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Original poster

DH had a secret female friend for years

125 replies

Usernameless16 · 16/04/2023 13:44

Not sure what to think. I recently found out DH has had a secret female friend for the last 9 years that I knew nothing about. They used to work together.

He has been meeting her for coffee/lunch (just the two of them) whenever he was in her home town, whilst telling me he was meeting another(male) former work friend. He says this was just for work advice/gossip. However, they now work in entirely different industries, so that doesn’t make sense.

He was private messaging her on a couple of social media platforms, but deleted the whole conversation on Watsapp. The ones he showed me on the other were him arranging to meet, chat on the phone or asking how she was etc. Nothing sexual, but there were obvious gaps in the conversation where things had been deleted. Most of the messages are really late at night and weekends.

He also deleted all the messages on Watsapp and yet he says there was nothing to hide!

He doesn’t have a history of cheating, or do I have form for being jealous. Had he told me about the friendship I would not feel like this.

Does this sound like he was having an emotional affair or am I being ridiculous here?

OP posts:
Nanny0gg · 16/04/2023 14:53

YellowAndGreenToBeSeen · 16/04/2023 14:08

Hmmmm. I’ve got a male friend who pops round for coffee once a month or so. We message regularly too - politics, jokes, celeb gossip etc. He’s married and I know his wife doesn’t know.

We’ve never slept together, have know each other 30 odd years.

He doesn’t tell his wife because she wouldn’t like it but there’s nothing ‘not to like’.

Appreciate your situation is different but just suggesting it’s not necessarily a sexual or emotional relationship. Could just be friends.

Well, there is now, because you've been a secret for 30 years, however innocent.

Nanny0gg · 16/04/2023 14:54

Usernameless16 · 16/04/2023 14:05

How do I get him to be honest about it all? I feel like I’m losing my mind. He says it was all just about work, but he has numerous other friends he can talk to about “work”. Ones he didn’t feel the need to hide his interactions from me.

He won't be honest

The question is, what do you want to do about it?

Moidershewrote · 16/04/2023 14:56

Sorry OP, there is only one reason why people (cheats) hide messages - because there is something to hide. What do people need to hide from their partners? Two things generally; flirting/sexting/affair planning and/or slagging off if their partner.

There’s no logical other reason to delete messages whatsoever.

I would personally be as calm as I could be, but also go nuclear on him. He moves out with immediate effect and has 24 hours to admit the full truth or I’m done and that would be it.

To be honest, I would be done anyway at this point as having been lied to for NINE years I wouldn’t trust a word that came out of his cheating lips ever again.

Divebar2021 · 16/04/2023 15:00

I work in a male dominated organisation and have male friends that I meet…. I’m pretty sure they don’t go home and announce that they’ve met me for coffee / whatever or if they do they’re vague and imply there’s a group. It doesn’t mean there’s anything going on it just means they don’t want to get into it about who I am. I stayed with 2 of them in an air b nb with another female friend and I have non idea what they said about that. We’ve been friends 5 / 6 years now but I don’t know if their wives even know my name - no idea.

BenCoopersSupportWren · 16/04/2023 15:01

It doesn’t matter whether he has been having a physical affair or not. The facts you do know are that he has made an active choice to lie to you, over and over again, for nine years in order to meet another woman, and that he has deleted messages to and from this woman.

How do you get over a long-standing lie like that? He hasn’t just neglected to mention a colleague he gets on with, he has blatantly lied to your face repeatedly about who he was meeting in order to keep this secret. And now he expects you to believe it was “nothing”?

If he can lie to you over this for so long, how can you ever trust anything he says?

CantGetDecentNickname · 16/04/2023 15:06

Moidershewrote · 16/04/2023 14:56

Sorry OP, there is only one reason why people (cheats) hide messages - because there is something to hide. What do people need to hide from their partners? Two things generally; flirting/sexting/affair planning and/or slagging off if their partner.

There’s no logical other reason to delete messages whatsoever.

I would personally be as calm as I could be, but also go nuclear on him. He moves out with immediate effect and has 24 hours to admit the full truth or I’m done and that would be it.

To be honest, I would be done anyway at this point as having been lied to for NINE years I wouldn’t trust a word that came out of his cheating lips ever again.

This message. I'd be packing his things and telling him to go immediately. Having lied to you for so long and minimised when you found out, there is a lot more to it and he will be highly unlikely to admit the full truth.

Oblomov23 · 16/04/2023 15:07

Trust can never be repaired. He's lied to you for nearly a century. There's no going back from this. Irrespective of whether they've had sex, too much damage has already been done.

Mari9999 · 16/04/2023 15:07

@Moidershewrote
You don't know any of the people involved or the circumstances involved in any of their situations, and yet you refer to his "cheating lips." How can you say with such certainty that he has"cheated?"

Cheating is certainly among the several possibilities, but unless you subscribe to the notion that men and women cannot have friendships without cheating what makes cheating the only explanation?

Richierich77 · 16/04/2023 15:14

He was stupid to lie however that does not mean absolutely he is 100% cheating, nobody on here can definitively tell you that is happening. Knowing how jealous, irrational & frankly nuts some women can get over issues that are non issues such as men having female friends then I’m not surprised some men hide such relationships because frankly they don’t need the hassle. If he had told you from the start would you be perfectly happy for him to meet up with her..unlikely so that’s why he hid it as he wanted to maintain their friendship & not have you ruin it.

Emmamoo89 · 16/04/2023 15:18

Richierich77 · 16/04/2023 15:14

He was stupid to lie however that does not mean absolutely he is 100% cheating, nobody on here can definitively tell you that is happening. Knowing how jealous, irrational & frankly nuts some women can get over issues that are non issues such as men having female friends then I’m not surprised some men hide such relationships because frankly they don’t need the hassle. If he had told you from the start would you be perfectly happy for him to meet up with her..unlikely so that’s why he hid it as he wanted to maintain their friendship & not have you ruin it.

🙄

Mom2K · 16/04/2023 15:25

*He doesn’t tell his wife because she wouldn’t like it but there’s nothing ‘not to like’.

Appreciate your situation is different but just suggesting it’s not necessarily a sexual or emotional relationship. Could just be friends.*

Even if it is innocent, in a healthy relationship you don't lie and hide things from your partner that you think they won't like. You discuss it like adults so both parties can agree that it's ok or they break up because for one of them it really isn't. Your friend's wife has a right to her boundaries within her relationship and your friend, by keeping it secret, is deliberately crossing those boundaries. Often this behaviour is hypocritical because he'd probably not feel ok with it if his wife had a secret male friend. There's no excuse for this behaviour. If one person is consistently doing something they know would be very upsetting to their partner and lying about it then they shouldn't be together, end of. The liar is the one in the wrong every time.

OP - at best your DH is just a liar and at worse they've been sexting/expressing feelings (the deleted messages) or have actually been physical, which is what I believe given the deleted content. If it's just the lying, can you get past it? If so, how? From here on out, how can you trust him again and not wonder what else he's hiding or manipulating?

I couldn't get past this. Once trust is gone, even if you choose to forgive and stay, you'll be in turmoil going forward, always wondering, because he's a liar.

Lampzade · 16/04/2023 15:26

Richierich77 · 16/04/2023 15:14

He was stupid to lie however that does not mean absolutely he is 100% cheating, nobody on here can definitively tell you that is happening. Knowing how jealous, irrational & frankly nuts some women can get over issues that are non issues such as men having female friends then I’m not surprised some men hide such relationships because frankly they don’t need the hassle. If he had told you from the start would you be perfectly happy for him to meet up with her..unlikely so that’s why he hid it as he wanted to maintain their friendship & not have you ruin it.

So what about the deleted messages?

Crikeyalmighty · 16/04/2023 15:26

@Richierich77 do you think most men would be happy with their female partners having male friends on the side that they texted all the time, met up with in secret etc , I suspect not and wouldn't hold with the 'it wasn't worth the hassle of telling you' - first thing most blokes would say on discovering you were meeting up with another guy you were friends with is 'he fancies you- men don't meet up with women for casual friendly chit chats unless they fancy you' -- (I've had this a few times) whereas they fully expect us to believe that they will meet up with women , just because they are friends. Hypocritical don't you think??

Lampzade · 16/04/2023 15:27

Crikeyalmighty · 16/04/2023 15:26

@Richierich77 do you think most men would be happy with their female partners having male friends on the side that they texted all the time, met up with in secret etc , I suspect not and wouldn't hold with the 'it wasn't worth the hassle of telling you' - first thing most blokes would say on discovering you were meeting up with another guy you were friends with is 'he fancies you- men don't meet up with women for casual friendly chit chats unless they fancy you' -- (I've had this a few times) whereas they fully expect us to believe that they will meet up with women , just because they are friends. Hypocritical don't you think??

This

monsteramunch · 16/04/2023 15:29

@Richierich77

Knowing how jealous, irrational & frankly nuts some women can get over issues that are non issues such as men having female friends then I’m not surprised some men hide such relationships because frankly they don’t need the hassle.

Yes, famously men are never jealous, irrationals and 'frankly nuts' in relationships are they?

Strange then that in the UK the equivalent of two women every week are murdered by current or former romantic partners...

monsteramunch · 16/04/2023 15:32

@Richierich77

Knowing how jealous, irrational & frankly nuts some women can get over issues that are non issues such as men having female friends then I’m not surprised some men hide such relationships because frankly they don’t need the hassle.

Oh and if you found out that for essentially a decade, your female partner had been meeting up with a male friend they'd never mentioned to you, and lied about it each time (even saying they were seeing a female friend instead) you would think that was fine and not be suspicious? Catch yourself on...

monsteramunch · 16/04/2023 15:32

monsteramunch · 16/04/2023 15:29

@Richierich77

Knowing how jealous, irrational & frankly nuts some women can get over issues that are non issues such as men having female friends then I’m not surprised some men hide such relationships because frankly they don’t need the hassle.

Yes, famously men are never jealous, irrationals and 'frankly nuts' in relationships are they?

Strange then that in the UK the equivalent of two women every week are murdered by current or former romantic partners...

Current or former male partners that should have said.

LittleHollow1 · 16/04/2023 15:36

The only reason I wouldn't tell my partner about someone in my life that I had been "friends" for 9 years is because I had been or planning on having sex with that "friend". He's meeting up with that woman, in his home town and not telling you? If I was truly meeting a friend i wouldn't think twice of telling my partner. If it was innocent then why lie? Also the deleted message no matter if it was sexual or not he didn't ever want you to see them so it's not looking good. Don't waste your time

Moidershewrote · 16/04/2023 15:37

Mari9999 · 16/04/2023 15:07

@Moidershewrote
You don't know any of the people involved or the circumstances involved in any of their situations, and yet you refer to his "cheating lips." How can you say with such certainty that he has"cheated?"

Cheating is certainly among the several possibilities, but unless you subscribe to the notion that men and women cannot have friendships without cheating what makes cheating the only explanation?

It’s true, I can’t be 100% sure… But please, no one deletes messages amongst wider conversations unless they have something dodgy to hide. Added to that, he already lied for 9 years about meeting up with this woman (saying it was another male friend) after the OP has made it clear she’s not insecure etc..

But suuuuure😅

Catshaveiteasy · 16/04/2023 15:39

Seems suspicious to me. Even if there's nothing going on and no feelings on her side, it suggests he has feelings.

I have kept in touch with an ex for 30 years. We meet occasionally. My DH knows, I never hide who I'm seeing. He has met the ex and they disliked each other, so maybe he doesn't like it as such, but he knows there's nothing to he concerned about. I tell him any news etc that ex has.

peeweechigs · 16/04/2023 15:41

Ask him what the deleted messages say. And if it's something innocuous then ask him why he deleted them then. It's a no brainer. He's up to something.

Expo23 · 16/04/2023 15:46

theWarOnPeace · 16/04/2023 13:55

I don’t know, but I ended what thought was a friendship with a man when I realised I was a secret from his partner.

It makes no sense to have a platonic friendship that’s a secret, whichever way you look at it and from whoever’s perspective. I gave my friend an ultimatum, be honest or we can’t be friends, and he chose to not tell the partner. So we are now not friends.

I did the same. I used to meet someone I was really close to, a colleague. Some gossips at work would say we were having an affair, we really really weren't. He was like a brother. However, he started to be dishonest with his wife about seeing me out of work and it made it all seem off and like the office gossips were right so I stopped seeing him and only communicate about work or in group chats now. He has tried to ask me a few times when we've been on work nights out why I have distanced myself but I have brushed it off. It made me feel strange being a married mans secret starbucks meet up! I have never been sure if his wife didn't like him having female friends or if he just couldn't be bothered with any questions or opening her up to feeling any insecurities. It wasn't a path I could be bothered treading as plenty other people to be friends with. The wife was there before our friendship.

AnotherEmma · 16/04/2023 15:50

Agree with PPs, this is an affair, most probably physical but at the very least emotional. If he had nothing to hide, he wouldn't have hidden anything, would he? But he's lied about her for years and deleted messages. In a way it doesn't matter what has or hasn't happened between them, the fact that's he's lied and is still lying would be enough to kill any trust. He has been unfaithful and will continue to be unfaithful by refusing to tell you the full truth.

People talk about "the script", maybe look that up as he's probably following it.

If it was me I think I would call this "friend" of his and ask her to tell me what's been going on all these years. I wouldn't tell him I was doing it, as he would just warn her. See if she will fill in the gaps for you.

Even without more information, though, I think it's pretty clear.

Riverlee · 16/04/2023 15:50

Out of curiosity, did you know about this woman beforehand? When they worked together, was there mentionitis? Or were you aware they were friends or colleagues? Has she always been secret?

Thisisworsethananticpated · 16/04/2023 15:55

It’s an emotional affair to a degree
and it’s cheating , of a form that he will try and deny

I think 🤔 he needs to think about what this was giving him
princessconsuelabanahammock
is a spot on