Suspicious of neighbours behaviour towards my DH

[Stace88]

The couple who lived next door to us when we moved in broke up a few months ago and the man has since moved out.

The woman who lives there rarely spoke with us before but since breaking up is always chatting to my DH when she sees him. I can be stood next to him and she doesn’t look at me and aims any conversation towards him. She also refers to him by his name but doesn’t ever say mine.

That alone isn’t what my post is for. In the last couple of weeks she has made comments to DH - she saw him get back from the gym and asked him if he’d be her personal trainer (note - DH isn’t in bad shape but is a once a week gym goer and certainly isn’t a PT!). DH politely replied and she said she hasn’t had any workouts since becoming single and added ‘if you know what I mean’ with a laugh - fairly obvious what she was insinuating.

Yesterday, I was out all afternoon for a friends’ baby shower so my car wasn’t on the drive. DH told me he was pottering in the garden when our neighbour called his name over the fence and asked if he could help her with moving something in her garden which was too heavy for her, DH said yes and she told him to go down the side gate.

When DH went round she was wearing a bikini and in his words had clearly not been doing any gardening. He moved a pot at her request and then she asked where I (“your missus”) was. DH said I was out for the afternoon and she then asked if he fancied having a drink with her in her garden. DH politely made his excuses and came home.

I trust DH completely but feel like our neighbour is starting to stray into CF territory and I worry what her intentions are. DH thinks I’m being silly. Do you see where I’m coming from?

Hi OP, firstly I’m so sorry this happened to you. Your husbands betrayed you on so many levels and I can’t imagine how you’re feeling. Personally I would want to know it all and it’s unlikely scumbag husband is being 100% truthful. I would go round to the neighbours and (not nice I know) manipulate her into telling you all. Knock and say husband has told you what happened and you just want to know the truth. Tell her he’s calling her a bunny boiler, flirt, probably worse and you don’t believe that and just want to know the truth. Now, if you do this you must be able to control your anger be prepared to hear the full grimy truth. Once you know the truth or her version of the truth you will be better informed to make decisions (hopefully jibbing the scumbag and then blanking neighbour).

Have you got a good support network OP? This is just a hideous situation but believe me, you'll survive.

I also think you should do this. If she's mad because he's pinning it on her she's likely to tell you the real truth. I think the last thing you need to be doing is analysing what he's said and trying to solve a puzzle.

I personally wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of having you need to ask her questions or be polite to her. I’d never look at her again personally and hope she moves house.

Yes and she is also highly unlikely to give the truth either. They will both lie to protect themselves.

How are you doing @Stace88?

I hope your H has given you space today to collect your thoughts. I think this is a really good idea.

I would be telling him not to contact me until I let him know I am ready to talk. The only thing I would ask of him in that time is he stops pressuring me to forgive him and coming up with ways to justify his behaviour and protect himself from the consequences. Instead I would ask him for empathy.

Ask him to imagine he was you in the scenario where she had left the house and her husband had stayed. He had pursued you and you let him disrespect your H and encouraged the behaviour. Then one day when your H was out he called you sexy and told you about his sex life and that’s all it took for you to drop to your knees and suck him off. Not only that but you repeatedly lied to him about it. Ask him how he would perceive you now? What would he think about your marriage? How would he feel about himself? Would he be willing to forgive and forget? What would he need to want to try to rebuild?

IME Men in particular find it difficult to empathise without setting out the exact scenario. It may be that you don’t want to even consider reconciling but getting him to understand how you must feel is an important part of moving on, even if it’s separately.

I didn’t hear anything from him until early evening when he messaged asking if we could speak over the phone tonight. I told him no, and he sent me a long message in reply. He is fixated on the ‘we didn’t have sex’ line and said I ‘can go round and ask her and she’ll confirm’. Not that I plan on it currently, but she has been out since last night (car gone) so at least I’ve not had any possibility of a chance encounter with her. He says he would like to move back in ahead of the weekend and will sleep in the spare room and ‘stay out of my way’ - we jointly own the house so I don’t know how long I can keep him away for. There is nowhere obvious I can go currently and I’m yet to tell my parents due to the embarrassment.

Don't bother speaking to her OP, you know everything you need to know already. As for whether they actually slept together or not, that doesn't change anything. They were still intimate in some kind of way.

Technically you can't refuse to let him into a home he jointly owns, but that doesn't mean you have to acknowledge him if he does come back.

It's a bit suspicious that she's away for the night then same night you've kicked him out.

Jesus Christ, is he for real?

Hmm. I’m slightly suspicious OP that he could be bluffing you by saying to go and ask her when actually he’s with her now. Is it unusual for her to be away overnight or could it be explained by work for example?

No never midweek, her job is beauty related and works in the town during the day. I don’t think my husband would have wanted to arrange a phone call if he was doing anything dodgy.

You have nothing to be embarrassed about. You H is the one who has betrayed you. Nothing you could ever do would have caused or prevented this. He has weak morals and it is all on him. He played stupid games and now has won the stupid prizes for it. He is minimizing it and clearly is not remorseful or honest about it. He thinks he can weasel back into the home and manipulate you into forgiving him with his crocodile tears and sad puppy faces.

I would definitely advise you to tell his parents and yours so he can't twist it around. Telling others makes it real but I think you need to have it be real to deal with it. Right now it is probably like being in a haze and unable to clear the fog from you brain. He also needs reality to hit him hard. I cant imagine his parents will be too forgiving of him. Tell them he needs to give you space and leave you the fuck alone. Remember, you owe him nothing. He betrayed you and your vows. He broke your marriage. You have upheld yourself with dignity. All it took was some cheap flattery and a bikini for him to cheat. He is a weak man OP and you deserve better.

1. please DONT ask her. Please don’t. She won’t give you what you need.
2. he won’t stay out of your way if in same house, he just won’t at all. He already is sending you essays via text. Understand about you jointly owning house but asking him to leave for a matter of days is NOT too much to ask in this scenario.

If anything, if he pressures to come back, say, “fine, but then you’ll be kicking me out of my home on top of what you’ve done to me already. The only place I can go is my parents, want them to know”?

Try and call him now out of the blue. If he answers just hang up and pretend you called by mistake. If he doesn’t answer then alarm bells would be ringing big time

Ring his parents house ask if he’s there

Your DH needs to stop pretending he hasn’t got a clue, and shut this down himself.

He wouldn’t have told you if it wasn’t an odd thing to happen.

i wouldn’t get involved in any conversations about this with her if I were you, your DH needs to make it abundantly obvious that he is not interested, and advise her to use Google if she needs a handymen etc as he is not it!

He probably wants to come home because he’s told his parents you had a little fight or some other story and doesn’t want to admit the truth. Well tough. Do the crime take the punishment.

He has a legal right to come back but I would phrase it like this. ’You have done one of the worst things anyone could do to their spouse. The only thing I have asked of you is space to process how I feel and you can’t even give me that. You are showing me that your feelings and comfort comes first— again. If you want to push me to make a decision right now then it won’t be the one you want.’

SPOT ON with this comeback!!!!

This!

@Stace88, I too would use @OchreRaven‘s excellent suggestion above.

As the betrayer, he doesn’t get to now call the shots and ride roughshod over your boundaries and requirements. It appears that he has learned nothing and is still determined to control the narrative and get his way, as he has all along.

What a disgusting pair of rats! Honestly, leaving him is the only option here. The trust is gone and won’t come back, especially not with her next door.
If you forgive him, he’ll know he can get away with it and with an easy shag one house away, he’ll just cheat again.

I hope they live miserably ever after!

I woke up to a message from him telling me he will need to come home after work but will do his best to be out for much of the weekend.

He hasn’t told his parents because he wants to ‘resolve’ things and says he has been staying at a hotel but the jump in price for the weekend is too high.

Personally OP I would respond to that telling him the cost of his betrayal is much, much higher than a hotel bill.

Ah well he can go to his parents then can’t he. It’s about time they know the truth. Still thinking he can brush all this under the carpet and go back to life as it was before without taking any accountability or putting any work in. The shame is his and his alone. Don’t carry that for him by keeping his dirty secret.

So it's all about him still and his bank balance! Sounds like the neighbour was with him too if her car isn't there. Unless she's purposely gone away to make it look like she's with him so trying to upset you further. Tell him you're going to tell his parents he's going to stay with them for a bit due to what's happened. Why should he still be in control and dictate to you.