Married for 16 years, 2 almost grown up kids. Ups and downs in married life, generally in a good place 6 months ago.
Then I noticed a change in DH, a lot quieter and less communicative. He had loads going on at work which was the answer I got when I asked about it.
But the feeling persisted that there was more to it than that, he deleted Messenger & Facebook from his iPad which I quite often use when cooking. After a couple of months of concern I snooped on his phone. My fears seemed to be real, there were messages from a female colleague that looked like there was something going on between them. Nothing specific, but the tone of the messages was more than just colleagues chatting.
I waited and watched to see his behaviour, still not very talkative. I was scared to ask him about this woman - partly because I was afraid of the answer, and partly because I would have to confess to snooping. I eventually plucked the courage to ask if there was anything between him and this woman (saying someone from work had said something). He looked me straight in the eye and denied everything.
Fast forward a month (takes time to build up courage, but also time to decide on what to do. My inner psycho-bitch was close to being released). I confronted DH with a pic of a text I had snooped. New story, colleague was very interested in him, but nothing had happened. And yes he liked the attention. And hadn’t exactly stopped the interest.
Inner psycho-bitch was getting stronger, many crazy options considered; I decided to text ‘the other woman’, TOW as she is on my phone to try and get an answer. One question at a time.
- What did she want?
- How long had this been going on? (with a copy of a snooped message)
- Did she think what she was doing was ok? Lying, being TOW?
- Did she need help to tell her husband?
It took a few messages, but eventually I got a reply, she said nothing had happened between them, he was a very good friend, that it was just text messages but she realised she had crossed a line and apologised for that.
My final message was that I didn’t really believe nothing had happened based on what I had read, and the line was very much crossed.
Later that day I picked up DH from work. He did not talk to me or look at me. I waited until after dinner - what is the problem?
He looked at me and said I had to stop, stop stalking him and stop harassing TOW.
(I have to confess to also walking past her house the previous evening, no intention of knocking on her door but perhaps spooked her).
Am I off my rocker or is it normal to have more concern for a colleague who is romantically interested in you than for your wife who you have, if not physically then mentally, cheated on?!
Of all the options I considered, the texts I sent were quite within reason (in my opinion). Or have I behaved unreasonably?
I feel like this is point in my life where the road splits and I am not sure which path to take.