Should I confront partner over messages to co worker?

[Harriet1237]

Bit of background last year there was a work event where my partner ended up sharing a bed with a female co worker, both un clothed drunk with another couple in the room who shared the second bed, (male and female both also had partners who were not at the event). He didn’t tell me, I found out from messages on his phone. It was explained away as he lost his key it was an after party type thing the girl was sick and he was drunk nothing happened etc. This is very out of character as my partner never really drinks nor has done anything in the past to break trust. They work in different divisions of a law firm so don’t see each other often. I let it go. He said he’ll not speak to her again I snooped and found they still message very rarely but it’s always regarding work related things. Unsure if this is something to address?

the event has around 300 people there and each are given a room to share they all had there own room but were sharing with people they didn’t know which is why they all went back to the same room. Unsure if I’m over reacting or under reacting.

I don't know what's worse. Him getting into bed with a naked woman who isn't his girlfriend, or her getting into bed naked, with someone else's boyfriend!

Obviously the men should have shared one bed and the women the other.

This. I would not be going on that trip.

So he's lying about his much contact he is having with her, i get why you want to ask about these seemingly innocuous texts now.

An ex from long ago fell asleep in a girls bed, saying they were just chatting at a party. Him and that girl were together, he was just lying about how innocent it was. You want to believe them, you don't want to blow up your life over something that could be nothing. But it isn't nothing, he was in bed with another woman, and was fine lying about it. Can you live with the uncertainty and the lack of trust? What about the next time he needs to stay overnight for work?

I find it very odd the women did not share a bed. Actually I find all of it odd but that part especially.

This too I can't see why a law firm would put it self in danger. There is something more to this I'm sorry to say

If my husband slept in his underwear in a bed next to a colleague and she didn’t have a bra on, I think I’d want to punch him in the face tbh I’d be so angry and disgusted

you don’t just ‘end up’ in bed with someone!

This. I've worked in law nearly 30 years now and never heard of having to share a hotel room with strangers. That would be a hard no for me

What are you thinking about it all now, @Harriet1237?

I’m wondering when their pairing up was actually initiated. As your P ended up unclothed in bed with OW, it stands to reason that they got ‘together’ much earlier in the day/evening. There would have been a lead up to the nude bed sharing.

I agree with others that this is infidelity. He was undressed in bed with a topless woman because he wanted to be. He nixed the options that a loyal partner with strong boundaries would have chosen: sleeping in his original room (getting another key); retrieving bed clothes from rooms; men in one bed and women in the other; his taking the floor or available sofa. His dishonesty when confronted, continued secretive contact, and deleting messages speak volumes and is ‘wayward’ behavior. He is making a mockery of you.

@Harriet1237, I would be going nuclear and setting consequences. He’d be sent elsewhere and I wouldn’t even consider reconciling until he came completely clean.

He had sex with her, and it's not the first time he's cheated - nobody gets caught the first time.

Up to you if you are ok with that.

OP, surely you are not that naive.

How did you tell the other three partners? In person or by some form of message, it seems weird to me that three unconnected people would all be OK with their partners being naked with randoms overnight

Was a room with two double beds or were they squashed together in singles?

This.

Blimey are companies so stingy nowadays that they expect employees to share a room - complete strangers, or rampant snorers?

I worked for many many years for a FTSE company who I strongly suspect did discuss this - bean counters used to run the company but decided against it. They were notorious for agreeing these daft ideas and then doing the complete opposite themselves (I.e Economy flights for everyone bar a certain grade which happened to be their own!).

So classic minimising then.

Whats this on your short collar?
Nothing
It looks like lipstick
Its ketchup
Its pink
They did a different kind of ketchup
It smells of perfume
Ok. It’s not ketchup
Its clearly lip shaped
Ok it’s lipstick. But it was my friend Dave, he thought it’d be funny.
Why didn’t you tell me that in the first place?
Bc of how you react - see!
…. It’s also on your underwear

🙄

I wouldn't believe him.

In addition, even if nothing happened,
as a married man he should not have got himself into a position where he shared a bed with a naked woman!

How would he react if you shared a bed with a naked man?

The fact he has gaslit you until you cornered him into confessing each point doesn’t look good.

Why would the men and women pair off into the separate beds in a state of partial/full undress?

She must have felt 100% comfortable with your husband not to touch her - which so odd if they don’t know each other well

or she felt 100% comfortable with him bc of how they interacted that night. And if that was the case it’s unlikely they would not have had sexual contact- especially if they were drunk, she was only wearing knickers(?) and they were sharing a bed.

I’m sorry OP, he’s bullshitting you. Have you asked what his reaction would be if you’d done this with a male colleague? Suggest you do.

Also, there are other ways to communicate. They may have agreed to keep it strictly work-related on his (main) mobile phone. There’s also SM and apps.
Sorry.

If this is out of the ordinary behaviour for both of them maybe someone started handing out the white stuff and they decided to throw caution to the wind.

Two adults sharing a bed naked and inebriated on something. They somehow just fell asleep and the part of the room they happens to be? Yet they were capable of undressing? So they didn’t just conveniently black out where they sat as it seems like he’s trying to have you believe.

If they were capable of doing that they’d be more than capable of at least touching each other even if he couldn’t perform.

I’d have him sleeping in another room at the very least until he explained himself better than that as he’s taking you for a gullible fool.

Sorry, this evokes the scene from Fargo where Steve buscemi and his friend pick up a couple of women and take them back to their room 🫣

I've worked for some of the biggest professional service firms (so not law, but similar environment) and you'd be surprised re the sharing thing.

I've had to attend mandatory training where I've had to share a flat with a colleague. I did once share with a man but that was because we both got on and neither of us wanted to share with a complete random and - perhaps crucially for some of you here - he spoke to his wife first to make sure she was onboard, and he would have sucked it up and shared with a random bloke if she hadn't been OK with that.

I've had to attend mandatory training where some people have to share a room. The firm booked X number of rooms for X+many people and basically left it to the staff to sort it out. Luckily, there were enough blokes who were happy to share together that it wasn't an issue, but I was prepared to quit over it. A serviced apartment is one thing, but sharing an actual room with a colleague is pushing my boundaries to a point that I'm not happy with.

The drinking culture is big.

I can see a situation where a bunch of people got completely wasted and couldn't make their own way back to their own room and ended up crashing in someone else's. That part is completely plausible.

If there were two men and two women, and there was a (secret) couple in the mix, I can see why the couple would have refused to share with someone else. So, I see a scenario where your husband only had a bed availble to him that was occupied by a random women. But...

...THE FLOOR WAS ALWAYS AN OPTION IF HE WAS TOO HAMMERED TO LEAVE. In fact, if they were that hammered, sharing a bed was a bad idea, as one of them could have easily puked on the other.

When you're drunk, you can end up in bad situations, but anyone would then attempt to make the best of the a bad situation. In this case, it would have been giving the female colleague the bed, and just sleeping on the floor, i.e. not sharing a bed with another woman.

I wouldn't share a bed with any of my male friends (who are like brothers!) let alone with a random man. If I really didn't have any other option (and I feel like that isn't true, because surely there would have been a receptionist available to look up my room booking and get me into my room?), I'd crash on the floor. I guess I wouldn't get myself drunk to the point where I couldn't safely walk back to the reception and ask for assistance.

If there was no receptionist, we're not talking a hotel with rooms, we're talking flats. In which case, there's more than a bedroom, there's at least another room or a private corridor, and he could have crashed there.

At worst, he's cheated. At best, he's an idiot. Neither truth is particularly appealing to me. Unless he's in his 20s in his first professional job out of uni and hasn't yet worked out he's a grown up, I don't think I'd be happy with drinking to the point where he ended up in this situation. Even then, I think I'd start to get the ick.

Inventing scenarios is not necessary. He was drunk, naked in bed with a woman and he lied about it.

He had sex with her.

And it is not the first time he's cheated because nobody gets caught the first time. And they NEVER admit the truth of what they really did.

Once you really accept that, it makes things much clearer. You can choose to stay with a man who has cheated on you (even getting into bed naked with her was cheating of course, but he definitely did more than that) or you can choose not to stay with am an who has cheated on you.

But accepting he has definitely cheated on you is the first step to sorting out the mess he has chosen to make of your life.

This. There is no law firm on earth that would do it. OP you can't possibly believe a law firm would not only allow but actually set this up?

It looks bad but it definitely could be a very messy drunken embarrassment. On work nights away people can get really out of hand.

We were abroad and I was sharing with another female. I left the nightclub (utterly steaming and came back to the hotel ahead of the rest). When I woke in the morning I was alone. I rang all the others feeling very anxious, except for my two bosses as I didn't want to embarrass her professionally if it could be avoided. Finally I phoned their room (two men were sharing).

My missing female roommate answered and was bawling crying.

Her handbag had been stolen in the nightclub and she had no room key. She banged on the door with one of the male bosses but I never stirred. In their drunken stupor it never dawned on them to go to reception. She stayed in their room and had to share with one of them!!! She couldn't stop crying, mainly about her handbag containing her passport and bank cards.

The two men (still drunk) seemed to think this was all a bit of a laugh and looked aghast when I said they should have shared a bed and allowed her to sleep alone.

When everyone sobered up it was less funny and all were busy phoning their partners to explain.

People do really stupid things when they are hammered and it isn't always cheating.

You only asked and found some of it out because of his odd behaviour. That was pure guilt, so he knows how wrong it was. Somehow, I think if you'd managed to end up semi-naked in bed with someone and done nothing, you'd breathe a sigh of relief, and draw a line under it and feel a whole lot less guilt, so would not get found out.
It seems he's crap at concealing when pushed. So maybe after some pushing he might admit to a bit of kissing too. There will have been some prelude to them ending up as a foresome all in the same room. Definitely some flirting, then kissing, why else stay the night?
These guys must love that their other halves have blind faith that they are not capable, his boss has a free pass on the basis of being geek-like.
It's not you here who is blinkered, it's the others and their reluctance to rock the boat.
How's your home situation? If there are no DC's, and you are not dependent on him, I'd reconsider the relationship. I think you'll find that his boss' wife is more enmeshed and stuck with him to do anything. You maybe can if it's not a thing you want to park and get over. What about the next work away situation? Do you want a life of worry? Would he agree to not going or not staying over in future?
I'd be out if there are no DC's involved, always wondering would teint the relationship forever anyway.