DH's 'friendship' with work colleague - am i naive????

[naivemum]

I almost just need to write this down to get it clear in my head... I don't know if i have created this situation in my head, or if I should really be worried.
I had a a bit of a bad feeling over the last couple of months, when a particular woman at dh's work kept getting mentioned and he kept getting text from her (i should point out that most of the information i have is from checking his phone - yes i know....i should trust him etc etc). Just before xmas he went on his xmas do and got back in the early hours, a bit worse for wear, the next day I asked him about it and he said he'd been doing tequila slammers, i asked 'who with' he said this woman.. so he didn't hide anything, so i thought nothing to hide. The texts continued, but i saw nothign incrminating. then a week later I checked his phone and read some texts and it turned out she'd phoned him after midnight, after i'd gone to bed, the texts mentioned about 'being quiet' . I brought it up the next day and pretended that i'd heard him on the phone. He admitted he was on the phone to her and said she was at a pub quiz and had called him because she thought he might know the answer - he said. I just didn't buy it and asked what was going on and his reaction was to treat me as if I was almost mad! He also said to me that she was very much 'one of the lads' and i had nothing to worry about. My point was that I don't have any friends that i would feel comfortable calling after midnight apart from him - my husband, and that just isn't normal for a work colleagur to call like that. I sulked about it for a couple of days, but as it turned out we were invited to a new years party where she was going to be there, so I met her and she is nothing special, and for want of a better word and not wanting to sound snobby (i'm not!) a bit common! I did speak to her and she was nice enough,and she has a boyfriend who was there. but it is still niggling at me, I have found out since that DH got a picture printed for her as a gift, and last night he went out to see a client and I looked at his phone, he'd called her within 20 minutes of leaving the house, and they are texting almost every night.
DH is a generous person, he is not a dick, he has always had female friends, but to me, this is just too much, he works closley with her, but..i don't know it just doesn't feel right. I am sorry to have gone on, I almost needed to see it all in black and white, almost think that from checking his phone i have let me imagination run away, but then pat of me is asking am I just being naive? I don't know, If anyone can make sense of all this rambling I would be grateful.
I should point out i haven't seen anything that i could accuse him of,just lots of XXX at the end of them, which I know everyone does don't they??

So basically AFD's dw was forced to bite her lip and put up with the friendship. This is the choice her husband gave her.

She didn't specifically order him to end the friendship so she's cool with it for the most part huh? [hmmm]

If she would have asked him to end the friendship she would have looked like a baby, and he would have used it against her later on. It probably bothers her a lot that they are still friends, more than she lets on. She told him not to end the friendship and sacrificed her own dignity and feelings in order to keep him happy.

Instead of realising that DW made a sacrifice call by not directly asking him to terminate his friendship, AFD just thinks his DW is mostly okay about the fact that he has a close female friend.

Of course I am going off on a tangent with all that as I don't know these people.

A decent DH would have ended the friendship if he knew it bothered his wife rather than continue it until wife swallowed her pride and ordered him to do it.

Sometimes you shouldn't have to be told to or asked to do something. Sometimes the only thing that matters is the fact that you protected your DW's feelings without being specifically and directly asked to do so.

Chances are that Naivemum's DH isn't doing anything wrong but even so, her feelings are valid and if she is upset, he needs to cool it.

Well said AMR.

The male doctors I work with have very little empathy PAL.

I have worked with a lot of them from medics, to surgeons to ER docs. I have met some caring ones, they are are rare and for that reason stick out in my mind.

Work in any ER or A&E department for awhile. 9/10 cases you see where a child has been tortured to death it has been by a male not a female.

Who completely abandons their kids more often men and women? I won't answer that..I will just let you look at some statistics.

that should have read "who more often abandons their kids men OR women"

yay, at last a balances post, AMR, and a very sound last paragraph, sentiments which have been oft expressed during this whole thread by both the hawks and the doves.

And by the way PAL go back and read my posts. I already said that some women have low emotional intelligence and some men have high emotional intelligence.

But if you look at the scientific evidence regarding male and female brains you will find that women generally, usually have higher functioning emotional intelligence and men have higher functioning mathmatical,and spatial awareness abililities.

That does not mean that a man cannot be a good nurse and a women cannot be a good architect.

I was referring to your penultimate post, AMR, rhe one where you said DH needed to cool it. That was the one where I said your last paragraph was spot on

wanted to clarify that as our posts crossed...

as for torturing kids to death, yeah that is such a common occurence that I really do understand why you hate the entirety of the male population.

Brush...
Tarring...

I don't think AMR ever said she hated the whole male population. And I did giggle at your (inadvertant) praise of her child torturing post (I'm not gigling at child torture let me clarify!).
None or few of this threads posts seem to tarr the whole male population with the same brush actually PAL; I think you are being over sensitive. We don't doubt that you are a good bloke but you must accept that there are a lot of duff ones about.

I am scared to write "true, Peasoup" to your last line, just in case in the meantime you have posted saying that all men are rapists and should be hung!! To be fair though, that last point of yours was entirely fair.

Goodnight then.

Because the majority of pain and suffering inflicted onto innocent people in the world is inflicted by men. Fact. Look at murder statistics. Look at history and the wars we have had. Look at statistics regarding divorce, extramarital affairs and abandonment of children. The stats speak for themselves.

That doesn't mean that women are all perfect. There are some real bad ass women out there.

I will however always believe that men are much more likely to selfishly do something that inflicts pain on their loved ones and feel no remorse about it.

"yeah that is such a common occurence"

Go work in an ER in a big city for 8 years and you will see it all the time.

to be comparing the stereotypes between men and women is neither helpful nor insightful. how can you have a considered debate about generalisations?

to say that you're not surprised, this is the way a lot of men behave, is almost condoning the behaviour. you expected this behaviour and now you've got it. reacting with disgust and outrage is more appropriate imho. might give the perpetrator reason to check his actions rather than fulfill a prophecy.

there are simply levels of decency and compassion with which we treat our oh's. the op is worried about the relationship with dh's work colleague. he needs to set her mind at rest. how he does it is up to them both.

Naivemum, your predicament has certainly become the venue of a philosophical debate (read slanging match over gender stereotyping) hopefully you are able to get some support out of that still.

I think you have to bear in mind that PAL likes to have secret female chat friends that his wife does not know about, however innocent these relationships are, and what he says should be taken with this in consideration.

The point here is that Naivemums dh has not behaved in this manner before, he has had friends, had an active social life, but now there is a woman in this circle of friends who is giving him inappropriate attention and he is responding to it, ignoring his wives insecurities.

Whether he is innocent and deserves his right to have friends is one thing, but upon seeing that his wife is hurt, insecure, feels threatened by this, the normal response to any caring husband would be to prioritise the wife, and not fight for his right to text flirt!

I cannot believe that PeterDuck and Pal cant see this, it is the change that has brought this on.

Surely, this means they have to addresse things in their relationship, but they cannot focus on getting their relationship back on track while the other woman is waiting in the sidelines expecting to be kept informed with a running commentary from Naivemums DH whilst she keeps on texting!

"PAL is the guy who has "adult" conversations with women on the internet that his wife doesn't know about, I believe. That might skew his opinion somewhat."

Oh. Was that him? Well no wonder he is ultra sensitive to my comments. He thinks a quick thrill with a different woman (even if it is online) is way more important than respect for his wife. I think that takes me back to my "male impulses come before their DW's dignity" comments. He came on here and had to think long and hard about whether or not doing this was okay.

The generalizations debates came about as a result of some comments I had responded to and had little to do with OP.

As far as OP goes I hope that everything is okay.

AnneMayers, I was not having a go, just trying to stear back in a little, I hope I did not step on your toes, you had made some very valid points.

PeterDuck, this woman keeps texting, signing off with x, what does this mean if not KISS?
Whether he responds in kind we dont know, but by replying he is not rejecting it....

I do find it quite scary that certain people on this board regard themselves as such paragons of virtue. Perfection does not exist. The thread you refer to, if you read it through, referred to something I had done only extremely occasionally, was interested to hear opinions on, took the opinions on board, very interesting thread which branched out into many concurrent issues - as I had hoped.

If you take the time to read other threads I have been involved in (look up "would it be two-timing" - you will see an huge amount of support and advice coming from me and much appreciated by the OP) you will realise how inappropriate and frankly ridiculous your attempt to discredit me actually is.

Trying to "discredit" what I say in this thread is pointless because, as PeterDuck says, I have been very much focused here on the issue for Naivemum and tried to provide constructive support where possible. If I could be bothered (or if I knew you all in RL), I might find reasons to try to discredit your own posts. AMR, I am sure that your own personal experiences of relationships with men colour your very negative view on men but I am not going to use that as a reason to try to discredit your opinions on this matter.

Personally, I think those of you trying to discredit me do a disservice both to these boards and, above all in this case, to the OP.

And in that I am with PeterDuck too, this thread has veered from the originial subject and I do hope that Naivemum is working through the stuff with her DH in ways which will provide her with some respite.

I am not going to dignify that with any explanation. You take it far too personal.

because, Sprogger, instead of trying to support the OP, certain people here sit themselves on a high perch and try to discredit honest and courtous posters, the kind of people boards like this should embrace, not try to discredit. Look at the attacks on AllFallDown yesterday too. Attacking him was a disservice too to this thread. Whether or not you agree with what someone says, he has still taken the time (in my case, lots of time in the course of several posts in this thread) to try to support the OP. It is one thing to disagree with a poster, it is another thing to try to discredit someone. And that, IMHO, does a disservice to this thread and the OP.