Am I being paranoid

[Trounlet]

Married 25y, 2DC. Situation started last year when there were WhatsApp messages between him and a colleague, nothing overly flirty but enough to make me wonder (he was furloughed at the time at home with the children, I was at work). I pointed out that it was inappropriate and it stopped.

Fast forward to Xmas (he lost his mum just before xmas) and a few merry Christmas messages, and a few that were enough to make me bring it up offer him an out if he wanted it. He didn't want to go anywhere, very happy with me, could see why some of the messages could be seen as not good, so we settled back into life and the messaging stopped. I put it down to losing his mum and we moved on.

Onto Easter, he gets promoted at work and is now her line manager, with lots of working together (as a group as well as 121), as in every day. Messages have restarted and are now being deleted daily.

He doesn't see her apart from work, but I'm beginning to think that this is heading one way.

I'm not being paranoid am I? Actually seeing it written down I can see I'm not.

We could split up and co-parent but I'd rather we stay together.

Fuck!!

What kind of things were they messaging about?
I would worry about daily deleted messages, keep an eye out and see if he forgets to delete, any pictures?

Impossible to know without having an understanding of the messages.

Atm all you are saying is that your husband messages a colleague. I do that and hope it doesn’t mean I will be subject to a divorce petition. Based on the post you are being dramatic and paranoid.

Well - ask him if he is stupid enough to lose his job over it. These days man manager/subordinate isn’t looked upon kindly and it’ll be her word over his.
But otherwise - I’d ignore him and get my own life more full of things and people.
Life is too short to worry about silly work crush and be on guard.

If he's deleting messages he's obviously hiding something, sorry!

Op, you need to be clearer on the messages, it’s daft for anyone to make a judgment without knowin that.

How do you know about the messages / deletions?

colleague to colleague; much more flirty and putting me down. The ones at Easter were thanks for your help, I couldn't do it without you type of thing. I've not seen any in the past couple of weeks but I can see that they are deleted daily (WhatsApp shows the date of the last messages even when deleted).

Why delete if they are innocent? I've got a few WhatsApp groups and 121convos through work and they're not delete.

Not just colleague to colleague

So he's been putting you down to a work colleague - yeah, this is not on

Without being specific, can you give an example of how your are put down in the messages? e.g. does it start from her, or from him? Are you put down in a very specific way, e.g. your appearance, or is it more nebulous, e.g. inferences about the more general day-to-day living problems we all have, such as being busy, feeling tired, that sort of thing?

They were talking about getting drunk over Christmas; DH says "Trounlet was pissed last night and has been throwing up and back in bed all day" Not true, yes I had a drink but was up with the DC, admittedly a bit ropey but not throwing up and not in bed.

So, that example sounds like a textbook case of hinting to the OW that the wife is negatively affecting the poor guy's life so much so that the OW will take pity upon him.
They will take a truth (that you had a drink) and distort it in some way (that you had taken yourself to bed while poor man had to look after DC).
If I were you, I'd take issue with this straight away, as this behaviour can get out of control and, if allowed to continue, you run the risk of a much wider character assassination.

The typical married man trick, hinting how crap the wife is and how hard done by he is, it's part of the script. I think you're right to be worried here, he knows you're not happy about this so why is he persisting messaging her? And he's now deleting messages so he knows it's wrong. I think you have to be hard here and say unless it stops you're out, it may sound to some like an overreaction but you see it here all the time how affairs start between colleagues.

Urgh it's just textbook isn't it. Remember all David Beckhams texts to Rebecca Loos, making out Victoria was such a pain and he was kept under lock and key and that he was Peter Pan and Rebecca Loos was tinkerbell...! Why can no man ever be original with this stuff??!

Urgh it's just textbook isn't it. Remember all David Beckhams texts to Rebecca Loos, making out Victoria was such a pain and he was kept under lock and key and that he was Peter Pan and Rebecca Loos was tinkerbell...! Why can no man ever be original with this stuff??!

Whatsapp doesn't show the date if all the messages were deleted?

@Morgan12 I tried that too and no it doesn't! It shows the date of the last message visible, (when looking at the screen that shows your last messages from different people).

OP it's not looking good if he's deleting messages after 2 occasions of talking about stopping. I would ask him to leave so you can think about what to do.

Yes the deleting messages would have me feeling very wary. I think as it has been brought up before you need a frank discussion with him. I would be issuing a final ultimatum here