Poetry gift from his colleague that he didn't tell me about

[poetryslam]

I can't really discuss this with anyone in real life so trying here to see if I'm overreacting and get some advice on how to proceed. I have a new baby and a DD who is 2.5. DH and I have a happy marriage (I thought) if a little distracted with children at this moment in life. Both work demanding jobs though I am on mat leave.
I finished my book today and noticed a book of poetry on the shelf that I hadn't read. Love the poet so picked it up and a postcard fell out. It was from his favourite museum in Paris, and on the back had a note for his most recent birthday, stating that he had big changes ahead, and signed off by colleague with an x. I flipped through the book and a photo of them with another couple was holding a page - probably from a work trip dinner. The poem was about seizing the present moment (future and past are non existent, must seize the now).
I felt sick. It's not sexual or anything but it's somehow worse because it felt so intimate and he has never mentioned it.
I know they are friends and see each other for runs every once in a while. We have socialised with her and her husband before, though not since our eldest was born.
I took a photo, put it back on the shelf and I haven't mentioned it.
I feel sick, and can't eat. I am breastfeeding a newborn and trying to look after a toddler and can't stop thinking about it.
It's bad, right? I am tempted to snoop further but scared of what I'll find.

@category12 picture is absolutely not romantic, but looks like two couples having dinner

I think what you say about the background puts it in a bit of a different light. I can see why you're concerned.

I think its all from her and she's trying to cause friction deliberately. If the book was given to him by a lover he wouldn't have put it on the bookshelf.

It’s a museum, not some spot up a mountain that’s sacred to you both because your DH proposed to you there! Lots of people will like it and visit it. The Gulbenkian in Lisbon is one of my favourite places in the world and any friend of mine who went there would probably text me a photo or send a postcard. And poetry is likewise everyone’s!

The only gift of a poetry collection that would alarm me is Sharon Old’s Stag’s Leap, which is pretty much code for ‘a marriage is ending’.😀

Hm it does sound like she’s interested in him and pushing boundaries. But he could be largely oblivious.

take photos of all of it

My gut, from what you have said, is telling me she has a bit of a crush on him. It seems as though she believes they have a connection. She’s definitely trying to deepen their connection with poetry and the Christmas incident. I think your H is somewhat oblivious or is purposely trying to be as he doesn’t want to deal with the drama of admitting this woman is being a bit ‘too friendly.’

I would ask him calmly about it when he’s home. Don’t accuse him of anything and show you are open to the truth and not blaming him.

Ask him if he feels she crosses any lines or likes him? Your aim is to bring the whole thing into the light where it can’t grow. If he agrees that he needs to be careful not to encourage her feelings and will distance himself I think that’s the best you can hope for.

I'm sorry you're feeling so rubbish at a difficult time; I would too. But this is my take on it.... I think he knows deep down it's inappropriate and overstepping boundaries, and that's why he hasn't told you about it. However, the fact that he's put it, note and photo and all, on the shelf, means that he himself hasn't done anything wrong, or surely he'd hide it?

No, it's not just your hormones. From your update (and even before actually) it's clear to me that this woman is over stepping boundaries. I would not send a photo and poem to someone else's husband, especially if their wife had just had a baby. I also wouldn't take him alone to look at christmas lights. The fact the photo looks like two couples having dinner is exactly how she wants it to look. You've already expressed your concerns and your DH should've stamped on it then. He clearly hasn't has he.

Zero chance this is innocent on her part, especially with the update. I would certainly be asking him to put firm boundaries in place as shes certainly waiting for her moment to pounce

Are you sure the book was a present and wasn’t just where he put the postcard and photo? Doesn’t make it less suspicious but if as you say he isn’t much of a reader a book of poetry seems to be a strange gift!

My immediate reaction to this is not that there’s an affair going on, but that she is overstepping and being inappropriately intense with him. Whether that’s just cos she’s insensitive to what’s appropriate, or whether she has ulterior motives, I don’t know. Some people are just annoyingly disrespectful of the girl code, and I think this is the most likely scenario, ie that she has been a bit intense with him about poetry or something, and is forging that connection with him without being sensitive to what is appropriate.
I agree with what the previous poster said about ‘bringing it into the light’: Don’t blame your DH, just try to be calm and curious and cool… though I think it’s fine to be honest and admit that it makes you feel odd.
All the best and enjoy your new baby. x

It could also be that the things are unconnected and your husband was given them at the same time from work and he just slipped the photo / postcard into the poetry book in some random place. It might be that they were just tidying up at work and unpinning things from a notice board or making space and the photo was removed and it was slipped into the book by someone or your husband put it in there. It might be that the photo was about to be binned and it was rescued and slipped into the book.

If someone mentioned that they liked a particular place to someone, then I don’t think it would be extreme if that someone happened to see a postcard of that place got it and signed it and said “I saw this and thought of you” - could almost be a bit of a joke if your husband has a habit of mentioning the special place to others.

I’ve almost inadvertently put an x after a messsge where it was inappropriate as just in the habit of going so. Most of the women in my workplace put “love” and sign their name on leaving cards. They definitely don’t mean anything by it!

If it’s something more then it sounds as if she’s keener but your husband was a bit naive at Christmas and didn’t think much about it being just the two of them alone but realises it’s a problem as you mentioned it. Clearly you need to casually speak to him once he’s back.

Hope it’s all ok. Try not to dwell on it though as it won’t end up being a causal conversation with your husband’s you’ve had a while to get worked up and upset by it.

I think you’re stringing unrelated things together into a narrative. She gave him a book as a birthday present and a postcard from a museum he likes. You’ve no reason to think the photo was anything to do with her if it’s just some work do thing that’s been on a notice board at work, and there’s no reason to think it’s marking a significant poem — if you open any of my books, tickets, boarding cards, postcards, newspaper clippings etc fly out in every direction. They’re not marking passages of particular beauty, or significance. He’s not hiding the book, it’s just lying around with the other books in your sitting room. She was the one who told you they went to see the Rockefeller Christmas lights, which are just a cheesy NY thing. It not like you discovered them fastening a padlock and holding hands on the Pont des Arts!

I don't think you are stringing things together at all.

I think they are creating a very dangerous separate friendship that has very inappropriate elements.

There has been way to many episodes of things gone unmentioned between them that have remained secret.

I don't think this is a healthy situation for people in relationships to be in. The crossing of boundaries is very very easy to happen and for me they would have crossed plenty.

Never in my relationship have I not come home and shown my DH a gift someone has given to me. That alone is strange.

The priority now is how this situation is making you feel. At such a vulnerable time in your life you deserve for your relationship to feel safe and secure.

I 100% would address it and tell him in no uncertain terms that you aren't happy and why.

Hey OP ..
Ah , I don’t know does it point to an affair being honest ..
Why would he have it put where he has it put ???
You need to ask him about it , remember you said aswel you have a good marriage..
If there’s affairs going on , they’d be lots of other tell tale signs ..
If there is a pin hole in it , obviously something hung at work , she took it down ..
She probably does fancy your husband but that doesn’t mean he feels like that about her .. x

I think some people here are being extremely naive. It sounds as though he was hiding this book in plain sight. After all if he put it anywhere else in the house you would notice it. I'm not suggesting he is involved in this relationship but she certainly sounds as though she is. If he thinks she has a crush on him then he should avoid spending time with her on his own, for the sake of his relationship

Op I don’t have anything wise to say except try not to bust your head in the sand but also focus on you and the baby. Sending a shoulder squeeze.

My take is that it’s not an affair, if it was he wouldn’t keep the book and put it where it can be found.
I think maybe the colleague has an infatuation with him, has given him the book, he is embarrassed by it , has shoved the card in it , hasn’t looked inside the book and just shoved it in the shelf. He probably hasn’t told you because he is embarrassed and doesn’t want you to think anything is going on.
i hope this is the case. You will just have to ask him about it but maybe wait until you are calm and thinking clearly.

@poetryslam, I empathize with your discomfort.

@poetryslam, it sounds like this woman has an agenda, but your H shares responsibility for crossing lines and not shutting her down.

Boundaries were definitely trampled when they went 1:1 to view the Christmas lights after the work night out on the trip. They were extending the evening in a special way that seems too ‘coupley’. You then had to hear about it first from her. You were rightly upset, especially since you had already expressed feeling unsettled about her constant presence at the gigs, which you had heretofore enjoyed with him.

After all that, I too would have expected my H to distance, set stronger boundaries, and be transparent. Instead, the window is still open to her and he is allowing her thirsty behavior to continue. He has brought home an intimate gift from her but hasn’t mentioned it - a special book bought at his favorite place with a ‘grab the joy’ poem marked with a photo of them looking like a happy couple. It seems like a sly move on her part to unsettle you when you inevitably discovered and leafed through the book.

@poetryslam, knowledge is power, so at this point I would check his phone before addressing the continuing presence of this woman in your marriage.

Why is he continue to run with her. ?
is she on these work trips.

Does he meet her for lunch /coffee and doesn’t telL op ? @poetryslam
Stuff she had to try and find out tbh .
He really should have stepped back fully frok
this women .

I don't think it's a big deal. They're friends, it was a birthday gift and was just a book.

Thank you all for your input. I am so thankful for the different perspectives.
For those saying the book could be separate etc, I think it would be very unlikely that anyone but me would have bought a poetry book and I certainly didn't buy it. I guess the photo might have been put in at random, but it was at the beginning of a poem in a book with many multi-page poems. I think it would be a series of very unlikely coincidences if these things were unrelated.

I am also leaning towards inappropriate boundary crossing but not necessarily affair. Though as others have pointed out, after an initial distance he imposed, they have gone back to seeing each other socially relatively regularly. I haven't pulled him up on it because I am not his mother and I trust(ed) him to be conscious of the line after we spoke.

The thought of checking his phone seems like crossing a line I can't come back from. Instead I was thinking of taking advice here to open mindedly raise it with him, but not give him notice and ask him to show me the frequency of their messaging while I'm with him.

I know looking at his phone would give me certainty one way or another but it feels like crossing a different line, if that makes sense.

Their boundary crossing, in light of conversations we have already had about this, makes me feel really uneasy. He must be pretty drawn to her too if he's willing to do accept the attention and continue to see her, even if that's all it is.

I also wonder what he got her for her birthday. I feel sick about the whole thing. Not as nervous that it's an affair, but really sad nonetheless.

I wouldn't feel comfortable I'm just being honest. For him to leave it out if anything was going on would be stupid but from your update I don't get a good feeling about it. I get opposite sex friendships can work but they are acting like a couple from what you've said.

Yeah I wouldn’t like it. Lots of things on their own could be explained, but altogether smells fishy.
You’re going to have to ask him, I know it’s going be hard but I couldn’t just ignore it and hope it goes away. Good luck.