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

Lied*

So his response is to ignor you in the hope you will just accept it.
That reponse is clearly not acceptable to you.

We have a stalemate situation.

Of course this one is going to take time to process, in which way you will proceed.

Hope you did not feel mumsnetters were goading or presurising you to act before you were in full facts of the situation.

Its your life and your situation
Sending hugs {flowers}

Does he instigate contact, OP? Just thinking that if she instigates at chat every day then he might just find it hard not to message her back, IYSWIM?

My husband's best friend is a female, he never tells me what they chat about but I'm friendly with her and I will ask him for updates and he is always like "oh yeah" you don't know do you.
The only difference is that I know about her and she's chats to me occasionally as well, they speak every day without fail, but it's mainly her messaging first or phoning to chat with him.
All I'm saying is like everyone else you need to talk to him and see what he wants out of the friendship and why has he kept the friendship from you.

Oh and to those who thinks it's Andrea McLean it better not be as I know her husband.

Whoever they are I think the celeb is around 37 years give or take a year. So definitely not Andrea McLean.

@6demandingchildren Andrea McLean has dcs.

@NoPrivateSpy I would say most of the time it is him, but if he hasn't by early evening, she'll contact him and ask if he's ok. It's like a bizarre Co dependency or a really close friendship. I can't tell.

@6demandingchildren although I'm staying tight lipped on who it is, rest assured its not Andrea x

I haven't read all of the comments (just yours op) so I'm not sure of the general consensus... However, I don't think that this is that bad, or something you can't get over and is certainly not worth breaking your family up for. I say that as someone is is usually quite cynical about things like this.

I feel like it's something that I would do, to maybe keep a connection with my younger self perhaps, just some (what I would see as) harmless 'banter' and despite this I can guarantee that I would never cheat on my husband, not ever, not in a million years.

You're approaching this really sensibly OP, we're lucky to have someone as level headed as you on our hospital wards.

At least now you have had a conversation about it and when you talk to him further you can say you had a spidey sense about it and snooped and...oh look what I have found? A massive betrayal!

It's like sleazy Charles being in touch with Camilla the whole honeymoon and probably his entire married life. It was like he was married to Di in name only. No wonder she went a bit loopy.

The recent conversation has put her before you OP.

I’m so sorry OP but as others have said, if he didn’t think he was doing anything wrong he wouldn’t be keeping this part of his life a secret. You only omit from sharing something if you want to keep it private and why would he want to do that? The level of contact they have wouldn’t be usual to keep from a person that is close to you unless there’s a reason. May best, my guess is that he knows the level of contact is inappropriate or fears you might view it as inappropriate and that’s why he’s keeping it a secret. At worst, he’s keeping his options open and considering the possibility of an affair or ending his marriage and moving straight on to her.

You need to focus on the facts and the facts are that he has plenty of opportunities to discuss her and their friendship with you and when you broached the subject he lied.

Op I hope you're ok

Polly, your H is not protecting his fidelity and loyalty to you. He is making unethical choices. He knows what he is doing with OW is wrong. He knows that lying to you is wrong. Surely he would hate your having a clandestine relationship involving daily contact, adoration, emotional reliance, flirting, and calling the OM ’hot.’ He would also hate your children being treated so poorly in their future relationships.

If this were an innocent friendship, he would be mentioning you regularly during their conversations. His friend would be asking after you and the children. None of that is happening because this is an emotional affair.

H has an agenda to get closer to OW without blowing it with her. He feels entitled to pursue her and to that end has created emotional distance from you to make room for and justify his infidelity and disloyalty.

You are getting organized and will be ready for his manipulations and deflections. I hope he will come to his senses when confronted, but I expect he will have to feel the loss of you before he sees the light.

Good luck, Polly.

I feel a bit sick for you having just read this whole thread, OP.

It’s such a difficult to pinpoint type betrayal because technically there’s been nothing that inappropriate said. But the amount of communication and the fact he lied does condemn him! It’s difficult though because if they were friends from before you met him, there can be a certain loyalty with those lifelong friendships that is not a reflection of how he feels about you, it’s the nostalgia! I have a similar feeling about very old friends of mine and it’s not a romantic feeling at all, more sentimental.

My first thought was Laura Whitmore although not sure she’s released a book!

@Pollydaydream no matter whether it’s someone well known or not, there is a basis of gut-churning inappropriateness here. I feel a huge empathy for your situation as I found myself (as in my DH) in something similar. I found it very hard to verbalise my unease in the days after I saw a text message pop up that was ... not flirty but friendly in a way that was cosy (and clearly was one of a long series.) It created an awful feeling of dread and watchfulness in my part. It’s very corrosive. One day, I had a panic attack while driving with my youngest in the car, and I felt I had to do something. There was a phantom presence that hadn’t been there before, but once I knew she was, things just weren’t the same. After a few days/weeks private reflection, I booked a counseling session for myself (during school hours.) By talking out loud to someone, I found the vocabulary I needed to express this unease, and brought it up one night after the children were in bed. I simply said ‘I need you to stop having secret texts with x.’ I provided no context, no detail, no snooping details, just my hurt. I felt compelled to try to arrest the rot that I knew was setting in: it was affecting me so, regardless of how innocent he thought it was, it was there, on the table, as not acceptable to me in the marriage.

I say this to you because you are now impacted by being kept in the dark, and you have provided the prod for him to open up, and he has responded by being airy and sketchy. That provides you with few paths to choose: stay, leave, negotiate. My choice was negotiate, to insist on couples counseling: it was a problem for me, therefore it was a problem for us. The minimizing on his part is destructive to your relationship.

After a reluctant agreement, we went to counseling for four months, where he conceded that secrecy was damaging (although he continued to justify it.) I sadly report to you now that the rot was too entrenched at that stage, the trust was gone, and I felt on edge continually. Six months later, an errant email that he hadn’t deleted caused me to end the marriage. The point was that the secrecy continued but out of sight, and there was no going back.

I caution you to remain true to your compass and values, and to bring into the open your feelings of unease, because the corrosion caused is extremely damaging the longer it goes on. I regret that you may be fighting a losing battle in trying to bring this into the light, if he continues to shrug and minimize, and if you are the only person battling for the relationship then ... well, that says it all.

This is not on you. This is on him. You can use all your diplomacy to facilitate an open discussion, but if he’s not ‘in’ then you have to accept he’s ‘out.’

I acknowledge my experience may not be yours and I hope it isn’t, but consider this: how much angst and effort are you putting into dealing with this, and how much is he?

That's an excellent post by @TinaTurnoff (I hope you're doing ok now) and I agree that it doesn't really matter that this person is famous in any way that's just a deflection really. It could be Pam from the local Spar and the hurt and betrayal is still there. I hope you get to have a proper discussion with your DH OP and that it gives his head a well needed wobble.

Very beautifuly put @TinaTurnoff

Yes that post is everything you need to know.

Hope your doing ok OP!

Have you checked if they speak on the phone? Via whatsapp or calls?

I have been following your post from the start but never commented, however I must say this is awful to me. Sometimes an emotional affair doesn't involve the physical side. Maybe he enjoys feeling that there is potential there. I wonder if she ever went there with him would he give her the green light?

I guess you should just watch and wait, but it seems like this has been going on for years. I can't imagine he'd be happy if you were speaking to a guy for years that he didn't know about - and every day!!!

I have just read this whole thread with my face like

What an incredibly odd and upsetting situation. I would not like this one bit either, but agree its incredibly difficult to know how to approach this. If he had been sending dick pics it would be an easy LTB, but these regular cosy chats are just.... So so odd. And over so many years too. I wouldn't know what to make of it or where to begin. You're right to take your time and approach it carefully, this is so complex. Brilliant post by @TinaTurnoff. I can't imagine how you are feeling OP, I felt a sick sort of dread just reading that

This is indeed a difficult one. I have to say that I read the messages themselves that you pulled out somewhat differently from the way a lot of others have - they read like banter between mates to me, rather than any serious sort of flirtation. If the contact were less frequent I don't think it would bother me, but the fact that they are speaking every day and have been for a long time is odd. It's obvious that he is attached to having her in his life and vice versa, but very strange that in all that time it hasn't escalated at all, if there are any genuine romantic or sexual feelings there. Even if it were one-sided I would expect to see evidence of one of them pushing it a bit more in the messages, which doesn't seem to be there.

Agree the bath thing is perhaps slightly on the line, but it doesn't sound as if it was a risque photo... all in all it would seem that the flirtation is very mild. But as I say, it's the longevity and regularity of it that seems strange. I don't think I've ever had a friend (male or female) who I've talked to literally every day for a year or more - it's very intense. I would tend to agree that he probably doesn't think it's crossing the line, but on some level he's obviously aware that you might perceive it that way, otherwise he would have been honest about the level of contact (though I do think it's positive that he responded quickly and naturally when you asked about her and said that they did sometimes talk, at least).

In your shoes I think I would have to say something, because by the sounds of it, you could carry on monitoring their messages for months and it's still probable that nothing earth-shattering would be said. With that in mind the question isn't, how would you feel if something more happened (it might never do), but how do you feel about what IS happening? If it bothers you - and it seems it does and I can see why - then you will have to raise it, as it doesn't seem like it's going to go away.