Around a year ago I saw a message on my husbands work whatsapp thread to a woman on his work phone (never heard of her before this) saying "can you keep a secret" I didn't like the sound of it so I scrolled and found lots of flirty banter messages, nothing was ever explicit but there were a couple of responses from her referring to his wife i.e 'your poor wife' other stuff including him telling her how amazing she is at her job and she needs to work somewhere she is valued etc.
Turns out she works in the same industry as him so they have a work relationship (where sometimes they need to discuss things but have never worked in the same office etc)
There was a very long thread of messages, lots of emojis, laughing, joking etc I confronted him and after being VERY defensive I basically asked him if I was standing over his shoulder and could see what he was saying would he still send the messages and he said 'no I wouldn't'
At the time I was battling with severe post natal depression while he was in the room next door sending messages to another woman saying how amazing she is at what she does.
Anyway we worked through it - I tried not to think about it much over the following months. He works from home everyday and we live in a small house, so the room where his laptop is I can see when his whatsapp's are open, I have often seen the same woman pops up in convo but then the next time I look the thread has been deleted.
This has been happening for a few months so I haven't seen what they actually say.
He recently went on a 2 day work trip where I knew she would be so I snooped once he was back - He started a convo with her the next day asking if she got home safely and then spoke about a job opportunity and said 'lets make this happen' as in he is desperate to work more closely with her.
I understand he may have to talk to her for work purposes, however I find the constant deleting of threads really strange, especially considering they are on his work phone and he should have to keep them to refer back to?
I know if I had never found the initial messages where it was very flirty that it would still be happening and I feel like in the recent messages he holds back so much, as in he is really trying to make her laugh but in a way that if I was to see the messages he could defend himself.
I would really appreciate opinions on this please x