My friends wife. Is this abuse?

[wotNtarnation]

I am quite good friends with a man that I work with. We've worked together for around 10 years and have spent many lunchtimes alone together at a local cafe as well as group nights out and a few evening trips to the pub after work here and there, sometimes alone and sometimes with a group. Nothing sexual has ever happened, not even after alcohol! We are just friends and enjoy each other's company. We are both married with children.

The problem is with his wife. I have met her a handful of times at work but he's never admitted to her that we have a friendship. When I meet her I have to pretend he and I are not close. She's very jealous and insecure and wouldn't like it, even though it really is just a friendship and she has absolutely nothing to worry about.

It's not just about me either. I have asked him and she's jealous of a lot of women, often accuses him of cheating/having affairs, will sulk and not speak to him if he mentions some of women that we work with. Lately I've felt really sorry for him due to some of her behaviours and accusations.

Do you think this is a form of abuse? He does still have the freedom to go out, she doesn't stop him, however, she can become sulky about it and sometimes will try to make him feel guilty about going out. He also has to lie to his wife about who he is with if there are women in the party, he has to delete any text messages that I send him straight away (I assume this is the case with other women he might text too), he can't have female friends visit the house. Is this normal? Is it acceptable behaviour? Should I try to speak to him about this?

From the other side, I've been your friend. ExP was massively jealous, abusive & controlling. He hated me having any friends at all, let alone male friends. So I lied to him. Any time I met up with a friend for something like coffee, I'd lie - because otherwise I'd have to hand over my phone, so that my social media, email, photos etc could be scoured for evidence of something that never happened - as far as ExP was concerned, the only reason I was meeting any bloke was because they wanted to have an affair with me. He genuinely refused to believe there could have been something as simple as work or friendship behind it.

And of course there were times my lies got discovered, and that made it worse, and I wouldn't be allowed out of the house. But if I hadn't lied in the first place, I wouldn't have had those friendships. I never said a word to my friends about having to lie, but they all knew, and they would have lied for me too.

And when he finally cracked and beat the shit out of me, they all said 'We guessed, but because you never said anything, we couldn't tell you. You were living in fear of his reactions, constantly.'

The best thing @wotNtarnation you can do for your friend and mainly for his wife in all this, is to come out and all 4 of you (your partner) spend a few evenings out together. Be open and honest. Surely in time the wife will have to come to terms with the fact her DH can be trusted and that these friendships are honest ones, not ones based on secrecy and lies.
He’s keeping her away from the truth and this is a catch 22 situation for her. If she needs to learn how to trust your friend completely, then this imo is the way to go, include her.

ozzie it's not important to me that he owns up. I don't care if he does or he doesn't. I am mildly uncomfortable about it as I feel I'm in the wrong, partially to blame, complicit in deceit.

alfiemoon I agree with what you and others have said. It is a vicious circle. Don't think he even tries not lying about new people now.

Venus I might suggest the idea to him, thanks.

I also think this might have gone differently if my friend was a woman and her husband was jealous.

Well yes most likely it would have gone differently as it’s a totally different situation.

He wants you to feel sorry for him. So he can get into bed with you.

I’ve just commented on your Emotional Affair thread and you mentioned that you created this thread also.
Having read both, you 100% have serious feelings for this guy and want something to happen.
The answers you want to read are “you are having an emotional affair” and “his wife is abusive”

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/3655929-emotional-affair

I don't fancy him, he doesn't fancy me. I think if either of us fancied the other there might have been the tiniest amount of evidence of it in the last ten years, no?

I just felt uncomfortable about his situation after a chat we had last week, then when a few people started saying "emotional affair" it got me thinking. I honestly don't think it is. But very few people seem to have entertained the idea that it might be that he is in a bad situation.

There's no evidence of fancying, of an emotional affair or anything like that. Plenty of evidence of what I would consider very poor treatment at the very least.

I'm amazed at most of these responses OP. If this was reversed and the OP was friends with the wife describing her husband as being very jealous and sulking, there would be an outcry of abuse, gaslighting and LTB!

As it's the wife who is behaving like this (of course we only have one side of the story, but when do we ever have more than that??), it must be the husband who is causing and perpetuating this behaviour. Of course men and women cannot be friends at work and have lunch or enjoy others company on a purely platonic basis. The double standards and judgements here are ridiculous.

Neither I nor my husband would get jealous and sulky if either of us mentioned a friend from work who was the opposite sex or that we had had lunch or been out for a drink with them. This is because we trust each other. There sounds like there are issues with your friends marriage and his wife's behaviour. Depends if he wants to address it though, can you ask him directly about it?

You need to take a step back. He shouldn't be lying to his wife like that. He's giving her reasons to doubt him with the lies and deleting texts. As much as you try and defend this, he is gaslighting her and you're enabling it. If there was nothing to any of the messages to any women then there wouldn't be any need to delete them. She would be able to see for herself that there's nothing going on.

Men and women need boundaries to be friends because when you start discussing marital problems and sharing intimate little secrets, you're creating a bond and sharing emotional attention that you might not be getting at home with your partner.

It is largely a grey area but it sounds like it's an emotional affair from his side even if not from yours. I would say take a massive step back from this guy, cool your relationship down, set some boundaries and let him sort his marital problems out. It might just be that she's batshit crazy in which case all you can do is be there for him when he see sense and leaves her. If he brings up problems in his marriage maybe just suggest they both see a relationship counsellor and then change the subject.

I know it's difficult. I've been in a similar position. A male friend used to complain about his gf to me all of the time. She HATED me! Apparently, he said to her in an argument one day "why can't you be more like Cat". I haven't spoken to him for years now. He wanted to make his relationship work and couldn't do that with us as friends. Like you, nothing sexual had ever happened and never would. Our friendship made her uncomfortable and I had to respect their relationship and keep my distance.

The thing is men & women are different despite our need for equality. We come at the world from different angles due to complex socialization processes that affect both sexes. I don’t think anything is as black & white as either option you present above. It’s also simply impossible to compare like with like.

For example, I have male friends. None of my BFs or DH have had an issue with this but all of my male friends’ other halves have had an issue & I’ve had to accept the friendships being scaled back and I have had to become friends with my male friends’ other halves. It’s been a necessity. This says as much about the men as the women. Are all the women crazy & jealous or do all those men prefer to keep things simple and prioritise their wives’ feelings over mine?

All I’m saying is it’s complex.

I do think the fact OP is posting here about it & didn’t answer the question where I asked if her DH knew she was posting here shows just how invested OP is in this friendship. I rarely text my male married friends. I just don’t see the need. We stay in touch but we keep things simple to limit drama & prioritise the primary relationship.

Might I add, I was devastated in the past when I realized what my new place was when male friends found a mate so I’ve looked at it over a long period of time through my own experience..

Cross-post. My post above was in response to Shefliesonherownwings 😊

I think very few entertained the fact that he might be in a bad situation, because his behaviour would suggest otherwise. I mean by the sounds of it he is doing a lot of things that his wife doesn't want him doing...if she's trying to control him it doesn't sound like it's working. What is the evidence of poor treatment that you speak of? Is it just what he has told you?

Thanks for your reply sheflies, that is more along the lines of what I was hoping for/expecting.

I don't know if I should address it. I don't know if I should tell him that I think some of her behaviours could be seen to be abusive. I don't know if it's something he has really considered or if it's something he would want to do something about. I don't know if it's any of my business. I don't know if it would upset him and ruin our friendship. We've got quite an easy friendship and maybe that's why it works. Contrary to how it sounds we don't text all the time (more or less depending on what there is to say. Never just "what are you doing today?" Type texts). Maybe talking to him seriously about these issues would be overstepping - I don't know!

At the end of the day, I don't think it's an emotional affair but even if it is on his part, could he not still be in a toxic and unhealthy relationship and should I say something about it? That's my concern.

Don't think people are appreciating that they have been together for a decade and a half and in that time he has tried to reassure her and show her he's trustworthy and yet she still blows up every time he mentions certain female colleagues or accuses him of sleeping with someone on a night out and now he's given up trying to convince her and instead lies about what he's done for an easy life.

I don’t think you’re appreciating that you are taking everything he is saying as gospel. How can you know this all to be completely factual?

You’re saying that in a decade and a half, he’s “tried to reassure her and show her he's trustworthy and yet she still blows up every time he mentions certain female colleagues or accuses him of sleeping with someone on a night out” .. are you the third wheel in the relationship? Have you been present there and then for every conversation and argument?

You may as well take his wife’s place now..

So they've been together 15yrs? If the marriage was that miserable do you not think he'd have looked to exit it or try and sort it before now?

He lies. You lie. No wonder his dw is anxious.

Why are you so bothered about her anyway?

Sounds like you're very invested in this friendship and perhaps a little too interested in his marriage.

Back off. Stop lying to her. And stop enabling his lying.

It all sounds a bit creepy tbh.

He is sneaking around because he is overly involved with the life and feelings of a female co-worker and he knows this would upset his wife. He chooses to behave like that anyway and lies about it instead.

This isnt a good husband.