Feel that Dh friendship with woman is destroying our marriage

[gruffalo5]

Dh and I happily married for over 15 years, 3 dc. 2 years ago a woman joins dh workplace and they gradually become very good friends. She has Dh and dc. Last year I asked to borrow his phone for a number and saw her name (he hadn’t mentioned her at that point) to my shame I looked and saw their messages and there were so, so many, day and late into the evening. They weren’t particularly flirty but what hit me like a punch to the stomach was the obvious closeness and fondness they have for each other. Things they were both interested in going to see. My dh and I have always had that great friends kind of relationship as well as being married so I think it especially hurt. I owned up and asked him about it and he was really angry I’d looked and accused me of coercive control when I asked him to reduce the messaging. They see each other at work so why she has to send him photos on a Friday night and of what’s she’s up to at the weekend I don’t really understand.
He has other female friends which I’ve never thought twice about but there’s something about her that feels as though she’s pushing the boundaries and it’s creating such a wedge between us. Admittedly I’ve been very upset and over emotional and it was suggested I go on ADs which has helped me a bit but I still feel really upset as though she’s always there now, in the background. He says I’m destroying the marriage by being like this and nothing is happening with them, they are just mates. Just don’t know what to do, it all just makes me feel very sad and that maybe I’m not enough anymore.

He said he wouldn’t show me messages from anyone. We go round in circles.
tbh I don’t think I’d even want to see them but just him offering to be open, show me and reassure me would be enough.
this is what makes me feel unloved and I’ve told him this but he says I’ve created the situation

Him reacting angrily is a massive indication of a problem

OP you keep saying ‘she is in the right’. You are doing a pick me dance here I’m afraid. Stop telling him this is her fault.

It’s up to your H to be loyal and prioritise his family time. It isn’t up to her.

@gruffalo5

I am tempted to but I think if I did he would leave me.
It would not go down well and I think he would see me posting on here as another crazy thing to do and why listen to people who don’t know the full story.
If it's this precarious then it's a shot marriage OP

My dh would never ever put anyone ahead of me. If he was doing something that upset me he would not be angry. He would be mortified

You’ve had some great advice on here. I have sympathy for you as he appears to be invalidating your feelings. Objectively, only you know the true situation. If he is speaking to her outside of work about non work, he is leaving himself wide open to allegations and all sorts. I wonder if he has similar conversations with male colleagues over weekends? If not, it is clearly crossing a line. Just remember, your feelings and emotions do matter as do you.

How the fuck have you created the situation. HE'S created the situation.

YOU should be his priority but do you know who his priority is? HIMSELF!
Do you know who his second priority is? The other woman!
Where do you come in his priorities?

I'm so sorry, I know it's so easy for me to say all this and it's you that's living it but you need to make yourself a priority in your own life because your husband damn well isn't.

Tell him if he isn't willing to put you first then you will and move out/ask him to move out.

Bastard. I'm so angry for you.

If I ask him not to respond to her messages he’s says there’s no point as I wouldn’t believe that he hadn’t. When I say it would help he says no, it wouldn’t because I’d be upset about something else.
drives me mad because how can I prove it would help when he’s decided how I’ll feel about it in the future?!

He’s gaslighting you at every turn @gruffalo5 .

Basically he’s just saying ‘no’ OP. He has no interest in you proving anything.

Stop asking him.

Very understandably you are panicking and can’t see clearly. If there is any chance of you stopping this, you need to get clever. He’s running rings round you at the moment.

Can you get away for a weekend or just one night to take a break and plan on how you will start being more proactive and less reactionary?

yes I think this would help.
need space to think about what I really want to do.&

I’ve read all your updates OP but not the whole thread so this may already have been mentioned. But there is a good book I would recommend all about emotional affairs, it’s called ‘not just friends’ by Shirley Glass. He would need to read that and pledge to properly put the work in to rebuild things with you, and totally cut her off, if you were to stand a chance. It’s a good read regardless.

He has you chasing your tail. I’m not saying you should chuck the towel in but I would be telling him that this situation has created such a big wedge between you that you are worried your marriage will not survive without marriage counselling. If he is not prepared to try counselling to save your marriage he is basically saying “put up with this and shut up” and that is no marriage at all.

He’s got an answer for everything hasn’t he.

Op, he’s being secretive. He’s being defensive to avoid having to take accountability. He’s being manipulative calling you controlling. He’s being cruel as he will know how building an emotional connection with another woman in front of your face is making you feel.

All of the things you can do to try to change/repair the situation you’ve done. You’ve asked for transparency. You’ve tried to communicate your feelings and establish boundaries and you’ve asked him to join you for couples counselling. And he’s rejected all of these measures.

Whatever he’s doing, he doesn’t want it to change. I’m so sorry, because I’m sure that must be so confusing and incredibly painful for you.

You have to find a way of taking back control so you don’t loose your self esteem and dignity. You mustn’t let him strip you of your amazing qualities. May I suggest that perhaps you step away from him and look to access individual counselling? Counselling that will help you see the situation clearly and help you make those difficult decisions, so you don’t end up allowing yourself to be treated like this. Putting you back in a position of strength.

My, do they think their Romeo and Juliet being kept apart? honestly, I would have lost it by now if I was you.

He is picking a 'friend' over you, what does that say?

I agree @Horsecalledrhubard

So sorry he's putting you through this Op. You deserve so much better.

I don’t agree with this. I’ve been in relationships before where there’s been paranoia and anger over phone communications and demands to see messages and it’s not healthy. I’ve been the phone demander and the person having it demanded of me (and I was genuinely just messaging a friend).

Because of this I now have a blanket phone privacy rule in relationships. I don’t want to see theirs, they don’t get to see mine. If they wouldn’t expect to listen in on my phone calls or face to face conversations (which would be entirely unreasonable to expect) then they shouldn’t expect to read my messages. I’ve no idea who my partner’s messaging - as far as I’m concerned he can talk to his friends, male and female, whenever he likes. It’s not any of my business. Same goes for me. I choose to trust him, but if I felt he was up to something behind my back and he denied it, I’d have two choices - either take him at face value or end the relationship.

I’d react angrily to someone asking to see my phone. I wouldn’t be reassuring them, especially if I was actually innocent. In fact, if I WAS innocent and they kept demanding it, it would make me madder and madder. But if someone didn’t trust me to the extent of being desperate to see my phone what’s the point in the relationship? The minute you start spiralling down that toxic road it’s fucked anyway. I’d sooner end the relationship than hand over my phone and open the door to more expectations of being monitored.

Maybe your husband is telling the truth and driven to distraction by your insistence a friendship is something it isn’t. Maybe you’re right, and he’s a lying gaslighter. Either way, if the trust has eroded to this degree that’s not a good sign, is it?

Eugh
Him asking you what the rules are reminds me of my ex and his alcoholism
Putting the issue back on you
Telling you it's a you problem
Your H is also an addict, he's addicted to attention from her and the ego boost .

This is the beginning of the end of your marriage if he carries on letting this woman into the emotional space that should be reserved for you. There are millions of people we can all be attracted to, get along with better than our spouses, feel a stronger connection with. The reason we stay with a spouse 'till death do us apart' isn't because they're the most perfect person for us or we never fall out of love, but because marriage is a commitment, and like all commitments it has rules and boundaries to protect both people.

By prioritising another woman, no matter how platonic, he's broken that delicate and unexplainable trust people have in another person - that same trust where two strangers decide to intertwine finances, credit scores, home, health, children. It takes time to gain and is easily lost, so i'm always bemused by people who don't understand you can't just do whatever you want, whenever you want with no consideration for your partner and expect marriage to last... There's a lot of people who use friends and colleagues (and lovers) to fill a hole in their marriage, but that only works if the spouse also feels that gap and is ok with it.

You won't know if he's developed feelings for this woman or it's innocent. Not many people would willingly upset their wife of 15 years and not care about it - so I think your gut is right, his feelings are more involved. Make your position clear, maybe take the kids away for a few days on your own or just go off on your own (leaving him with the kids) to think about what you want. If that doesn't get him to introspect and realise what's at stake, counselling is the only way forward. Alternatively, if you and him can go away together for a few days and try to re-connect. If none of this works, you have your answer that he isn't as committed to the marriage as you. Once you have all this information, you can make a decision on what you do. Never ever feel bad for having a bad gut feeling about a situation - unless of course you're being medically treated for paranoia. That instinct is there to protect us because it sees things not visible to the eye.

This is spot on.

Yes, this. If your husband's response is to get angry and blame you, rather than show care and concern about your feelings, of course you're understandably upset.

This is what I don't understand OP.

He has been so cruel to you.

You know she is now more important to him than you his wife.

He doesnt care about your mental health or your well being.

You say he would leave you if you showed him this thread.

I really don't understand why you are not so angry with the situation you don't take the matter into your own hands and end the marriage?

I really don't see now things have gone on for this long, and he knows he is causing you such unhappiness and obviously doesn't care , why you even want to be with any more.

This reminds me of a relationship I was in and he went away with friends including a girl who I was suspicious of . He told me there was a group going and he was going to prove he could be trusted . I saw the rest of the group out the next day looking sheepish when I saw them . I found her number and told her she was welcome to him and he could stay away , clothes at his mother's . He came back and was furious at MY behaviour !!!!

I never let another man blame me for MY responses to THEIR behaviour

He is putting himself and her above you , that's the red flag 🚩

In your shoes I would leave him.

Sounds like he already has some decent friends and close family. There was no need to add a female friend that he works with into that equation - and even if he didn't already have that, there's still no reason to get so close to another woman.

I personally am not comfortable with a person I am dating or partnered with to have that level of friendship with other women. They can swear all they want that nothing is going on or that nothing would ever happen but the fact is, it happens all the time. Especially if you're going through a bad patch in your own relationship, which is bound to happen from time to time, it's just not appropriate to have a close emotional bond with someone outside of your marriage that they could turn to for 'comfort' in bad moments.

It is perfectly acceptable to have this boundary - he doesn't have to 'get it' but he should respect it. The fact that he'd rather keep this friendship, at the risk of blowing up his own marriage is quite telling about the lack of consideration and respect he has for his own wife.

I could not remain with a man who's default was to call it coersive control because I'm expressing how his relationship with someone other than me is making me feel and at the very least expecting certain boundariesto be in place regarding that friendship.

He actually sounds emotionally abusive to belittle your feelings to the degree that he's suggesting you should be on anti-depressants for voicing concern and wanting him to show you that you're his priority. Which as your husband, is exactly what he should be doing.

I just know that I wouldn't deliberately do something thst I felt could be a threat to my marriage and I'd expect the same from my partner. If I was OK with something, but I knew it would be upsetting to my partner, I wouldn't do it because I value my partners feelings. The fact he doesn't get this and apply it to how he treats you is crap.

Prioritizing a friendship with some woman from work that he didn't need to get close to in the first place and maintaining this in the face of it destroying his own marriage is a weird hill for him to choose to die on...but that's the choice he is making, and so I'd leave.

He won't even do counseling to properly work through all of this with you - it's a very 'I don't care how you feel and will do whatever I want' attitude and a marriage just doesn't work this way. He could use counseling as a means to try and get his feelings across to you as well, maybe help you understand his viewpoint better (although I don't agree with his view counseling or not) but he won't attempt counseling to even communicate better with you himself because he doesn't care.

You don't deserve the hurt he's causing you. You deserve someone who will treat you the way you wanted to be treated, and how you treat them.

Only your DH can send this message.