I have name changed for this.
Over the last 5 years or so, DH's friendship with a female friend has caused so many arguments between us. I don't have a problem with him having female friends - he has many others - but this one has felt off from the beginning.
He admitted that she had had feelings for him at the beginning but he told her he was married and not interested and that she no longer felt that way and they are just friends.
She has always been single and has few friends her own age, but seems to gravitate towards befriending much older men. DH is nearly 20 years older than her. Usually the friendships don't last long as she bombards them with texts and they find her too intense, or their wives/partners object.
I have endured years of gossip, with many people thinking they are a couple because of how much time they socialise together and how they act with each other. DH's response was that I should just ignore it.
I also found flirty messages between them on DH's phone which he dismissed as being out of context.
When they first became friends she was quite young for her age so she looked up to him as being worldly wise. She would always go to him for advice and I think his ego just lapped up the attention.
I told him how uncomfortable I was with this friendship - the constant texts, the inappropriateness of the texts, the amount of time spent together, the gossip, the dynamic of their friendship etc - but he accused me of trying to control who he's friends with.
I genuinely don't think they are more than friends. He has been cheated on in the past and has very strong views on people who cheat.
We went to counselling for a couple of years ago because it was causing so many rows and the counsellor agreed with him, so this strengthened his argument that I am controlling and should back off. At this point I did not know about the flirty messages so this may have changed her view, but he doesn't accept this. I was shocked that a counsellor would side with any party as I thought they should be objective and it's put me off seeking further counselling.
Last year he announced plans to go on holiday with her and another (male) friend. I said I wasn't happy with that and it caused a huge row. He said he would do it but lie about it and it was my fault for making him lie. I was basically looking at a future where I couldn't trust him and I felt like the friendship was escalating even further, so I decided to end things. It had all got too much, I felt like her friendship was more important than our marriage to the point where he was prepared to lie.
We separated but, long story short, he said he would sever all contact with her because he loved me, valued our marriage etc so we got back together because I loved him and wanted a future with him.
You can see where this is going. He did not sever all contact, he just reduced a lot of it. It was a huge improvement though and things were a lot better, but I still had that nagging feeling of mistrust.
Fast forward to yesterday when I found out he had just been on holiday with her and another friend. I confronted him and he denied it - point blank lied to my face. When he realised he had been caught out he then said it was my fault for making him lie.
I told him I'd had enough and I wanted a divorce. He is swinging between saying he wants a divorce too as he's sick of my controlling ways and saying he wants to fix things.
I don't see how we can move past this at all. We've tried before and failed.
I don't even know what I'm asking here. I guess an outside view would be helpful to work out if I'm doing the right thing. Does this justify ending a marriage with someone I love? Is there a way forward or should we just accept that it's never going to work?
Sorry for the long post (didn't want to drip feed) and thank you for reading.