On behalf of friend - DH in love with another woman but not having an affair

[SignYourName]

I’m writing this on behalf of my friend with her knowledge and permission who for her own reasons doesn’t want to join MN but is desperate for some outside perspective as she doesn’t know what to think. The level of detail has been approved by her.

She has been with her DH for 10 years and they have one DC. Before he met her, he had a comparatively short but apparently very intense relationship with a woman he met when they started working together, which ended due to circumstances outside their control (I don’t know the details) but which I understand was a “reluctant” parting rather than the relationship fizzling out or one treating the other badly. I knew my friend back then and can remember when she met him and he certainly was quite angry – not violent or even angry at my friend in particular, more at the world in general. TBH I didn’t like him very much when they first got together; she was one of a succession of rebound relationships from what I could see and I didn’t think he appreciated her enough for what she was.

My friend got pregnant accidentally not long after they started seeing each other. Their relationship was quite rocky for a while and there were spells when it looked as though she would be a single parent. She had a very traumatic and painful birth and extremely bad PND, and to be fair he absolutely grew up and stepped up. Once the baby was here he seemed to fall in love with being a dad and he was extremely supportive of and caring towards my friend and it seemed to strengthen their relationship quite significantly. They ended up getting married about a year later.

Shortly after they married, his ex (who was still working for the same employer albeit at a different site) made contact as she was in a position to rekindle their relationship. My friend says that was quite a difficult time as her DH obviously still had feelings for his ex, but to be fair again, it seems that as soon as the latter knew he was married now she backed off. She started seeing someone some time later.

Meanwhile he and his ex were both making good careers for themselves in their related fields. Their area of expertise is quite specialised so over time – starting about 5/6 years ago – they have had to work together on various projects. My friend made a point of meeting her and ensuring she (friend) was included in any socialising if the ex was seconded to the DH’s branch and says she is actually a genuinely nice person. Friend’s DH and ex have kept in touch ever since the first joint project, and have remained in touch despite ex having left the original company to run her own consultancy. The DH has never been possessive about his phone or tried to hide their regular but not excessively frequent contact or anything like that. My friend has seen some of their emails over the years and they seem to be just chatty and often mostly about work or former colleagues etc. She has been engaged as consultant by friend’s DH’s sister company and they are going to be working on a project again starting soon for three months, and she will be staying in a hotel near where my friend lives. So far, so similar, friend had no concerns other than knowing the ex is now single, but given her previous respect for their marriage even that wasn’t a real issue.

At the weekend, my friend found (she wasn’t snooping – she was looking for something she’d put away in a safe place) what turned out to be a sort of journal/diary of her DH’s. She knows she was wrong to do so but she read it, and it is what she described to me as “a paean of love” for his ex. It spans several months up to very recently so she is fairly sure it is still in use and practically every entry apparently reads as a variation of him yearning for his ex – analysing their contact, commenting on her appearance in Facebook pictures, noting how certain songs or poems remind him of her etc. She read enough to satisfy herself that they are not having an affair, nor does he appear to be actively planning one, and it doesn’t even look as though the ex knows the extent of his feelings; there is no evidence to suggest any contact my friend doesn't know about or any complicity on the part of the ex. Nevertheless he is investing a huge amount of emotional energy on another woman but, bizarrely, without her apparent knowledge either. My friend understandably feels knocked for six but unsure of what, if anything, to do. She feels upset and angry but she doesn’t know if that’s unreasonable when it’s because of feelings that he isn’t acting upon. I feel quite helpless to advise her as I can see her point – ideally he wouldn’t be thinking about his ex romantically at all (and certainly not spending time writing it all down!) but from what she says about the things he has written, he genuinely doesn’t seem to have any intention of acting on his feelings. He just seems to have cast himself in the part of tragic star-crossed lover stoically making the best of life in his own little private fantasy. But it feels very wrong to me on a basic level and I'd be devastated if I found anything similar by my own DH.

Help, wise women of Mumsnet…

[AnyFucker]

Grr, wouldn't it be great if there was a temporary edit feature ?

[SignYourName]

I think she hopes if he will agree to (solo) counselling, it's a sign that he is prepared to heed the wake-up call, put his ex behind him and commit to his marriage and family wholeheartedly.

She knows it's not how I would deal with it, but I don't want to fall out with her over it because if things do go tits up, she will need support.

[AnyFucker]

Gosh no, don't fall out with her.

[Twinklestein]

I think your friend is in denial, I guess she was in denial at the time she got knocked up and she's still in denial now. I do not think you can forge a family with someone who is in love with someone else. You can't force someone to love you.