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Original poster

Male friend texting female friend a few times every day

63 replies

publicswimming · 04/04/2025 10:31

Is this ok if one of
you are in a marriage.
wife does not know this happens.
work, social, humour related messages.
mutually reciprocal.

OP posts:
SallyD00lally · 04/04/2025 12:03

publicswimming · 04/04/2025 11:43

Comms happen outside of when he is at home or the wife is working . She knows about friendship but thinks it was too close when they were dating first many years ago even though the friendship was and is entirely mutual.
Messages show nothing untoward but wife’s name is rarely mentioned in conversations or messages. Husband admitted had a crush on this woman years ago . It was unrequited and became friends only interaction.

Are you just going to keep slowly dripping information all through the thread?

The crush should've been mentioned in the OP but then again, you know that.

Ihavepandassurvivalinstinct · 04/04/2025 12:07

My DH's name is barely mentioned in my comms with friends, male or female... There is no reason for it to be?

To add, I generally voice note when DH isn't next to me because why would I annoy him with our ramblings. He goes to gym, I go through mesagaes and reply. Or go to another room if he is at home.

BodyKeepingScore · 04/04/2025 12:11

I wouldn’t have an issue with this. Both myself and my partner have good friends of the opposite sex who we’re in regular contact with. I wouldn’t feel the need for him to inform me that he’s sent a female friend a message nor would I inform him. Both of us are entitled to have private conversations with our friends .

MsDogLady · 04/04/2025 12:40

So 3 or 4 times a day the Husband is secretly messaging the woman he has had a crush on. His Wife had been uncomfortable about their ‘too close’ friendship years ago.

@publicswimming, this is not okay. I would be very hurt if my H was doing this.

Cucy · 04/04/2025 12:53

I don’t text any of my friends everyday and so for me the amount of messages is relevant.

Do you have friends that you message everyday?

YesThatsATurdOnTheRug · 04/04/2025 12:55

The thing is, it's not ok because it shows he has feelings for her/wants something from her that he's not getting from/finding in his wife. Which is just really sad, because what can you do about that? Even if you force the messages to stop, it won't make him feel his wife is enough.

SedumRoof · 04/04/2025 12:58

Ihavepandassurvivalinstinct · 04/04/2025 12:07

My DH's name is barely mentioned in my comms with friends, male or female... There is no reason for it to be?

To add, I generally voice note when DH isn't next to me because why would I annoy him with our ramblings. He goes to gym, I go through mesagaes and reply. Or go to another room if he is at home.

Edited

Yes. It’s rude to be on your phone in company with someone else unless strictly necessary, so I would imagine most people text friends when alone, same as you do your Duolingo alone.

SedumRoof · 04/04/2025 13:02

YesThatsATurdOnTheRug · 04/04/2025 12:55

The thing is, it's not ok because it shows he has feelings for her/wants something from her that he's not getting from/finding in his wife. Which is just really sad, because what can you do about that? Even if you force the messages to stop, it won't make him feel his wife is enough.

But we all have needs that are not met by our partners. That’s normal. No one person can meet all our needs. That’s why we have more than one person in our lives.

I’m having a tough time at the moment. DH has been very supportive, but an old friend is visiting from overseas who’s undergoing something similar (in his case an industrial tribunal) and we’ve met twice to talk it through, and it’s been very helpful. Which is not for a moment to denigrate DH, who has been wonderful for months, but he’s not going through the same issue.

ManchesterGirl2 · 04/04/2025 13:03

Not okay if deliberately kept secret.

The volume of messages depends on the people's normal patterns, I'm not a big texter so a few times every day would mean a very significant relationship for me, but for people who text all the time it might mean less.

BobbyBiscuits · 04/04/2025 13:06

Well when the wife finds out she'll be absolutely furious. As it's deceitful. And he's admitted he fancies her.

If it was innocent then why the need for secrecy? Opposite sex friendships are perfectly fine but if they are being kept secret then it may as well be an emotional or even physical affair.

The single woman may feel she's done nothing wrong as she's not keeping things from her partner, but she could end up embroiled in the middle of a messy breakup.

TabloidFootprints · 04/04/2025 13:07

I mean I wouldn't send that many messages a day regularly to anyone, DH included, and neither would DH, so if he was doing it I would certainly be concerned because it would indicate an unprecedented level of intimacy!

RedHelenB · 04/04/2025 13:07

It's OK if its nothing sexual and a spouse doesn't automatically have to know about the ins and outs of every friendship.

JoyousEagle · 04/04/2025 13:09

Why doesn’t the wife know? Deliberately kept from her (sounds like this might be the case?) or just because she doesn’t know the ins and outs of people he messages?
I have a male friend I text a couple of times a day most days probably - I’ve known him years, longer than I’ve known DH. DH doesn’t know about every message, but it’s not hidden. There’d be no issue if my phone dinged and he saw the name come up, or if he asks what I’m doing I’ll say “texting X” and it’s not a problem. Basically it’s the same as if I’m texting female friends - DH doesn’t know the details of how much or what exactly I’m texting but not because it’s a secret.
Sounds like the man in the OP is maybe being a bit more deliberately secretive?

outerspacepotato · 04/04/2025 13:44

The husband was crushing on someone who he's now secretly texting multiple times a day? And the wife didn't like it when she knew about it years ago? So now he's keeping his communications with you on the down low.

That's shady. Not OK.

Summedupnicely · 04/04/2025 13:50

Not ok at all.

TwistedWonder · 04/04/2025 13:59

Well the update/drip feed puts a different spin on things.

So he’s in constant communication with a woman he fancies the arse off - hmmm

MattCauthon · 04/04/2025 14:03

Broadly, I think this level of comms is a bit much for any friendship. I have a couple of good friends where we have a fairly ongoing dialogue, but even within that it's not necessarily every single day. I think a man and a woman who have been very close friends for a very long time and this is the rythm of their friendship, established long before, fine. But something new at this level I would find quite odd and inappropriate. And I speak as someone who doesn't have a problem with male to female friendships in the general sense.

Zucker · 04/04/2025 14:14

So he doesn't message when he's at home or when the wife is around? Why not if it's all innocent?

Is she one of those "crazy obsessive" wives men frequently talk about, who won't let him have his cake and eat it too?

MrTiddlesTheCat · 04/04/2025 14:19

It's not platonic if he fancies her, so no, it's not ok.

Thewookiemustgo · 04/04/2025 14:23

If it’s deliberately kept a secret it’s not ok.

MsDogLady · 04/04/2025 15:27

He is being intentionally duplicitous, as they engage only when his Wife is not present. Their relationship previously caused problems, and he has admitted fancying her.

He is lying by admission and treating his Wife with great disrespect and callous disregard. If the Friend is aware of the secrecy and/or his infatuation and/or his Wife’s previous discomfort, then she is colluding in humiliating his Wife.

Who are you, @publicswimming?

ItGhoul · 04/04/2025 16:36

I think it completely depends on the nature of the messages, really. I've had male friends I've messaged with a lot, and the conversation has always just been joking around, chatting about politics and books and stuff like that. Nothing different to my conversations with female friends, really. There's never been any flirtation or anything.

I assume the woman this man is messaging knows he has a wife. I certainly don't mention my boyfriend in most of my messages to my friends regardless of whether the friends are male or female, unless there's an obvious reason to.

SnowflakeSmasher86 · 04/04/2025 16:41

BlueskyCherrytrees · 04/04/2025 10:52

As always it depends on the people involved.

i would expect that my DH would send those kind of messages to me so if he were sending them to someone else instead of me, I’d feel it was inappropriate.

Same. If he’s investing time and energy making a woman laugh and connecting over memes etc and that woman is not his wife, I’d be asking what the relationship with his wife is like.

My DP has female friends and would text them sporadically to catch up, and maybe send a meme if it was appropriate/relevant. I can imagine DP might send memes about science for example to friends from uni, as I wouldn’t understand/find it funny.

However, he also sends me memes that relate to things we talk about and he sends me lovely messages and voice notes. If he were texting others INSTEAD of me (male or female) I’d feel put out. If the others were in fact just one other, and it was a woman, I’d presume he fancied her. What I did about that would depend on how he reacted when I brought it up.

SnowflakeSmasher86 · 04/04/2025 16:45

Hmm the update isn’t great. They both need to cool it with the communication for the wife’s sake. Or he needs to leave his wife if he’s still holding a torch for a previous crush. Massively disrespectful to her and also not fair on the crush if he’s pretending to be friends while secretly wishing it was more. The timing of the messages suggests he sees it as illicit, whether the crush does or not.

Dawnchorussinging · 05/04/2025 13:47

It's an emotional affair : frequent, secret messages to a woman he is sexually attracted to and whom his wife already feels insecure about.
Not OK at all.