Aibu about this...

[Ifyoubuildit]

I have just discovered that my DH meets up with a female work colleague every other day(ish) to walk into the office together.

They don't work directly together but he claims that he needs her insight (she is more senior). This has been going on for a while and I haven't been aware of it even though we commute to the station where he meets her together every day.

He claims it's just a work thing but I think he's hidden it from me and I feel like a mug, even if it is entirely innocent.

Am I being silly?

Honestly this is like paranoid central ! your dh had a colleague he likes and gets on with. He likes to walk in with her, she likes to walk in with him. They text each other to check that each other is around each morning. it's a 20 minute walk made more enjoyable by conversation. At the end of the day he may fancy the pants off her she may feel the same about him. But playing the jealous wife never 'saved' a marriage. If people want to cheat they will cheat. You cannot stop them. The only thing in your power is you ! I am very long in the tooth now but having been cheated on and the cheater my only advice is that jealousy and paranoia are deeply unattractive traits in either sex. Trust is what it's all about, if you have reason to mistrust then it's time to go.

How on earth have we now decided that this woman's marriage could be going through a rough patch and she could relying on this friendship too much?

Bloody hell!

How about she's single, hotter than any woman you've ever known, and begs him for sex in that 20 mins with no come backs...

He can still say NO.

There is NOTHING wrong with regularly meeting a colleague / friend of the same sex, and even in not mentioning it to your partner - as long as it's not deliberately hidden, it's just not interesting.

When I was married, there were texts on my phone "hi Andy - I'm in the Ibis Tue-Thu if you fancy work out company this week?" Yes, we have SWUM together. I wore a bikini!!!
My husband wasn't in the least bit interested in how I filled the time.

Incidentally, my EX husband was the cheat.

I'm not criticising the OP - gut instincts can very often be correct. Listen to them. But look at your WHOLE relationship.

With regards to texting a colleague to check if they want to walk in together - even regularly - no biggie.

So did you point out to him that all this time when he's been 'telling you everything he's done at work', which is his habit, he's not ONCE mentioned 'Oh I've been walking to work with X the last few days, that's been really useful actually, she's been really helping me with X and X and it's nice to have company on the way in.' Or even 'I meet up with X now on the way out of the station, which is nice'.

He is generally informative about his day, but doesn't tell you about a daily meeting, which the other person texts about?!

That is DELIBERATELY omitting, and to try and pretend otherwise is making a fool of you.

Once again, the question is - why omit?

If the answer is 'I didn't' - that's a lie.

Mortified? Not very it seems - 'you're paranoid'??

No. Not ok.

And this friendship is not a secret - OP started by saying she knows about the friendship, just not the walking in together.

Women are not general paranoid for no reason. I'll repeat my previous advice - don't get bogged down in the walk to work, think about your whole relationship. What else is going on, not going on, has changed etc that means you're feeling vulnerable about this?

I probably haven't said enough, that I really feel for you.
It's horrible when you don't trust something, been there done it got the divorce (appropriate in my case).

It's such a bloody minefield

I haven't read all of the replies so apologies if anybody has said anything similar. My work car park is a 10 minute walk away and in the winter, I tend to walk up and down with a male colleague as we work similar hours as the walk in the dark through an undesirable area can feel threatening.

And therefore we tend to in summer too. It'd be weird to tell him to bugger off when it's light enough for me to feel safe.

I'm sure there's no bad intentions.

So he's getting angry with you for pulling him up on the ongoing lying by omission? Not great.

The issue isn't whether the friendship is or isn't innocent, it's the lies - the DH has deliberately not told his DW about this regular arrangement, and is how angry with her for questioning this and making out that she's being unreasonable.

Crikey, it would never have occurred to me to mention this to my DW. If im talking to someone about what's going on at work for 20 mins every morning the interesting things that I want to discuss with her are the things going on at work we talked about.

Id better go home and tell DW about every woman ive ever spoken too.

no, but she'd be rightly if like this DH you had a longstanding female friend and colleague, were seeing her frequently and never "happened to mention it".

For those of you that think you'd definitely mention it...
How often do you tell your partner who you had lunch with in the office canteen?

I might say to my XH (when he was my H!) "I was talking to Andy today - Andy, you know, Andy from my team? - anyway, and his daughter just made the England U14 football squad - how cool is that?!"
But I doubt I'd say it with "when I was at lunch with Andy and btw we choose to lunch together about 3x a week".

Tbh, if I personally did that, it would be because I was attempting to hide in plain sight.

Yes, emotional attachments can development. But in 25 years at work I have never developed from friendship to fancy. I just don't work like that. In all my relationships I go from zero to hero If I got on with a male colleague, I wouldn't think twice about protecting myself from falling for him.