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.

Makes total sense. Especially if this was before you even saw those messages. We pick up on vibes from other people. She’ll have been giving you odd vibes but you won’t have understood why at the time.

Have you asked him outright if he fancies her?

Have you posted this before? Im
almost positive I’ve read this word for word before?

100% - and they don’t tell their wife lies about whether Keith is there when they’re out for a drink with a group.

The issue here is your DH knows how much this is affecting you but won’t do anything to reassure you or step back from his interactions with this woman so it’s natural to jump to the conclusion that his friendship with her means more than his marriage to you. So there has to be a reason why he’s prepared to possibly lose his marriage over ‘a friend’

Married men have no business maintaining friendships with women and married women have no business maintaining friendships with me. Sex always gets in the way, And before you send me to the 1880s again, Joe Trebbiani of the Friends fame came up with this maxim, not myself.

Can you look up emotional affairs it sounds like your husband is having one. You don't need to be a "cool" wife if it feels off trust your gut it probably is. Your husband shouldn't be lying to you aand should not be choosing her over his wife. You've said your unhappy about their relationship but he doesn't cate and is choosing her i think that tells you everything. Does her husband know ?

Your husband wants you to believe this woman is just a friend, yet he has repeatedly lied to you about her. You don't need to lie about legitimate friendships. You feel this about her specifically because you know something is different with this "friendship." Your husband is gaslighting you.

He’s having an emotional affair. That’s why he’s so defensive about it. There doesn’t have to be sexting for it to have crossed into emotional affair territory, he just has to be inappropriately attached to her. Which he certainly seems to be, with the constant communication and intimate sharing of what they’re doing when apart.

You are not coercively controlling. He’s just trying to manipulate you into shutting up and tolerating his behaviour. Make it clear that you see his emotional affair and that it is infidelity.

It has nothing to do with anything - there are always men more handsome and successful and kind than one's husband and there are always women more beautiful and successful and kind than one's wife. This is not the point. The point is that when you decide to be with somebody, you forsake all others. And forsaking all others means exactly that. Women who have male friends and men who have female friends think their respective wives and husbands are not enough, they think their spouses can't be as good friends as their spouses. I mean, you husband works - why does he steal the time he should spend on you and spends it on this woman? Even 2 minutes is inappropriate. It is a betrayal, that is what it is. We stopped calling a spade a spade - we don't call a granny who went on hols to Egypt and came back with a new foreign husband 'a stupid old hag' we call her 'unfairly taken advantage of'. We do not call a whore a whore. We do not call a traitor a traitor. No wonder people come to MN with mad questions - it is appropriate if he.... Is it normal that she..... We became too easily spooked to call out bad behaviour and that is the result.

Thank you for all your responses.
We have had the emotional affair conversation and he refuses to believe such a thing exists. It’s very black and white. I definitely believe he is faithful, what is upsetting me is this connection, how good they are together, how they make each other laugh. That’s what hurts.
we were planning on moving out of the area a while ago for my work and it felt like that would be such a relief. But it fell through so it just stays the same.

Right now he's got the best of both worlds - a friendship with her that upsets you, lots of attention, going out with her and lying about it "because you'll get upset" and saying you are being coercively controlling and need to go on anti depressants.

It's not fair. It may be nothing, it may be a flirtation, but it's making you unhappy and he's not putting you first.

So in your shoes I would take the power back. Withdraw, stop asking him, put yourself first, pull back from him a lot and see what happens. Get busy, meet up with friends, take up a sport or night class or swimming, make plans that don't include him, make him wonder.

He's not thinking of you, force yourself to stop thinking of him.

He's being a dick. He needs to realise that fact. And questioning him and begging him to stop seeing her is probably just inflating his ego.

He is not making you look like a fool. He's being a fool.

Thank you, this makes a lot of sense

Sorry OP but I thought the definition of an emotional affair was closeness. An emotional connection.

theres nothing physical, there’s no attraction it’s just friendship is what I’m told. Deep down I know I should be ok with it but I’m just not. It makes me insecure and very uneasy.

Until mn, I didn’t know the concept of an emotional affair, but now I can see it clearly. There’s a fine line between ‘platonic’ and ‘emotional affair’. I think it strays from one to the other when the perpetrator starts getting secretive about phone calls, meetings, sends an abnormal amount of texts, thinks of other person before partner etc.

Men (and women) ) don’t consider it an affair if nothing physical has happened, and I guess your dh is in that camp.

And listen to your gut. Your spidery senses are tingling for a reason. You may have to take the watch-and-wait path, to see if anything further develops (hopefully not).

How many friends do you have that you work with all day and then message all evening and late into the night? Funny how it's never Roger from accounts these men need to message 24/7. This is way more than friendship.

Two things stood out for me op.

1 he hadn’t mentioned her before you found the messages. Even though they were clearly close.

2 he’s made out you are mentally unwell because you don’t like what he’s doing.

I think those 2 things alone tip this out of the friend zone and into Emotional affair.

I wouldn't have this.
By being married, I give my time, life and energy.
No kids.
I therefore expect to absolutely come first
as far as my husband is concerned.
And I do, and so should you, OP, and not settle
for less.
Because living on your own is great too.

Horrible post? Salivating? Rather an ott reaction when I have merely given an opinion based on the information OP has provided, as I'm entitled to do.

I agree with this and I would also add

3 He lied to you about a social event where she would be in attendance.

This whole scenario is awful OP. I don't blame you at all for feeling how you do.

Your feeling are acute and I don’t think you should make any decisions or say anything you might later regret.

i would discuss your feelings with a close friend or family member.

Ask him why he needs to message her multiple times in a day? How would he like it if you had a male equivalent friend you messaged all the time.

I think time will tell… I’m also in a similar situation and found counselling help. My husband did this after giving birth and it was too much for me to process. Time and counselling has helped me… I’m still now 100% sure tbh…

I do feel a certain type of way about this. I feel like they’re laying down the foundations, IYKWIM

Invite her, her husband and kids around for a meal. Then you can see.

I'm really surprised at the number of people who would apparently be fine with this.

How many of us have regular friends who were texting all day and all night with, despite seeing them every working day too?

Maybe nothing happened, maybe they won't let it, but there's far too much emotional energy going into this for it to be a normal friendship.

If course OP can't tell him who to be friends with, but if he cared for OP, he'd rein it in, knowing that it upsets her. He's more concerned about the friend than he is about his wife.

That said OP's only choices are to stay or leave. She's unhappy in her marriage to the point it's making her ill.