Message from ex on messenger

[sarahjnm]

Advice appreciated pls
Last night got a random message through on messenger from an old ex, just a laughing emoji, no idea why. My husband saw it, I opened my phone and it said accept decline or block, I accepted and wrote back, what was that for? All In front of my husband. He replied saying 'just looking through our old messages and they made me smile hope you're well ' showed husband and he thinks it's odd and thinks I've been messaging him and deleting messages. I haven't. This was out of the blue. There were previous messages on there but from 2014, before my husband and I together, which were friendly keeping in touch saying congrats on baby 2 and i was updating him on my child. Husband and I have been together 10 yrs, 2 kids, great marriage, no big stresses. I can understand husbands worry, but to jump to me deleting messages and not trusting me hurts - but tbh not sure how I would react the other way if it was him / and an ex either. To add - I leave my phone around, i ask him to look up things on my phone sometimes, he knows code, I've nothing to hide. Now husband not talking to me and says he doesn't know what to think.. im just waiting.. And wondering how, if any way, I can prove my innocence?! Frustrated.. any advice appreciated or if someone been in similar position? Kindness please 🙏

You shouldn't have replied, absolutely no reason to.

I get messages like this from exes from time to time. I’ve been happily married to Dh for 16 years. Some of them are genuine keeping in touch messages (congrats on the baby, sorry to hear your dad passed and hope you’re doing okay, etc). Occasionally, I get one from a creepy ex I don’t particularly want to engage with (I ignore those). I’m a friendly low drama person and have stayed friends with most of my exes (who are also normal low drama people). It’s super weird to jump to that conclusion out of the blue. I’d be pretty annoyed if Dh did that to me. You can’t control if someone messages you. And it’s not weird to stay friends or acquaintances with people you once dated unless there is some dodgy backstory.

I was sat next to my husband, and replied in front of him, so he could see any replies and we could hopefully get an explanation.

I don’t understand why you replied tbh. Best thing would have been to just delete it. They always pop up to try their luck they don’t need or warrant any reply at all.

Curiosity killed the cat @sarahjnm

next time just block and ignore!

as for dh. Show him the whole messages, block the guy, tell him again that the only interaction was the one he saw you do and you can’t do more to prove it. and give him a day or two to feel off about it but then enough is enough from both of you!

I think if I'd blocked him in front of my husband he would probably have thought it was even more suspicious..

Are you expecting a reply?

Not sure what you mean? A reply from ex? He did reply

I would not have engaged with an ex. Not if I was happy with my current partner. To say they shouldn’t feel upset is unreasonable. We never know 100% how another person might feel, even those we are closest to.

You’re probably right. Blocking only takes seconds to undo. Do you generally have mistrust issues in your marriage or is this the first time something like this has cropped up?

If you haven’t, his reaction seems OTT. I can’t imagine ignoring a random message from an ex who I’d parted ways with amicably. It would feel like marriage was supposed to erase history which is weird and controlling.

Very fair point thank you, I've chatted to him and said I can understand where he's coming from

No general mistrust but he hates being lied to and the laughing emoji after 9 years of no contact is not a logical flow of conversation so he thinks there was more to it

We've just chatted and he's decided to accept it and forget about it but still thinks the whole thing is suspect. Which in a way I agree, if thr ex has written hey how are you? after so long, it would have made more sense!

Your ex was just trying to get you to chat, the emoji is just a lazy way of doing that instead of stringing a sentence together.

You’ve been transparent, shown your husband the messages straight away and shut it down.

I think you’ve handled it fine. Whilst your DH may be uncomfortable he should be reassured with how you’ve addressed it.

Probably fishing for a bite. Never feed them. Men are buggers for this.

Totally see the bloody sneaky way of hooking me in for a chat now 😤

Thank you - I think it'll be a tense few days or weekend but hopefully he'll be able to move on from it