should I accept him being friendly with this woman in the light their history

[islandparadise1]

Hi -apologies in advance for any typos -doing this at high speed.
Last year my husband had a relationship with a woman connected with his hobby and I became very angry and unhappy about it. Nothing physical - I am quite sure about that and I am quite certain he is not in any way attracted to her. What this was about is the fact she was as obsessive about his hobby as he was. Found out they'd had a correspondence which was secretive and painted me in a negative light - as someone who was holding him back from hobby. Also found evidence that he had done things/ gone places to suit her even though he knew they were totally contrary to our plans as a family/ couple. I did not know about her role in that at the time.
Anyway when i discovered this and the fact that he lied about something i hit the roof. He essentially dropped her and scaled back a lot on time spent on hobby - all good. This was about 8/9 months ago.
I know that she continues to text him sometimes and asked him not to reply. he did have one lapse because he thought it looked too rude but I made it clear i was not happy and then I believe he did not engage with her for ages.
Anyway very recently I have reason to believe he has started engaging with her again - this would be about the shared hobby. The logistics of the hobby means he now sees her quite regularly, albeit in a large group, whereas for a while he barely did. I suspect he is finding it harder to ignore her communications because he would then have to face her - if you see what I mean. Or maybe he thinks so much time has passed that it is okay to be mildly friendly now. Who knows.
He is away at the moment but when he returns at the end of the week I am going to have to decide what stance to take on this. I can't leave it as it will eat away at me.I really don't want him to have anything to do with her - but perhaps I am over the top saying he can never communicate with her. Should I try to be okay with them being mildly friendly and just monitor it?. I am not comfortable with the whole thing but am afraid of my requests to continue stonewalling her being seen as over the top. When I challenged the behavior last time round i am sure I was justified though had a hard time persuading him of that. But this time I don't think there is anything to worry about in itself - it is more of a matter of going against my wishes if that makes sense. So should I just let it lie?
Thoughts appreciated.

Forgot to mention that I am fairly sure that the woman is on the autistic spectrum if that makes a difference to anyone’s perception of the situation

So all they communicate about is their hobby? If so, I think you're being too controlling about it.

So he had a platonic friendship with a woman about a shared hobby. You are certain there's no physical or emotional attraction but you decided you weren't happy with him being friends with this woman so you threw a strop about it? I'm not sure whether I've interpreted your post correctly but it sounds as though you're being very controlling and jealous about something when there's no need.

And what's her being on the autistic spectrum got to do with anything?

Okay my original message was done at speed and it was only the briefest outline
We have been married for a long time and both have friends of the opposite sex
He regularly goes abroad with female colleagues- no issue with this
Had no issue with this woman at all originally until I realised he was mentioning her on a daily basis with no good reason- not something he has ever done before
At the same time he became at best withdrawn and moody - and sometimes aggressive and unpleasant towards me and the family
In fact sometimes acting like a total cunt towards me and our sons
He threw some flowers at me in Valentine’s Day and then spent the evening looking at photos on his phone she had sent him
Spent our anniversary at an event with her
Drove her to a fixture and lied about it although at that point I had given him no idea I was suspicious
I could go on
Anyway the reason I stressed in my brief outline that it wasn’t physical is that I am reasonably sure that is the case.
So I want to know that given that I don’t think they had an actual affair- do people think I am unreasonable about still feeling uncomfortable

Honestly he sounds like a right knob!
I wouldn’t be able to forgive the slagging you off to someone let alone the lies!
He’s treated you badly. Is he remorseful about any of this?

There are a few separate issues going on here:

His aggression:

At the same time he became at best withdrawn and moody - and sometimes aggressive and unpleasant towards me and the family
In fact sometimes acting like a total cunt towards me and our sons

There is no excuse for acting like this.

His dishonesty:

Drove her to a fixture and lied about it

Also found evidence that he had done things/ gone places to suit her even though he knew they were totally contrary to our plans as a family/ couple

Also unacceptable.

If you are so sure there is nothing physical/emotional going on, it begs the question why he's so insistent on ignoring your wishes and continuing to communicate with her?

Regarding the comment above about YOU being controlling etc, I think it's fair enough to expect your husband not to lie and sneak around for his hobby. It's called him having a total lack of respect for you.

Yes - he it took him a long time to see my point that he’d done anything wrong- but yes he did become sorry and as I said for quite a long time now he has massively scaled back the hobby/ obsession and we have been getting on well.
He is not normally unpleasant but he has form for having obsessive interests which he gets totally tunnel vision about
For instance with this one he went from zero interest- even taking the piss out of people who did it - to spending every waking moment and lots of annual leave and money on it

It doesn't matter if there is or has ever been anything physical going on or that the contact itself is just about a hobby. The important facts are that he has lied to you about spending time with her or doing things for her, spent significant dates with her rather than you and bad-mouthed you to her. They are not the actions of a respectful partner. If this is the kind of behaviour that he thinks is justified or necessary in order to maintain his friendship with this woman, then I can completely understand why you would want him to break contact with her. And if it's behaviour that he thinks is generally acceptable, I'd be reevaluating my opinion of - and relationship with - him.

Why are you so sure there has been nothing physical?

The problem you have is your husband lying to you, not his involvement with her. Assume it's something like going to football, if so and they are active fans who go to a lot of matches you can't control who he is going to see. Most of the men I go to football with, regardless of age, relationship status, etc will sacrifice all sorts of family events if it clashes with a game. You're not his keeper so I'm not sure what you can do about it, but you need to address it without bringing her into the equation. If she wasn't there he'd probably still put the fixture first. Was he into it when you got together or is this a recent thing?

To be fair he has accepted and complied with my wishes for a long time now- for about 8 or 9 months he has ignored her.
The reason I mentioned her autism is to give a flavour of how obsessive she is.
She lives and breathes this hobby- makes my husband’s interest pale by comparison
If anyone talks about anything else when they are out she either literally shouts over them or sits with her back turned until they stop
So she can’t seem to stop herself contacting him about it - even if she’s not getting replies
So in that sense she won’t leave him alone and I know he would never actually tell her straight to stop contacting him but feels bad about ignoring her

Margot our last messages crossed over.
It is sporty, yes- but taking active part
He was not into it when we met - in fact he despised it!
Think this is a mid life crisis thing - he started it because he was getting unfit
I wouldn’t dream of preventing him from doing it and my issue is not that he sees her in the course of this hobby- but about private communication
I don’t see the need for her to get in touch with him privately about the hobby- I think she is doing it as a way to re establish the friendship

Suzi- I don’t think he is physically attracted to her.
She is - at the risk of sounding bitchy - very, very unattractive. Of course you may say this is subjective but she is the antithesis of everything he finds attractive in a woman. She also dresses the way he hates and has a very loud voice which is something he loathes.
Also despite everything he has barely spent any time alone in her company except in a car- and I know for a fact that they were actually in the car. So difficult to know when an affair would happen

I'm guessing they are cyclists or runners?

From my experience, never assume anything. Don't assume she's not her type, don't assume there's not more things that he's lied about, certainly don't assume nothing physical has happened.

iceberg thank you for your useful comments
This was pretty much my assessment of the situation when it blew up and I think I was totally right to insist that he stopped contacting her.
However that was some time ago and my question is really- should I start accepting limited contact?
For context - she text him 3 times in a row quite recently and he ignored the first 2 but answered the third

She then text again - he didn’t answer but it didn’t strictly require an answer
She also emailed him a link recently and he briefly replied saying it was of interest
These are the first replies he has made to her for a very long time.
I don’t think he will go back to doing what he did before
So do you think I should just accept very limited contact and not fight about it

Tbh op she could be an actual turd but he might still want to go there. I wouldn’t take the list of likes and dislikes you know of as ultimate fact when it comes to a mans ego/penis.

He needs to change where he does this hobby and just block her number

There are some men, who will sleep with anyone, if they think they could get away it.

I agree with chillpizza