Is he up to something or am I paranoid?

[Pollydaydream]

Hi all,

New poster here, I'll try not to waffle. This is a bit batty but here we go.

I'm married (together 18 years) with 2 young kids. Hubs and I get on well, he's a great dad, we share housework. I've no complaints.

We work opposite shifts. Last week, while he was sleeping, a message pinged on his phone from Instagram. I don't have that app and didn't know he had it. I opened his phone and found a normal looking Instagram account following all his colleagues, friends and family. When I opened the message though, it was from a woman he's never mentioned before. That would be odd enough, but she's actually quite famous yet he's never mentioned knowing her.

I went back through the messages and found they have spoken almost every day for just over a year. The weird thing is they talk about normal stuff,like how they spent their day of what they're making for supper. There's nothing sexual in there, although there have been a few flirty comments. Eg she had joked about posting bikini pics on holiday and he had replied "well I won't be complaining". He also responds to a lot of her instagram story posts with fire or shocked face emojis. Despite that, there is no sexting or dirty talk, but they seem very close.

I looked further and it turns out they've known each other since they were small children, but he has never mentioned her to me. She wasn't at our wedding and she's never sent a Christmas card. They did text each other on Christmas day and she cheers him on with his work challenges. I looked her up on Facebook and her account is locked, but I could see that he's liked every one of her profile pics from the last decade.

I don't know what to think. There are no dirty pics or bad talk and I know they haven't met up (they joke in their messages about it plus she lives over 300 miles away). The only other thing that is off is she seems to have gone through a break up over the last year, but when I googled her it said she's still married. On the face of it it mainly seems like a lovely supportive friendship, but if that's just what it is, why has he never mentioned her?

Do I need to be concerned or are friendships like this normal? Thank you to anyone who can help with a little insight x

He's kept it a secret, and doesn't mention you?

Nah, not on

I’ve been trying to think how I would handle this...

I would have his bags packed, ready for when you confront him.

I would keep cool and start the discussion calmly. Have a plan. Present all the facts.

However, if there becomes any hint of him minimising his behaviour, or if he says anything less than, “I am so sorry. I’ve been an absolute fucking fool. I’m deleting Instagram and Facebook and you have full access over my phone from now on.”.... then I would hand him his bags and tell him to leave the house while you make a hard decision about your future together.

Make your actions show how seriously wronged you feel about his shifty secret AND what he stands to lose (you).

If you don’t go nuclear at the beginning and accept his excuses of this being “just a friendship” and you’re “overreacting” (and 100% he will say that).... your husband is going to carry on messaging this woman.

Even worse, he will message her about your confrontation and your “unreasonable” behaviour and it will, inevitably, drive them closer together.

In order for you to move forward from this, he needs to cut all contact. There is no other way through it.

Has he spotted the book yet?

I seem to be alone her but I don’t see it as that big a deal. I have a platonic friend who I message lots and it’s just friendship. The messages between them seem like friend chat to me.

I have a few male platonic friendships who at times I have messaged a lot and other times not so much. It reads like an emotional affair to me - we never comment on how each other looks that type of thing, it isn't secret and they are long standing continual friendship that pre-date DH.

We Facebook'messenger and email... no setting up Instagram on the quiet for comms...

Lisa Snowden or Jane Mcdonald. Sorry not helpful at all! Whoever it is, you don't deserve this. Your husband is a fool. Stay strong x

There is quite a big difference between Lisa Snowden and Jane Mcdonald pp!

Indeed pp and its absolutely irrelevant who it is tbh. I was just thinking out aloud.

Hi, so I have an update. It may not be as, exciting or explosive as some may hope, but hey ho, that's life. To make it easier to type out I'm going to call her Shirley because the Shirley Ballas guesses really made me laugh.

I was really digging in my husbands fb last night when I noticed that Shirley had actually liked some of my posts years back (ones with my husband in, thats how she could see them).

This morning i brought it up. The convo went something like this:

Me: I was going through fb memories and Shirley Ballas has liked some of my posts, how the hell do you know her?

Him: known her forever, went to school together.

Me: that's mental, can't believe you didn't mention it, I have one of her books, what's she like, do you talk to her?

Him: talk every now and again, she's nice. Just normal.

Me (trying to sound genuinely enthusiastic and excited): wow, what do you talk about, does she give you all the celeb Goss?

Him: no, she's just Shirley from school to me.

With that, he said he was going to the gym and left.

So what I've got from this is he fucking lied about how often he talks to her but it also made me realise he's right, they don't talk about glitzy stuff so I don't think he speaks to her for the novelty of it. I don't know how to feel about this 😐

Not much further on then...

Big difference between talking every day and talking now and again.

I'm so sorry this must be such a headf*ck. He's definitely going to downplay it and gaslight you when you bring it up properly. He'll say you're in the wrong for looking and that they are just casual acquaintances. Who happen to talk every day. And who he deemed it necessary to hide from his wife.

It's really weird because on the face of it there's nothing there. But it totally changes what I would think of him.

Throw the book at his face when he comes back!!

@ScrewballScramble

I seem to be alone her but I don’t see it as that big a deal. I have a platonic friend who I message lots and it’s just friendship. The messages between them seem like friend chat to me.

Photo's of her bubble bath though... no, I don't like that. Even if parts of her body are not in shot, it is still suggestive. Just my opinion though.

Mmmm, so why wouldn't he have mentioned her. Very strange OP.

He's just lied to your face.

bizarre

So his first nstinct was to preserve his relationship with her over his marriage to you.....
Imo.

Hmm yeah very weird that he is downplaying it to you. It’s not making him look good is it. If he has nothing to hide then why lie! Hope you’re okay x

Well the gym will be shut from tomorrow so no running off there for him when the time comes for you to front him! Good luck - thinking of you x

It’s weird. If he’s worried about you getting the wrong impression about their friendship, why wouldn’t he have let you know about it earlier.

He’s not denying it completely but he is down playing it. If he hasn’t been in contact with her the whole time, maybe it would be weird to mention when they started to talk years ago, and now it’s gone past the point that he doesn’t want to make you worry that they talk daily when he never mentioned it before. That’s your best case I can think of. But either way it’s weird he’s never gone “I went to school with her” at any point during your 18 years together. Maybe if she is only recently famous it could explain it. But she must have been famous pre them talking otherwise you would think he would say, my mate Shirley is going to be on the telly/radio/book out. It’s just odd.

It might be interesting to see how much they talk now he knows you know he knows her.

Buy the book Not Just Friends by Shirley Glass and leave that out. Its mind blowing.

There are bits in it about your relationship being made up of you two with walls built around you until someone comes along and a window is opened to allow them in with you having no idea.

Honestly, you'll read it and be like yes, yes, yes!!

Is it Tess?

Now I suppose you just wait and see what he says to Shirley Ballas . This will have either have scared him off or spurned him on. Either way, he's already minimised their 'friendship' to you.

Tell him that he’s mentioned in the book

Easy to say this on the outside but you need to be a lot clearer than that. Communicate what you actually mean.

You are his wife, he shouldn't have close friendships you have no awareness of. He shouldn't be messaging someone in secret. And he (now) should not be lying to you. You don't like it and you want it to stop. It's not unreasonable on your part to expect the above (we've all told you this).

I know you're scared what he might say but he needs to come up against the impact of what he's doing. He doesn't think there is any harm. And he thinks it's not affecting you. And you're now playing it down.

Act now before it becomes an affair! She has lots to lose here so I suspect she'll cool it pretty quick if she thinks you're disgruntled.

It’s not a bad response from him. Maybe he just likes her as a person, they were good friends and he wants to maintain that and doesn’t know how to explain it to you. Nostalgia is a strong emotion whether that person is a celeb or not. Maybe he had a crush once. Maybe they were just good friends. Must also be nice for a ‘celeb’ to have pre fame friends.

I guess if you wanted to delve more you could go all super fan on her and tell him you were so excited about him knowing her, you looked at her insta blah blah.

A daily chat is a bit much. Plus other red flags.