Am I being oversensitive because of past experience?

[amethyst69]

Quick history, long post sorry. Marriage of 6 years to serial cheating (not just women) narcissistic #%hat. He is a nurse which has relevance later as most of his conquests were colleagues. Usual stuff, I was mad, all my fault etc. Roll forward, add some counselling and I feel ready to try again. Meet partner of nearly 3 years now and everything going well. Menopause symptoms ramp up and he's very supportive. He switched jobs from being a self employed courier to maintenance for events first aid and patient transport company and started doing more patient transport which he enjoys and talks about, including the friendships with colleagues. He's held in high esteem as ex police and very experienced. Except I think one friendship is blurring boundaries. He's ginger haired (or was now predominantly bald) and a couple of the women bought a gingerbread teddy as a joke to put in the ambulance. Absolutely no issue with that. I did have an issue with borrowing his phone one day and opening it to whatsapps from one of the women. A picture I took of him next to a life-size gingerbread man with the message from him 'you can love me twice as much' and a 'joke' from her about him not wearing trousers could be cute. Of course they are just friends, yes he could have usesd a better word than love, we are in the ambulance all day it's a stressful job. I calmly discuss this, no shouting, no drama. Just a clear explanation of how upset I am and how it doesn't help my self esteem as frankly I feel like half the woman I was when we met due to hormone b*s. Unfortunately this has also set my insecurity off and last night I checked his phone. All messages deleted. Why? Because I dont want them there. Unfortunately for him she messaged a meme of a pink dice with red hearts just at that time. This is because 'she's bought me a present'. He's 55 she's 20 years younger engaged with 5 kids. Part of me thinks he's just being a sad git flattered by some attention but once I've said enough, surely he needs to be putting boundaries in and telling her to stop?
I'm cross with myself for looking as I worked so hard after my marriage and really trusted my partner who is just behaving like a kid with his hand in the cookie jar - denial, defensive and childish. Do I approach her?

No you do not approach her - she's his colleague and any issues you have should be with him. If you approach her it'll not go down well and tbh I think would have the opposite effect you're after.

He was right the word "love" might have been swapped with something better, but equally without the background you've got I'm unsure if it would provoke the same reaction. Her comment is a bit inappropriate to me.

You need to work on the self esteem part, he's not responsible for that and it'll do you no good to rely on someone else for that. And the insecurity part! Checking his phone is only going to cause more bad feelings if he finds out. It's likely he's removed the messages because he knows you've previously checked and just doesn't want the aggro, or he's hiding something (I would think aggro from reading what you've put)

People who work in stressful environments (like police / ambulance etc) often form super close friendships with colleagues, I think they have to to be able to deal with the things they see and have to do! What boundaries do you want? No messages? No inside jokes? No memes?

Part of life is not being able to control other people, you can't be there watching and controlling every interaction he has with colleagues ever.

Her joke about him being sans pants as cute was inappropriate, love me twice as much is jusy banter to me.
That woman had 5 kids, no matter how many years younger she's not worth shaking your confidence for. I would understand if she were Sophia Vergara! So work on your self confidence for your own sake. You just cannot rely on men to make you feel better about yourself because most will continue to flirt and notice other women.
Also agree not to contact that woman. You can't stop them cheating if they want to they will do it. All you can do is talk to your partner and see if he listens and cools it off with her. I agree that stressful environments with lots of women is a breeding ground for affairs. That's why medical profession is rife.

Approach her? She doesn't have any commitment to you so that's not your place, the one you are committed is the one you need to talk to .

Doing the shows your insecurities beyond words

It sounds like work place banter, I think you are reading too much into it.