Persistent ex

[Anonymously1]

Short version…
my husband has been grumpy for a while, I cornered him on it and he told me about an old friend contacting him on Facebook and then read me the messages. They were all innocent sounding and then she’d gone into an essay about her life and he hadn’t responded. Anyway, I was thinking about it as the day went on and it wasn’t quite sitting right with me. My husband is out this evening and so I decided to log on to his Facebook messages - just to double check… - and there were the messages from the woman I suspected it was and they were exactly as he’d read out. Phew. Bad me for logging onto his messenger etc. For some reason I felt compelled to look in the archive file and lo and behold I see a message from his ex.
(There's history with the ex contacting him. When we first met (well over 10 years ago now) he was still friends with her but after she sent him some super inappropriate messages and a really weird, unkind one to me (we’ve never met) I told him to block her which he did there and then. Not heard anything since, until a month back).

The messages were a brief conversation and his responses factual and short. Then she apologises for the manner in which their friendship ended and can they be friends again “or would that be weird”. He doesn’t respond. A week later she send a hi there message and he has blocked her (again - she’d changed her name) and archived the message.
Anyway, I feel really put out. Why has he not told me about her messaging and why bother responding at all?! Am I being ridiculous? Also, I did a bad thing logging into his Facebook, do I hold my hands up to that? Where do I go from here?!

It sounds like she is bugging him to be honest. Contacting him after being blocked? Did she open another account so she could do this?

If you want to have a discussion with him about it, you will have to confess to the snooping first.

It doesn't sound like he's done anything wrong. You've snooped and you've found nothing to suggest he's encouraging her, but you're still not happy.

I think you should stop checking up on him. If you can't trust him, split up, don't drive yourself bonkers like this.

Yes. She set up another account when she got married I think as it’s a new name.

I guess I think he was wrong to respond at all. Maybe should’ve just blocked her from the very start?

I don’t check up on him tbh. This is the first time I’ve ever snooped on him. We’re usually completely open. There was just something this time which felt off. I don’t have any desire to look through any other accounts of things he has or anything and certainly not something I feel I have ever had to do before.

I understand why you are annoyed.

If he has blocked her again I don't think I would say anything.

However ,I would be very aware of his demeanour and behaviour and possibly check again in a few weeks to see if there has been any further contact and if there has then I think you would need to say something. Even if you have to admit to monitoring this particular thing.

Thanks so much for your responses. Always so helpful to get some outside perspective. I talked to him about it today and explained I was upset that he hadn’t mentioned it and we agreed that if any contact was made in the future I would rather know and also for him to not respond at all. (I mean, I saw his response and it was blunt but then she is immediately messaging back asking to be “friends” again!)

Turns out I had met her at a soft play centre when I was there with my daughter a month or so back (when she’d messaged him… 🤔) but I didn’t know it was her as she never introduced herself just said she went to school with my husband, to which I’d mumbled something like “I don’t think we’ve ever met, how did you recognise me?” And she’d answered Facebook. Seeing me had maybe triggered an idea for her to contact my husband I guess, but everything she’s done to him and me historically suggests she is untrustworthy and nasty, so I’m pleased my hubby said he wanted nothing to do with her, hadn’t given her a second thought in over 10 years and thought her messages were weird and made him uncomfortable.
I told him about this encounter and we worked out it was this woman. All a bit creepy of you ask me!

I think he's passed the test here tbh. He didn't need to mention it to you as he's done nothing wrong. I wouldn't tell him and just be grateful you have a moral partner.