Karma

[oralengineer]

DH decided to Facebook friend an ex from over 30 years ago. He did tell me, big mistake because of course I had a nose and wasn’t happy with what I read. This all happened mid lockdown so no face to face contact. Lots of typical staged photos on her Facebook page and I had to agree with DH that she was looking good and is indeed an attractive woman. However this did not prevent my predictable reaction.
Fast forward and after much emotion and inevitable rows I have accepted his apologies and he has not continued the conversation. Unfortunately she is hooked and continues to try and gain his attention.
Anyway with regard to her selfies, to me they were obviously filtered and carefully posed. DH was adamant that she had hardly changed and that I was being bitchy ( no shit Sherlock).
Here’s where karma enters the equation. I am very lucky genetically and have always looked several years younger than my actual years. Ancient ex posted a photo on her timeline today that had not been fine tuned and she was almost unrecognisable, she is actually a few months younger than me but definitely looks 10 yrs older than her actual age. DH doesn’t know I’ve sneaked a look but his demeanour all day has been somewhat deflated. Mine on the other hand has been sky high.
He is not actually that focused on looks but he doesn’t like lies or fake so I don’t think he is over impressed. Just niggling that I can’t tell him I told him so.
I know I’m being a bit juvenile but sometimes it’s the little things that really count.

I'm confused , seriously. Your husband contacted an ex , liked the way she looked ( even commenting to you that she looked good etc), you disagreed, talked about filters etc. He thinks you're being bitchy....

So far .. actually I think your relationship sounds open and healthy. You talk about stuff , that's good. You argue, not so good , but understandable.

But then the ex puts a pic on her timeline that she looks awful on.... And you're happy, but your husband is miserable? Why aren't you more pissed that your husband is miserable?, do you think he had a silly crush or something and this will dampen it?

Well you went from 30 to 100. Why would the ex be replying to this thread. he's not happily married if he's getting do eyed over an ex.

What's going to happen when he meets another attractive woman and gets fixated on her?

Your H gushed about his Ex’s youthful beauty. His behavior toward you changed. Messages showed that they were were reigniting emotionally. You made it clear that this was was a betrayal and rows ensued. He apologized and ceased interacting with Ex on FB. However, she has persisted in her pursuit of H.

It doesn’t sound like H has shut down Ex directly. I would have expected him to. I would assume that he is still getting ego boosts from her ‘direct’ posts. If he is deflated due to her unfiltered photo, he has still been engaged in the fantasy. I wonder if they’ve been texting.

Msdog you have summarised it well. DH is retired and we are not in the fading looks age group, that happened years ago. DH has had no contact with the woman for 30+ years for geographical reasons, she is not connected in any way, so her popping up on his ‘friends you may know’ was out of the blue. His interaction with her is now our problem to work through and we have been doing that.
DH is not of the digital age and rather naive with regard to filtering etc so I had merely pointed out that you can do a lot to enhance your looks with software and he didn’t believe me.
We don’t have each other as friends on FB because we openly share ipads so often look at each other’s timelines. He just didn’t realise I would be able to see his messenger from his iPad because he only has the App on his phone. As I said he is not good with digital stuff.
My post was really a poke at the digital age and how it clouds our judgement. DH does not like fake and lies so her hiding behind filtered photos will not sit well with him. It’s not really about looks but about the need to fake them and what that says about the person.
Men, believe it or not are primarily attracted by looks, to find your first love has hardly changed in 30 years must have been very triggering. However the reality has been quite a let down. It was DH that showed me the photo on his feed because he wasn’t sure if it was actually her.
Whether it all leads to something, I have no control of that, but I am prepared to try and fix our relationship. I am actually amazed that we have managed to stay on the straight and narrow up to this point. Neither of us had a good track record with regard to fidelity before we got together.
I’m afraid that many of you are correct, I do have psychopath tendencies. It is a prerequisite of my profession.

Oh and before anyone jumps on my comment I was not the other woman who split up his previous relationship. We were both single when we started seeing each other.

I think OP is either 16 years old or needs some serious therapy!

You seem fixated on the fact that the OW looked up his name on Facebook and this is why she appeared in " friends you may know" . If they hadn't been together for thirty years perhaps she thought he might be single, or perhaps she wondered even if he was still alive. She never contacted him, rather he contacted her. So maybe let that go. Surely.

You have psychopathic tendencies? Well, I don't know what to say to that. I think you should let the woman know that. I would stop contacting someone whose wife admitted that.

Ok I’m obviously attracting the unattached mnetters who have never had a serious long-standing relationship which is probably quite rare in the under 40s nowadays. Maybe as a woman who has never needed the financial support of a man I see relationships differently. I don’t need to be with DH I want to be with him, I still love him, fancy him and have a healthy physical relationship with him. I feel threatened by this woman because it is a purely emotional attachment from the past not some younger model.
Having had my self esteem squashed I merely felt slightly more positive that I was right about her enhancing her appearance. The emotional side is more damaging but DHs initial trigger was based on her looks not her conversation. He was carried away with nostalgia (his words). He didn’t consider it cheating , he is now well aware that it is.

A relationship from 30 years ago??
It finished for a reason and both she and your DH have followed different life paths.
Why are you comparing yourself to her? What does “we are not in the fading looks age group, that happened years ago” mean??
There seems to be a lot of insecurity too.

Relax and unclench 🙄

What's cheating? Talking to someone he was romantically involved with 30 years ago?

I'm not unattached. I'm in a very happy relationship and it really wouldn't bother me if my dh started talking to someone he used to know. I wouldn't call it cheating though.

Oh and I’ve been married for over 20 years

It’s not cheating, it’s just curiosity about how an ex is doing and it’s quite normal.

That's not 'karma'.

So you're supposing the people on this thread are unattached and have only had short term relationships and/or are financially dependant on their husbands and that's why they fail to get it.

Maybe they fail to get it because they lack the psychopathic tendencies you claim to have? Maybe that's more likely?

@feelingfragile

What?

Husband fiends old school friend on Facebook.

Wife is jealous and insists all photos are photoshopped.

Turns out they are.

Is this about the size of it?

I don't get how we are supposed to be on wife's side

Did you miss the bit where her husband was trying to rekindle a relationship with this woman??

What are the best filters to use ? Asking for a friend

@oralengineer

Well he started the day on top form and it went downhill after he spent time on his phone. We have had a good day but something has unsettled him and it’s not me.

That would turn me off him.

He was getting a buzz from chatting to an old girlfriend who was attractive

The momen she turns out to have aged, the spring goes out of his step.

What an idiot.

There's a film on netflix about a man who has everything inc a good marriage and he basically disconnects from his own GOOD life it by being so disatisfied.
I wish i could remember what it was called!

I suppose AIBU would have been a better place to post this thread.
Perhaps I’m lucky that I grew up pre social media when relationships were built on face to face contact and you couldn’t discuss them on anonymous forums. The equivalent of texts was a letter or postcard which gave you time to really think about what you were saying.
Real life is so much easier I feel desperately sorry for the digital generations who seem to live their lives through a screen.
I think I’ll just get on with repairing my life the old fashioned way with real conversation and face to face discussion.
As for filters buy a Samsung phone they have a built in filter.

OP I can't believe what nasty comments you've got for your post. It sounds like this ex of his has being making a real play for your DH and of course it's understandable that you'd be majorly pissed off (as would most people on here if they were prepared to be honest). And yes he has encouraged it so you should be equally (if not more) pissed off with him too. I totally get why you're pleased that he's finally seen what the ex really looks like too. He'd fallen for an illusion which she'd created (in online dating I believe it's known as catfishing) and he wasn't prepared to accept that she didn't really look like that and thought you were being plain bitchy when you merely pointed out the obvious use of filters. You are just pleased to have been vindicated and I don't know why that's annoyed so many people (even though I'm fast learning that there are a lot of posters on here who are permanently in "attack mode").

oops typo - has been not has being!

Cheesesconesaremyfavourite I couldn't agree more 🙄
Reading this thread I don't think op is being unreasonable or psychotic at all 😡
This woman from 30 years ago shouldn't be an issue , her husband made her one ex's have no place in a marriage. Full stop .

Thank you at last some real people. And yes he has had my full hell hath no fury for the last month. But since we don’t communicate via text or email or social media we have been able to work through it face to face without the misunderstandings that screens appear to cause.
And yes it was an ‘I told you so’ situation. Knowing DH as well as I do it will have shattered his allusion rather than broken his heart. He got a kick out of it which I was actually more angry about since he was potentially hurting someone who could not read his intent online.
I am not proud of his behaviour.

Hi @oralengineer, you seem to have provoked the mean MNers.

I get where you are coming from. My guess is that his ex's profile had been looked at by her, and that it prompted he Friends You May Know, and he responded.

Let's hope karma exists.