DH work colleague - normal?

[Nam3change33]

Name changed (obviously).

My DH and I are both 40s. 1 DS6. A young (20s) girl started working with DH last year and has now left. They worked closely together and from what he’s said got on well/had a laugh.

My question is, I know he’s texted her occasionally and still does sometimes. There was a time when she worked at another office branch and he kept in touch with her then, not often but I saw some messages. Nothing inappropriate but he leaves his phone lying around and I saw he has a group work chat and replies to her there in a very different tone to their private messages. He’ll be a lot more jokey and put a kiss on his messages just to her.

The content/frequency of messages is not inappropriate but is it weird for him as a married man in his 40s to be messaging a colleague in her 20s with a kiss on the end? Or am I being unreasonable? I’m not too bothered about it as like I said, nothing inappropriate on either end, but would like to know what others think.

Not everyone's a lying cheating bastard op. To give you some perspective, I am 24 and married with 1dc. My best friend from work is 52 and divorced with 2 teenage children. We have really missed our friendship since the office has been closed and text on a weekly basis. I know he lives alone and am worried about him. He knows I am at home with a toddler day in and out and is worried about me. We check in with each other and put a 'x' at the end. There's nothing in it.
We also have a team group chat and message each other about that chat because sometimes there are things you can't say on there.
You need to evaluate your trust issues. I'm litterally doing the exact same thing as you describe and my dh just asks how my friend is and wants to meet him for a pint after all this as we get on well and they would get on well too.

I read this with interest as it could have almost been written about me, except I've just turned 40. I made a fantastic friend at work. Hes in his 50s and happily married however, we worked together a few times and we just got on like a house on fire. We laugh lots and support each other through ups and downs. So much so that when I was having awful MH problems a few years back it was him that was messaging me every morning, encouraging me to get my arse out of bed, face the day etc etc.
His Mrs does know about me however I very much doubt that she knows how often we talk. Theres nothing in it, but I can see from her point of view I'd probably be annoyed about the amount of messages. But she has nothing to worry about.
Probably worth adding that we work very frontline NHS and it's because of this that these strong friendships are built, what sort of work does your DP do? Could it just be that they have become good friends and are supporting each other with work related stuff still? X

I agree with pp who said people often mirror the person they're texting.

And I think younger people are a lot more informal and likely to put xxxxs in texts.

Is there anyone else he's branched off out of the group for private chats with?