husband's crush priority :(

[suze284]

we've been married 8 months (early 30s), everything seemed well. he has a colleague at work who started there after me and him got engaged. she moved from abroad with her live-in bf for a contract. i got to know her eventually through days out etc, I don't think she's interested in my husband. he invited her to our wedding. they go to lunches/coffee/whatever. over the past few weeks he's been mentioning her more frequently. btw her contract is ending next month, she's been trying to get extension or look for a job elsewhere in Europe.

a few of weeks ago husband's work had an evening outing. once she arrived with her bf, my husband's attention was all on her. he literally followed her around all night like a puppy, I made my own conversation but was noting how he was acting. she drifted from one group to another, my husband trailing after her. once he literally twisted his neck looking around for her, the way he was looking it was like he's in love with her... i felt hurt and embarrassed :( he wasn't drunk btw. after a while I got fed up, said i felt unwell and said I might go home as it was getting late. he started protesting, he insisted he walks me home but then said he wants to go back. so that happened. he came back, I told him how I was hurt how he's acting around her and it's really obvious. and I feel stupid observing it all in public.
he seemed surprised and hurt, started repeating how he loves me etc and apologised for acting stupid. asked what was he doing that's inappropriate, i said i'm not going to explain to him and it's really obvious because as a woman I've been on the receiving end of such things. anyway he apologised and i thought ok he's hopefully understood that I'm aware of this.

now, why I'm writing here. at the start I mentioned she's leaving the job soon. my husband is going away next month to a conference, the day before he leaves we're been invited to a jubilee family birthday (on my end). I think it's quite important that we go because he's only met my extended family properly at the wedding because of the pandemic and everyone is scattered across the country.
now his female work friend is having a leaving party the same day as my family's event. this plan is recent, I've told my family we're coming and i've mentioned it several times even before the above situation. he's come home from work telling me there's this leaving party for her, I reminded him we've got plans with my family. and then he replies in a whiney sort of way like oh but he's going away the next day and she might leave for good and who knows when they will see each other again. my jaw dropped at the audacity, I just left the room.
I feel so completely shook, I think I'm writing this just to let it out... a part of me wants to say ok go if it's so imporant and move my stuff out once he's at his conference :((((

a few years ago i was on a casual 'date' catch-up thing with one of those what-ifs lasting for years, nothing ever really happening... we were sat on the grass and it was sunny and two girls walked behind me.. i didn't realise my friend was even looking at them, i was probably looking at my shoes trying not to stammer.. i looked up at him and he started apologising like sorry they were just speaking his native language. i was a bit surprised, i thought wow his ex/gf/situationship must have had the reigns tight... i didn't even notice them. and so what, me and him we're nothing. why is he apologising looking at people. ah sorry for the digression
omg this reminded me at the start of mine and dh's dating i think he told me he went to some dancing society for classes, can't remember which. he stopped going after out second date. but when he first told me, i was like oh ok cool, have you been dancing long? (turned out it was for social reasons, of course), and he told me how he's surprised how calm i am. maybe he was testing out the boundaries, like he was GLAD i didn't throw a jealous fit over him going to some class. and look now

idk maybe he did, i wasn't exactly trailing after him haha:D

Because she’s eight months in — I’m assuming it is the first major issue. And she’s gone straight to contemplating divorce. As I said, I don’t blame her, but neither of them seems that invested in the marriage.

I don’t think the fact he’s infatuated is the issue, I myself have been in love with a partner but had “infatuations” with other guys. What I would NEVER do out of respect for my partner is act on that infatuation, much less infront of him or in public because it would hurt him and it’s quite rude. This guy seems to not give a shit about hurting his partner and that’s what I find very worrying.

i do love him but honestly i've had my guard up for a few years even before meeting him... so this isn't like as horrid to me as some other stuff i felt when i was younger, horrid still but more like ah ok what's on the menu today. i guess i can think more strategically and am not so 'raw' as i was in the past. anyway, he seemed visibly shaken during the conversation after the party, he kept telling me he loves me and only me (doesn't imply no feelings for anyone else! but i didn't want to be detective i think it's a bit self-deprecating)

I wondered that. Maybe he did that in private once they got home. If the OP was well aware of what was going on, I can’t see how the BF wouldn’t be. The woman possibly had some awkward questions to answer later on, you have to wonder whether she passed that on to the OP’s DH. If she really isn’t interested in him I doubt she would be too pleased at him putting her relationship at risk.

OP I've been there. My ex husband, on more than one occasion was mooning over someone. One time when we were at a party him and another guy were blatantly fawning over a woman and it got embarrassingly competitive and increasingly hostile between them. This was later on in the marriage and by that point, I'd reached the eye rolling stage and whilst it didn't so much hurt by this point, it was humiliating. And just served to show me, yet again, how utterly pointless he, and the marriage were.

My ex and I didn't share bank accounts and no joint assets and call me crazy, I was quite happy to leave with what I entered the marriage with so left him with the lovely flat (which to be fair he paid for, I was broke so didn't contribute). We used quickie divorce dot com. Just putting that there as an option If you did want to look into options around divorce - neither of us had a solicitor. I just wanted out by the time I did leave.

The chap I'm with now... I honestly don't believe he'd ever dream of treating me so badly. I wish I'd met him sooner, which leads me on to my next point really... All the time we spend with someone who treats us badly, is time we could be investing in making a much happier life solo, or dating other people to find someone worth being with, and as you said in a previous post, if you were just dating, you'd leave him after this.

In my opinion, a marriage is only worth fighting for if both parties are willing to put up that fight.

A good friend once said to me that she is fed up of having to "fix" relationships that she didn't break, and she's not going to do that anymore. It's something so simple, yet (for me anyway), so poignant. That has stuck with me, and I've treated my own love life as such for a number of years now. It's definitely helped me move the toads along far faster than I did when I was younger when I would spend time, my precious time, trying to make something work that I never broke in the first place.

I hope you are OK. X

what i got from this couple is that her bf is more invested than she is, she seems all about the work..... he moved to be with her for this contract, changed job. her bf openly compliments her in public, how amazing she is, she kinda shrugs it away. she can spend months away at a time with work, maybe they're together for some of it, maybe he's just left working in the spare room remotely like i am. at our wedding my mum got chatting to the girl/woman and was like you have a bf when are you getting married?!??!! she was like, no no not me.
idk another thing, when my husband first met me he said i have like a cinderella vibe, those girls who aren't too confident and have subtle style (tooting my horn but this has a point!) but are flighty. maybe now i'm WIFE, nice steady wife, the cinderella novelty he so romanticises has worn off. maybe he's started seeing more of that in his colleague and romanticises that instead. who knows, look at me trying to understand and excuse assholery :)

Oh dear OP. 8 months? 😞

My ExH used to have transparent crushes on younger women, though not after 8 months.

It was all my imagination of course, and my dirty mind spoiling his lovely pure friendships 🤢. Lovely younger women who were insullied by Life and all its challenges, such as bereavement, illness and getting older.

In the end one of these crushes got the better of him when it became clear she was interested too ( though that too was "my imagination" for quite a while)

maybe i've just become boring for him... nice steady wife working from home, always waiting at home. funnily just before we got engaged i had the choice of two jobs, on paper similar but one 6h away. if it wasn't for dh i'd have picked the far away one which required in-person attendance. the one i have now is also far away but i can work remotely. i was thinking ah ok i'll pick the more flexible one, make our lives easier in case we start a family. and he looked legit concerned when i talked about the in-person one. so i was like ah ok great, i can do this for a few years, have a baby and it will be nice and straightforward. maybe at that point my flightiness ended for him and he met his new flighty colleague who's sooo attractive.
before the party situation i was thinking of asking him what he thinks about stopping contraception in the next couple of months..... after the party i just recoiled, and he's become the more keen one for baby before this leaving do occurred. anyways....

suze284 this.

Before I say anything else, your DH is being a dickwad of the first order, he could win prizes. I do wonder if this marriage was what you really both wanted, you were understandably hesitant after an abusive relationship and he doesn't seem to have been in a hurry to make it official. I can't help but think your DM had a hand in all this, pushing you into a marriage just so she could be a Grandparent and never mind whether you'd be happy or not. Maybe it was too soon for your DH and he's now having a meltdown at the thought of never having another woman? It's no excuse of course but maybe he's woken up and realised this marriage wasn't what he wanted.
I do think he knows what he's doing is wrong but that's not your problem, the fact he's happy to do it right in front of you suggests he's looking for a way out to me. Maybe divorce would be a kindness to you both.
Don't tell your DM, quite frankly, she's a bloody liability. I think I'd be keeping her at a distance for a while. I hope you can find a way back to some happiness Op

i think he was quite steady in his actions up to the wedding... he asked to move in together less than a year after dating, he proposed about a year later mostly because of my thesis, he said he was scared if i say no it will impact my studies and it would be awkward living together or someone would have to move out when i had a deadline.. with the wedding he never showed hesitation. i had an ex who did propose under pressure from his parents because it's been 5 years at this point and he was still 'uhh unsure, need to test u out' vibes. and slid off the subject of actual plans. that was an obvious bye-bye but yeah i guess it takes little basic respect to go above what i'm used to :(

but dh met new colleague when we were already engaged, maybe in all this pandemic business he never really saw/met new people and now he's like whoa what have i done. ;(
yeah it will be 'everything's fine' to my mum for a while, i don't trust her to put me first here

i have a past and what-ifs and some surprises after my wedding which, now this is all going downhill, i wish i knew about.

Just want you to be a bit cautious about your own brain and what it's doing. It sounds a bit like you may have discovered someone has an interest in you when it's been "too late" to do anything about it. Now with your husband acting like a grade A knob that circumstance may be cushioning the idea of splitting up a bit, because there's always a chance Mr "what if" might be there for you and you won't have to be alone.

I wanted to say that you should never make your decisions based on that. Chances are (sadly) that those what if men will either stay that way forever or prove to be far from the good thing you think they'll be. I only say that having realised it the hard way! Not at all saying you should stay with your husband, just that you shouldn't bear that other person in mind at all when contemplating your future.

For me with your husband it would be one more big chat, watch his behaviour and make a decision accordingly. I'd personally have to talk it all out as honestly what do you have to lose, and you'll have to account for this decision to yourself for years to come.

@Daleksatemyshed
ps, about a month after we got married he did like a check-in with me, like is marriage what i thought it would be etc? i said yes, better and he said that everything's great for him too. this colleague stuff started maybe a couple months ago, i started getting vibes

yes thank you, i thought i was feeling flighty because of that too, on a part. but then i thought i couldn't ever act on this, even check-in with the what-if for a coffee just the two of us, if still married.... for one, it looks pathetic, like i'm in a crisis or a stray cat. and yes, what-if didn't do anything for years, what now. not a good start to anything really.

Crikey OP you don't need this embarrassment of a partner. I seperated from my first husband after a marriage of 14 months the only shared asset we had was a Building Society account (entirely all my contributions!) I managed to divorce him without instructing a Solicitor, got the forms and asked Court Staff for a bit of advice as to filling them in. (This was many years ago but I'm sure nowadays there is advice online) All I ended up paying were the Court Fees.
Your gut instinct is that this is not going to work, get out sooner rather than later, you deserve better than to feel second best, and as many PP's have said this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Good Luck x

OP I've read more of your posts and I totally feel that dancing scenario- the one where you'd quoted my post initially - you mentioned is very weird in terms of the - oh I'm surprised you're so cool with it / as you've realised -a bit fishy !!

idk i felt that more of a reflection of his expectation on women.. my what-if friend was also apologising for looking at people... idk i just shrugged it

That's strange @suze284 , he did and said all the right things so maybe I'm totally wrong about him. It just seems so strange that he's so blatant about his crush on this other woman, surely most men would try and be a bit more subtle.
Maybe he really does think unless you suddenly find your dick in another women it's not cheating and you shouldn't mind him hanging around her like a puppy. Some people do think as long as you go home to your DH/DW at the end of the day it doesn't count !
I'm afraid I'm old school, if my other half behaved like that he'd get the ear bashing of a lifetime. You deserve respect, and that is so disrepectful

or maybe i just surround myself by drooling assholes, entirely possible!! ;D

I don’t think it’s that the ‘Cinderella’ vibe has worn off (sounds lovely, well done you, and why not ‘toot your horn’) I think it’s what happens in most marriages after a while. The thrill dampens down a bit and you get on with everyday life. It’s natural, but I think this it’s harder for men to accept than women. The best marriages develop into lifelong partnerships and the ‘ripping your clothes off’ phase is replaced by something deeper and more fulfilling. I think if he doesn’t want to stick around for that then it’s his loss because you sound lovely. You’re not trying to excuse his assholery (lovely word and I’m stealing it for future use !) you’re trying to make sense of it. You have options, think about them carefully and remember you have your whole life ahead of you. You deserve to be happy, and you deserve to be with someone you truly love and trust, and who considers you their whole life, and don’t let anyone try to convince you otherwise.💐

You deserve better.💐

maybe he's hoped that i forgot about the first party situation since we had a single conversation.... maybe in his past he had his brain picked for every little flaw or that what's it's like in his family, i don't know... and since i haven't mentioned it/ threw a fit/forbid him to see her etc he thinks i don't care?? like i'm not consistent with my bashing so it means it's all wiped clean? idk maybe he thinks i'm a goldfish or he's a goldfish.....

His level of disrespect for you is mind blowing