.

Don’t make your insecurities be the reason your marriage ends up in a difficult place, because believe me, if you don’t trust him and there is no reason not to you will drive him away.

.

Oh and she is not the ow, and it's pretty nasty too suggest that she is given you have no evidence of any wrong-doing.

I can totally see how destructive that is, Wannabe- that sounds very damaging too. There are differences though (insofar as we can know from what the OP has posted), as it really doesn't seem like the husband here is engaging at all with his wife's concerns beyond being defensive and belittling. The scale and amount of contact here seems excessive by the standards of any friendship though, and it's rather disrespectful and hurtful to be as dismissive as he is about the impact of his excitable puppy behaviour on his wife and their marriage.

I do agree with that bof but then I guess it depends on how insecure the op is generally. There is only so much reassuring someone can do before it becomes tiresome, especially if you've done nothing wrong.

In this instance the op's dh is being transparent and that in itself should act as reassurance, iyswim.

I agree with you in principle, absolutely, but I just can't get my head round the whole 'several emails a day' and 'Ooh, what shall I wear?' stuff: it seems completely excessive and, well, odd for a totally platonic relationship. That's what makes me feel he's being disingenuous about his motives.

yes "what shall I wear" seems a bit pathetic I do agree.

wannabe - the OP said (I think) that she isn't normally insecure. I think that is significant.

The 'what will I wear thing' is odd, but as with all of these types of things its just a snippet - so if the OP's DP is generally like this, ie on any other night out would talk about what he was going to wear then it's not that odd. But we don't know if he is like that.

OP, your feelings are what they are. Instincts exist to protect us.

I don't know if inviting her was a good move or not, but I would feel the same unease as you do.

There is nothing wrong with friendship, and there is nothing wrong with having a crush on someone other than your spouse (if you have your eyes wide open and don't act on it).
But there are alarm bells ringing in my ears when reading just how much attention your dh pays this women and despite you voicing your concern still doesn't seem to realise that it is harmful to your relationship.

I think he has a crush and doesn't realise it. It may be that she is entirely unaware, but I doubt it.
Good luck.

"Can you imagine any woman posting on here saying that her husband disapproved of a friendship and had put a stop to it? They would be told in no uncertain terms how controlling the h was and to ltb."

I don't believe that's true at all. If any woman was posting on here about a new friendship, they email loads and loads of times through out the day and evening, they meet up regularly too, and her husband was feeling uncomfortable about it, most people would suggest she looked at herself, and tried to work out what its really about, and, if it's the first time he was being like this in a long relationship, then at least give his point of view some sincere consideration.

I agree with that Thisis.

As I agree that there's a fair chance this is a very one-sided crush on the husband's part and this colleague isn't interested in an affair. I doubt it hasn't occurred to her he might have a crush though, or that this is problematical to his wife given the OP's behaviour towards her on the occasions they've met. I'm sure she's not that stupid or unobservant.

But as I've said several times now, I don't think this woman in particular is the threat.

The husband is.

He's said his friend 'isn't that pretty' and that he doesn't need to do anything active to prevent this becoming an affair.

He might not get the chance if this woman isn't interested.

But he might in the future.

In fact I think it's very likely because as we can all testify I presume, crushes are invigorating and that probably explains his 'puppy like' behaviour at the moment. This is possibly making him feel good about himself and it's a feeling he could get addicted to or not want to give up in a hurry.

So it's very likely in my view there'll be other women he'll try to replicate this with. And he'll do the same faux naive bullshit about them being 'not his type' or 'not that pretty' and reassure himself and his wife that he doesn't need to put any safeguards in place and drinks outside of work, coffees and lunches and even business trips overnight are just fine because he won't fall inside their vaginas.

Maybe no-one will let him, but if the OP has got to cross her fingers and hope that all women he meets in the future are more boundaried than him, that's effectively passing the responsibility for the fidelity in this marriage to third parties.

So I think this woman is a complete red herring and there's a good chance the OP will be falsely relieved at the end of tonight's dinner and think the danger has passed.

But in my view she'd be kidding herself because the danger is not in this woman, but in her husband.

And in case anyone missed me saying it upthread and I'm being lumped in with Cronullansaw's victims of shitty behaviour who project - that doesn't apply to me either. A poster also asked CFD for her life experience, possibly because CFD was offering her own advice as a counterbalance to posters who she said, had no first-hand experience.

So I've got no problem admitting on a forum that I've been married with children for a great many years and that because DH and I have always worked and made men and women friends easily, we've both got experience of having to put up a few barriers in some of them to avert trouble. I doubt declaring that sort of 'experience' will out me to randoms on the internet because well... I'm just not that paranoid .

The thing to remember is though, even if your husband is making a bit of a fool of himself, she may not be remotely interested beyond a friendship, if that. Workplace flirting can be just that, nothing more (even though it is clear your husband's overenthusiasm suggests he has contemplated more).

I remember going to a work's do at someone's house many years ago (when I was young and attractive) and a colleague's wife getting quite drunk and basically warning me off with (not) hilarious comments about how she hoped I realised there were lots of young girls in the office over the years and her husband was a married man etc. It was mortifying as I wouldn't have touched her husband with a bargepole!

So- retain your dignity and don't assume this woman is after your man. Your husband's puppy-like devotion is a slightly different issue.

I don't think whether SHE's after him HIM has any relevance to to any of this. Too many people are picking this up like it's important.

It's HIS behaviour that's the problem here. He's behaving like a love-sick teen IN FRONT OF HIS WIFE. And then dismissing her concerns about it. How would he feel if his wife behaved like this? If she developed a new, intense friendship, with a man 20 years younger, and was more interested in him than her own husband?

How anyone can not see that this is demeaning, disrespectful behaviour is beyond me.

Yes, it does have relevance- she's invited this woman to her house to see how she interacts with her husband! I would hate to go round to someone's house under these circumstances. I think the Op has to be careful that while she is rightly annoyed with her husband, that she doesn't make a fool of herself in front of this woman and her husband especially as she hasn't found any evidence of anything except some emails which are frequent but not referencing any relationship. She is pissed off her husband is bouncing round like a puppy and asking what to wear, but that is his issue, not the work colleagues.

I would not go ahead with this anyway, I would plead illness, but if it does go ahead, she needs to be normal and pleasant, and not looking daggers/asking the lady's husband about their relationship. This has no good outcome- if they are having an affair, they will hide it and she will look bonkers, and if they are not, she will still look bonkers and jealous. The only way forward is to be nice and friendly, even if you can't manage genuine.

OP, will you update after this evening?

Hope all goes well and you get the outcome you're hoping for.

I think you all scared the OP off

I'm sure I read further up that the meal is tonight, so good luck (if that's even the right phrase) I hope it all puts your mind at ease seeing them together.

Ha! Didn't manage the bold. You get the picture.

I'm off to bed - to mull over the night's proceedings in my head and wish that I hadn't logged on here to that horrible post, so that I could have got some more wise support.

Take no notice of her youvegotmail. Nobody else is.

How did it go? I'm up and scoffing toast if you feel up to letting us know.

Mail, glad you're back. This thread is a bit mad, but the whole site has gone mad this evening. Ignore Charity, I've reported her post.

So, how did it go?

The site has gone crazy tonight.

Come back and let us know what happened OP. We do care and fwiw I would be furious if my dh was like this.

OP I think it's fairly clear most people here eyerolled so heavily they were seeing the back of the sockets with those posts. Just don't let it get to you.

Again, I hope you're feeling okay.