Are they playing some sort of weird game?

[NewYearDahlia]

I recently found out that DH has a long-standing friendship (I'm talking years) with a woman and I knew nothing about the friendship. DH tells me there's nothing to worry about.
Unfortunately I am beginning to think there's much more to it that I don't understand. Looking through the photos on my phone, I took a photo of DH on a coach we were on waiting to leave the airport the last holiday before lockdown. In the background through the opposite window I can see her sitting on the next fucking coach to ours. She's in profile, looking down at her phone, it's definitely her. At the time I took the photo, DH was also on his phone - it's in his hand. It looks like he was having a messenger conversation but the image is blurry.

I know some people are going to think I'm trolling but I can assure you this situation I'm in is horribly true - so much that it's made me feel very anxious because I don't know what's going on. I'm not going to ask him about this photo - we've had the chat about the friendship and he's adamant nothing is going on.

I know at one point she had access to the photos on his old phone because he gave it to her and it was updating despite him saying he thought he'd reset it. I'm now wondering if they shared location via this phone.

I didn't see her on the plane nor in the airport, nor during the holiday.
Just wondering if anyone knows if this is a thing - like, do two people who maybe 'like' one another do 'naughty' little things - like booking the same holidays - as fucked up as it sounds - for the kick of it?

Oh OP what an absolute arse! I am so sorry.

I wouldn’t say anything to him, he will be more careful if he thinks you are suspicious. Watch what he does, do some social media searches and look out for opportunities to check messages

Hmm. I believe what you are saying OP, but i'm not entirely sure posters here should be whipping you up into a frenzy like this

This is exactly what I’m saying- there’s some serious 2+2= 5 going on here.

The last minute booking of the holiday sounds suspicious.

Do you think he’s stalking her, OP? Made friends, then became obsessed? Unfortunately, women can’t be nice, or friendly, without some men taking it as permission to encroach on their personal space.

The agitated woman at your door could’ve been someone who had just found out that their partner was in fact, married.

But this is pure speculation on my part. I’d need to find out though, otherwise it would eat away at me. Good luck.

Just come across your thread, this is just the weirdest thing.

Either he gets a kick out of playing dangerous games, like booking a trip with you to somewhere that she would be. Or are his advances to her unwelcome? Either way, I'd say he's enjoying the thrill of the double life/living dangerously. I couldn't continue to be with him.

He sounds like a complex covert narcissist/psychopath

Just say. Sorry I feel this friendship is inappropriate. I am initiating divorce proceedings.

@Laiste

I'm not sure.

• He has had a hobby for years.
• You knew he knew a woman who shared the hobby but didn't know they text each other.
• You challenged and he swore there was nothing going on.
• You know he gave her an old phone of his? (he told you?)
• After thinking about it you go through old photos of a holiday and find one where you think you can see her on a coach next to yours.
• You've challenged him again about the friendship (before valentines day) and he has said he didn't keep it an intentional secret and will stop the hobby. He's visibly shaken.
• He received a text from a woman the day after valentines day and now you think this is a 2nd affair partner.
• He didn't get you anything for valentines day.
• You've remembered that 8 years ago your neighbours told you a woman had knocked on your door while you were out and think this was her.

Hmm. I believe what you are saying OP, but i'm not entirely sure posters here should be whipping you up into a frenzy like this. I think if you think he's having an affair you need to quietly dig around and see if this woman was really on the same holiday as you, because without this bit frankly the 'texting someone you didn't realise was a friend and being worried about it' bit isn't a reason to end a marriage.

I'm with you. There's a lot of guesswork and most of it stretches the bounds of possibility.

OP, you don't say if you gave your husband a Valentine's Day present or card? Did you? What have you done in previous years?

I absolutely cannot understand the replies and comments like:
Do you think he’s stalking her, OP? Made friends, then became obsessed?

What a preposterous, unlikely conclusion to draw.

Any or all of the ideas suggested here could be true but so far, it's very unclear that they are.

We have often bumped into people we know when travelling- eating breakfast at the airport a few years back, we met a family we've known for years, on the way home from another holiday we met the family of a boy one of our kids is at school with, and we realised from a FB message that old friends were in the same city and met for dinner - this is in the last few years. We aren't massively sociable and don't know 1000s of people.

And anyway, how can you be sure this friend is the person in the photo? Other people I see often look similar to people I know. Without seeing how they move, their gestures etc how can you be sure from a still, unclear picture?

The only clear facts seem to be OP that your husband has a friendship you don't feel comfortable with and he wasn't nice to you on Valentine's day. Was the neighbour from 8 years back actually told by the agitated woman that she was your sister, or did they assume it? How do you know it is the same woman? Maybe there were at the wrong door?

I'm not saying you are wrong to suspect anything but there are a huge number of theories and suppositions being made here.

You do need more hard evidence. Or, if you are convinced and no longer trust your DH, make a plan to deal with that.

Just sit at dinner and look him in the eye and say’ by the way, I know what you’ve been doing’. And say NOTHING ELSE. nothing. Stay silent. A guilty person will fill the silence. Don’t respond. Just wait....... if he’s up to something he will hang him self given enough rope...... if not and your convinced, must say ‘haha. You should see your face’ lol. Or something.

I think there may be another one that he's been stringing along. I think he may have sent her a Valentine's card - no evidence, just guessing - because he received a text from her yesterday and he hadn't heard from her in about four weeks. AFAIK she is just an ex colleague

Did he show you the text or just tell you about it? If it was something dodgy why would he tell you

Trust your instincts OP. What sort of things have turned up in your house and in the car?
I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d booked the holiday so he could meet her on the quiet for a quickie here and there. His reaction when you confronted him suggests a very guilty conscience: people with nothing to hide defend themselves. Those caught in a lie will go on the attack.

How would he react if you told him you knew exactly what he’d been up to on holiday when he thought you were sunbathing on the beach?

I read an article about a man who invited both of the women he was dating to the same bar mitzvah. They were seated on different tables and even chatted that night. People high in narcissistic traits do things like this because they get a buzz out of taking risks.

The article is an interesting yet disturbing read: torontolife.com/city/shaun-rootenberg-profile-of-a-romance-scammer/

I think you are taking perfectly innocent events and bending them to fit your imagined scenario.

I think you are taking perfectly innocent events and bending them to fit your imagined scenario

And some posters are adding fuel to the fire.

Where there’s smoke there’s fire.

Just wanted to say thank you particularly to @Onthedunes for the info about narcissism. Lots of boxes appear to be ticked and you are not the first to suggest this may be the case.
There's quite a bit more to this situation and I know people especially want to know about the objects found. If I go into any more detail I think anyone attending the hobby would recognise instantly and I know the chances of that are small but that's just the way I feel.
I swing from thinking he's been obsessed with her to her being obsessed with him. There are things that have happened which could support either but the most obvious conclusion is that it has been a mutual thing between them - how that started or developed I don't think I'll ever know.
A most hurtful thing is that he appeared to start showing signs of believing a narrative about me which (I assume) he dreamt up in his head or which arose as a result of their conversations. By a narrative I mean he had forgotten some things I had contributed to the marriage and appeared to think of me as some sort of privileged free-wheeler. I think he's now firmly back in reality on that score, but it took him some time.
I know I need to focus on myself now, what will be best for me, and put the over-analysing part of me to rest. This forum has helped, thank you all.

@FossilisedFanny

I think you are taking perfectly innocent events and bending them to fit your imagined scenario

And some posters are adding fuel to the fire.

Agreed.

It's exactly the same kind of pattern-seeking people do on 'woo' threads on here, where things that could easily be explained as the ordinary creaks of an old house, electrical faults, forgetfulness, coincidence etc are all put together into a 'haunting' by someone who is rattled and on the lookout for things because they're frightened and hence hypersensitive to noises, 'missing' objects etc.

I hadn't actually realised until just now that it seems to be only after the OP found out about this friendship she deems suspicious, that she went back through her holiday photos and and 'saw' the woman she now considers the OW in the background of a random snap she took of her husband, even though it can't possibly be clear enough to be sure if the other woman was on the other side of two coach windows, at a distance, and not looking at the camera.

And she is now fitting probably completely unrelated past events (a woman who knocked on the door eight years ago) together to substantiate her theory.

And honestly, I have lots of hobby-based friends that not only does DH not know, but he'd be unlikely to know their names, or whether or not we ever message one another. Ditto me not knowing all of his friends by name, sight, or message frequency.

I don't see this as in any way sinister in itself.

Where there’s smoke there’s fire.

No I disagree.

OP I don't think I would be able to recognise someone in a small photo, through a coach window, who isn't looking directly at the camera. I don't think you could possibly know that it is her.

Someone knocking on your door - I would expect this kind of event to happen as a final blow up/ expose of the affair. I definitely wouldn't expect it to all calm down and continue for any period of time after such an event.

I think you're getting bad advice from other posters here, who are whipping this up, perhaps unintentionally.

@FossilisedFanny

So do you think he and this friend planned for her to go on the same holiday as you? Who even does that?

Who does that? My ex husband so he could keep sneaking off on our first child's first birthday on holiday. Some people are just sick in the head.

It's possible that he's having an affair, or stalking her as others have said. It's also possible that she's an undercover officer tracking him or a million other scenarios that I could dream up.

But Occam's Razor - the most likely scenario is that this woman, or someone who looks like her, just happened to be on a coach near yours once when you went on holiday. And at another point many years ago, a woman knocked on your door, as often happens.

That said, your relationship has reached a point where you think he's having an affair and you're saying he might gaslight you. It doesn't sound like a happy relationship, whether or not he is cheating.

@NewYearDahlia regarding the valentines text- did you actually see it ? Did your husband tell you about it or are you just guessing?
I would hate a perfectly good marriage to break up without absolute concrete evidence, although only you know how you feel I guess.

Trust yourself, OP.

What a preposterous, unlikely conclusion to draw.

If I were you, I'd hire a private detective to try to get to the bottom of it.
I do think he's having at least one long standing affair.
Sorry, OP.