I think my dh fancies my friend

[fdkc]

Ok this thought is actually taking over my whole life at the moment, I can think of nothing else. I even dream about it. I have a good friend who I became friends with 5 years ago when we moved across the street from her and our kids started playing together. She is a good friend and I enjoy her company. I have noticed over the last year or so that my husband really likes her personality wise which is fine cause she's good fun but what bothers me is he talks about her quite a bit. Just innocent things like "I saw Mary today", "have you heard from Mary lately" and if I have been to her house he'll ask how she is and if she had any news. She is also married.

I don't know whether I am going insane with jealousy because she is very attractive or I actually might have something to worry about. This thought never entered my head for the first few years of our friendship and we actually did alot of couples nights out before COVID. We met a few times in each others gardens during COVID but in the last year as we got back to seeing each other more, I feel my husband is definitely showing more interest in her than he would have done.

So my husband mentions her again last week and I lost it, I went bloody mental like a psycho actually. I don't know what came over me but my insecurities and jealousy took over and I flat out accused him of being obsessed with her, told him he never stops talking about her etc etc. In my defence I had my period. He was gobsmacked, he called me an absolute psycho, obviously denied outright that he fancied her at all. But guess what? I don't believe him. Please lay it out to me straight, am I a jealous psycho?

People say to trust your instincts and my instincts are telling me he fancies the pants off my friend.

Oh and what's worse is she is the biggest flirt in the world. She has always flirted with my husband but she flirts with every other male too. It never bothered me but now I actually hate her over it.

And the worst thing is, even if my dh does fancy her he will probably never admit it and I will never know for sure. It's completely affecting my relationship with my husband and my friend who I now hate even though she did nothing wrong apart from flirt but thats just her personality.

What can I do to put this out of my mind and get some peace back in my life?? And be real with me I can take it.

... And so? Does it render women incapable of controlling verbally-violent outbursts? Or how about physically violent ones? If I punch my child whilst on my period does it excuse me?

Just as well men don't mensturate or we'd hear the "mitigating" factor of THE PERIOD at every domestic violence trial.

Some women do have pre menstrual dysphoric disorder which is worse than average.

Or PMT can cause a woman to express feelings she should've expressed before, about something that's worth saying something about.

Mary isn't a true friend.

Some women do have pre menstrual dysphoric disorder which is worse than average.

Yes, and it's up to the patient to manage it with the available medication.

Or PMT can cause a woman to express feelings she should've expressed before, about something that's worth saying something about.

No, PMT can't cause that.

@QueenCamilla I imagine some women have had it happen that they've been irritated by something and haven't said anything, but PMT has led to them being a bit more irritated and mentioning the thing.

Yeah, but do you constantly talk about the postman/man over the road etc to your DH? It’s different to think someone is good looking/attractive:eye candy etc and a bit more than a crush of you have the need to constantly ask/talk about them

@OldFan We all can have days of less control than usual (for me it's ADHD ) but it's important to understand that there is no rhyme or reason, or positive outcome to these outbursts. It's important not to push an excuse but to apologise and seek a coping strategy if there's an issue.

I had an abusive ex who always cited "stress" for acting out towards me (including rape).
I think we'd find that a great majority of "but I'm on my period" bunch are actually abusive c*nts of female sex.

Yes well most marriage start out like this and yet it happens all the time!

How have things been today, fdkc?

I understand your great concern. For the past year you’ve witnessed a change in your H’s attitude/behavior re flirty Mary. He “talks about her quite a bit now” and seems to be more invested. You’ve recognized a shift, which may be due to his attraction to the ego massages Mary provides. His crush is leaking out as mentionitis, and this is putting distance between you.

Have you spoken again with your H?

We all can have days of less control than usual (for me it's ADHD ) but it's important to understand that there is no rhyme or reason, or positive outcome to these outbursts.

@QueenCamilla Of course there can be if it's something the person has been feeling a long time and arguably should've brought up before, but hasn't. If they were to be able to do it in a more considered way that'd probably be better, though. Obviously anything abusive is not ok. But if OP's concern is reasonable then there's nothing wrong with her saying it. The friend seems to have done more than the H though (not that we know the details of what she's done.)

Understand the ‘mentionitus’ must be very irritating but it I do wonder if you have a deep seated fear of your marriage ending. Be careful not to let your obsessive thoughts chip away at your marriage (you clearly understand this is a possibility as you’ve said that you need to overcome these feelings).

Definitely distance yourself from Mary. I doubt that your husband will ask about her again.

OP, I just read that your mum died when you were a child and I wonder if this is the root cause of your fear. Fear of losing someone and of life dramatically changing. Perhaps the situation is triggering your fears.💐

@GiselleRose

I don't think that anything to do with it. I hope you don't upset OP by bringing this up.

She genuinely feels her husband fancies her friend..She is not crazy she has sensed this over a period of time.

She can see they vibe and how he gets googly eyes maybe when he around her and he even asking after all the time.Not that partners don't ask after your friends to be polite. But from what she saying it's a bit too much.

Let's face it we as women are not stupid to sense how our partners are.

Sorry think your wrong to say this as it's probably painful enough..__

@goshy yes she does have long legs … like a filly ! However …..the husband was a bit too enamoured for my liking 😆

Thanks again everyone for taking the time to reply.

I am alot calmer now and see a bit clearer. Yes I was wrong for having a major verbal outburst at dh and blaming my period. If I am being honest, I don't usually behave badly with PMT. I didn't abuse him though or use bad language, I just shouted and accused him of something that he feels was totally unacceptable and came out of nowhere.

I do now feel that it's probably my anxiety and panic disorder that is making this all so much worse in my head. My mental health has been deteriorating over the last few months. Maybe my feeling that dh fancied my friend has contributed towards this I don't know. I think at one stage I noticed him enjoying her flirting with him and that set me off on this spiral, then anytime he mentioned her name innocently I was hyper sensitive to it. He probably has mentioned other friends names too but it's her name that I focused in on. This is also probably because I am intimidated by her attractiveness, her confidence and her blatant nerve to flirt with my husband in front of me because in her own words 'thats just the way she is'. It's my own fault for not pulling her up on it when it made me feel uncomfortable at the very start of our friendship. She is a likable person because she is good crack and always has the local Goss. Myself and my husband don't do gossip but when she has all the news on the locals it's fascinating and amusing to listen to, maybe that's why we both enjoyed her company to begin with. I did notice aswell that dh had started to get a bit annoyed with her gossiping at one stage about 2 years ago. He said she is always gossiping about people and it's not right, I defended her by saying sure if she hears it off someone else she's going to tell us, I actually forgot about that until having a chat with dh last night.

So I had a calm discussion with dh last night. I apologised for my behaviour, told him how I felt and why I felt this way. He was genuinely taken aback. He said he definitely doesn't fancy her and listed off a load of things that he doesn't like about her, the gossiping was the biggest thing. In the back of my anxious mind I am thinking is he just saying all these things why he doesn't like her to convince me of it but he really does like her? Then my rational mind believes every word he says.

I know my dh would never cheat on me as far as is possible for someone to know that. Before all this I would say I trusted him 100%. I heard of a time about 8 years ago when dh was on his brothers stag, they all went to a strip club as you do on a stag and those kind of things would never bother me, it's all just fun. But my dh refused to go, told the lads to go on and he went back to the apartment on his own. That always stuck with me, his brother told me this himself one night when he was telling me how envious he and others are of mine and dh's love for one another. We are together since we were 18/19, had first child 3 years later and the rest is history.

I have never felt this way in our 20 year relationship, I have always felt loved and fancied and that my dh was 100% devoted to me so this shook me and I possibly blew it out of proportion. I am thinking now that my own insecurities along with my envy of my friend and her beauty/confidence was the problem to begin with. My jealousy towards her made me project it onto my husband and blow it out of proportion. This worries me about my mental health and I will be seeing my GP this week to maybe start treatment again or even CBT again before I resort to medication.

My friend on the other hand I think needs to go and that's more my fault than hers. I realise I can't handle a friend who flirts with my dh, It didn't bother me before but it does now so for my own sake I am going to just start to contact her less and less. For people asking what her flirting entails, it includes making innuendos about sex to my dh and laughing it off. One night the 4 of us were talking about sex, she brought up her own sex life, my husband said we have a brilliant sex life and she said 'i bet I could still teach you a thing or 2' then laughed saying 'ah I'm only joking' which she probably was in fairness. I didn't just let her away with that though, I just said something along the lines of dh wouldn't need to be shown a thing by anyone cause he gets exactly what he wants at home, that's why we are still together 17 or 18 years later or whatever it was at the time. She brought up sex alot, like asked personal questions about our sex life during pregnancies and how long after birth did we do it etc etc. She was always barely dressed aswell when we arrived after being invited over, one time it was 9pm at night but she was in her bikini, not joking it was actually freezing that night, yes it was summer but I was froze. After a while her dh said to her 'Mary it's freezing would you not go and out something on', she just said 'no I'm roasting'. That night we just ended up leaving after about 2 hours cause it just felt uncomfortable and her dh was pissed off about it and you could tell. There is numerous other things, she'd get pissed and dance around but always tried to drag my dh up to dance with her, not her own dh. Now my dh would be mortified by that and just pushed her away.

I know that is an essay but I am trying to paint a picture for you after you all took the time to reply and had further questions. I know you might think she's not a flirt and I just take her up that way because I am jealous of her but please take my word for it, she is the total definition of a flirt. I found it amusing at first but then somewhere along the line it started to annoy me. Maybe that's how it started for dh too, amusing at first and maybe he enjoyed it but somewhere along the line he thought nah this is not right. There was a time only about 8 months ago where we were invited over, I said it to dh and he said nah rather stay in, couldn't be bothered going over there. I had forgotten about that too until last night.

Again so sorry about the essay but I hope it gives you all some more insight. There is still a tiny niggle in the back of my mind but now I am more interested in tackling my own insecurities and anxieties than I am trying to analyse my dh and everything he has said in relation to this person over the last few years. Maybe he does find her attractive and possibly had a crush on her at some stage but I am pretty sure he doesn't at the moment and if he did I think it would totally stop now because he seen how distressed I got myself over it. He was genuinely horrified that my mental health had started to suffer over the thought of it, he was upset when I said it to him and wouldn't want to contribute to make my anxiety or panic disorder any worse because he has seen how bad I have suffered with it over the years. He has always been so supportive and did anything he could to help me when I was going through a bad patch with my anxiety.

Thanks again for all your replies, I really appreciate it xx

You've posted about this before haven't you.

To be honest, I would get rid of the friend, saying about teaching him a thing or two...Nah that's way out of line...along with everything else.

It's the bikini thing that made me remember. Can't believe you're still worrying over this...she's very disrespectful.

I remember the bikini too.

Either this friend is borderline weird - walking around in the cold in a bikini (!) or you have kept her around you and your DH, who quite obviously does NOT like her and has done absolutely nothing to indicate that he does (if he wanted to be around her he’d go to hers whenever it was suggested), because you are scared of not being friends with her.
Where are your standards? You discuss her behaviour behind her back. Describe her as easy. Describe having talked about her with your social group. Not once have you said stop wandering around in your bikini and flirting with DH.
you aren’t obliged to be a fake friend.
You don’t like her, you just want other people to back you up in disliking her for allegedly targeting your DH. No-one made you all sit around talking about sex!!
Just don’t bother speaking to her again

And you do realise that in your OP you describe her as a good friend and say you really enjoy her company but the drip feed shows quite obviously that you do not.

@fdkc Your DH should've made it clear to her that it wasn't ok. If he had then you'd feel a lot more secure.

Yes this has been posted about before, it was the bikini that did it for me too, I’m shocked the op is still feeling this way that was a long time ago.

It's the comments (sex ones) that make me think she's a complete show off and doesn't give a shit about OP's feelings.

Yes I remember posting about the bikini, just asking if it was me being over sensitive or if it was normal behaviour for a friend to invite us over and be in a bikini at 9pm at night when it was fairly chilly.

I can't really remember and I can't find the post but most people replying said I was way over reacting and that she can wear what she wants in her own garden, most people just called me out on being jealous. That was over a year ago so maybe that was even the time that I turned against her flirting and started thinking about dh fancying her.