He lied to me about meeting another woman for lunch

[daisym]

I have always been able to trust my husband who I believed would never ever cheat on me because he is such a nice guy and seems to genuinely love me and our baby. Infact I could never imagine him having an affair as he has strong views about fidelity and remaining faithful and he would be annoyed even if his best friend for example was unfaithful. So it was even more of a shock when he told me he was at work when infact he was having lunch with another woman, a friend apparently who hes met through work. I have no problem with him meeting female friends but do have a problem with his lying. Why did he feel it necessary to lie? Surely if it was innocent he wouldnt have felt the need to. Its not as if I am a clingy wife either, we both have careers and have our own friends as well as enjoying doing things together. When I confronted him he seemed to think it was no big deal and has I noticed started hiding his mobile. Am I overreacting??

I'm sorry he's being so insensitive and not taking your feelings into account here.

I think when he gets in tonight and the dc are in bed you should have a serious talk with him. Ask him exactly why he's not taking your concern serously and what he plans to do to make up for lying to you.

Whether he's having an affair or not, simple fact is that he lied to you, about meeting another woman, you're hurt and upset and he's ignoring that!!

I do think leaving him in to babysit and arranging some time for yourself with friends is a great idea.

But longer term, he's behaving like a total shit and he needs to acknowledge that and do something about it.

Have every sympathy as my DP did something very similar last week.
Found out today that he lied to me to hide that he was going for lunch with an old female friend... who I've never met, and he hasn't told me anything about.

Got a stream of abuse about how it's supposedly all my fault he "felt he had to lie about it" when I challenged him... total nonsense... and no apology.
He "suffers" from depression (or rather I suffer from him having it) and has been having a "black" patch lately, but I really don't think that's an excuse.

Am 4.5 months pregnant with our first child and while I believe that she's really just an old friend I'm devastated by the lying, and not sure what I should do next.

Sorry Quattrocento, but you if you think it's harmless for a married man with children to take an afternoon's holiday for a celebratory lunch off company time with one woman and lie to his wife about it, you work in a very weird industry.

Business lunches are not conducted on annual leave and people with small children do not secretly take their leave to spend time with work colleagues while their partner is at home minding their children.

From the sounds of it this man is having an affair - he's had 3 work nights out in the last week when he used to have far fewer. If this were my DH I would assume the worst and start crisis talks ASAP.

So Quattro - its ok to lie about it then. If this sort of thing goes on then surely she would already know about it. Inoccent people have nothing to hide.

He is treating her like a fool and knows he is in the wrong.

Hi Daisym. Regardless of the extra nights out etc...(which personally I don't think are on) the fact that he took annual leave and lied about it is totally unacceptable and he should still be groveling about it!

Does he know that it was totally unacceptable??

I think that maybe you need to have a good long talk about all this.

What would he say if you asked him to book an afternoon off to spend with you...given that you've been left holding the fort recently?

"Within the working environment we regularly celebrate success by taking teams out to lunch, discussions on career coaching (more lunch) discussions on targetting (more lunch) technically interesting points (more lunch) schmoozing clients (yet more lunch). You get the drift".

In such team lunch situations there is far less opportunity for emotional attachments to develop.

An individual lunch with a member of the oppsite sex though to celebrate the end of a project is not a good idea even though it looks fine on the surface. Conversations can and do drift into personal stuff.

Team lunches are different in that regard, there is less opportunity to focus on just one person. Why is any emotional energy being spent on such a person rather than the spouse?. People only have so much to give. These people are work colleages - end of. They should remain nothing more than that but people can and do get sucked into an emotional entanglement often without immediately realising.

I'm coming at this from the other side, I am the "secret Friend" I met my friend through work, he lives abroad and was visiting, we knew each other for 7 years before, and he would flirt on phone etc, he's a nice person funny, and when he came over we had a fling (yes I know I shouldn't have and I always said I would never do it) but sometimes your heart over rules your head.... he has gone home to his wife and kids, and we talk daily mainly on what's app, but I don't text after certain times or at weekend unless he texts me first, i'm his secret that he can't give up I have tried to stop several times, I was even nasty to him to break it, we are both just as bad, unfortunately I love him, we go through just saying we are friends, to sexting and pictures, no one knows about me in his life (I think) he loves his wife and kids, he's Italian so family is important to him, but we have been doing this for a few years, I do see him every now and then. And it's hard, I won't ask him to leave his wife, if he ever leaves it has to be his choice not me making him to decide.

Congratulations. On your life choices and managing to resurrect a 9yr old thread.

What exactly do you want?

Ask him where it is and turn up there, I can guarantee it's fake and there is no "work do" all the signs and red flags are there, he's up to no good. He's covering his tracks and deleting stuff off his phone, you need to see his bill! And just FYI you can say no when he says he's going on a last minute "work do" he doesn't get to just drop things on you at the last minute and expect you to be home playing wife and nanny, how is that fair? Next time say no sorry I've arranged to see my friends and go out!!

Oh FFS zombie thread! I got really invested!! Now I'll never know 😭

Me too Glitter.

Same glitter!! 😡

When will I learn to read the date first!

Lizandlulu - why are you putting all the blame on the woman your husband was ringing? How do you know she was trying to "poach" your husband? You are massively shifting the blame and also a huge generalisation of "you know how women work".

I would say without doubt he is cheating on you. How do you know he is meeting someone from work? He could have someone on a dodgy website.
Could he have booked a hotel for the afternoon for sex?
If I were you I would start checking phone bills and bank records.
I was innocent and naïve once but this is far more common than you think.
he is taking you for a fool.

Zombie thread. Oh no.

ZOMBIEEEEEEEEEE