How would you feel about this new female friend?

[Jucrae]

Ive been with my DH for 6 years. We have a really solid relationship generally but over the summer he went on a holiday with my two teenage step children and I took our younger children away myself and we then all met up and had a shared holiday together. We have my stepkids permanently full time but some things were going on with the oldest and I thought it would be good for him to get time with his dad but also felt like the youngest ones needed a bit of a break from his behaviour. We all had a great time and the space/time together has been brilliant for us as a family and we have all come back a much stronger family unit. The separate holidays was my idea.

Whilst we were doing the separate part of our holidays DH was staying on a campsite and met another couple with kids of a similar age and apparently they all hit it off. They were staying in the campsite for a week at the same time. DH would tell me everything they were doing and it was apparent that the woman was spending a lot of time with DH while her husband was off doing other things. Initially I thought this was just because of the kids spending time together but since they've come home it's come across from my stepsons like they weren't really all that bothered about spending time with her kids but that they got on OK.

The woman has been messaging DH loads since they came home and he's been quite open with me about it. He says that she and her husband want to come and visit us in the UK (they are from Germany) and that she and I would get on really well and they just want to see the UK and it means we could go visit them in Germany. He told her that Im the family organiser and that she should message me to make any plans and gave her my number.

She has since messaged me, her opening line was that she met my husband and family on holiday and that they "had a connection" and she wants to connect with me to because DH said im the organiser. I messaged her back quite friendly saying Id heard a lot about her and it would be lovely to get to know her and when was she thinking of visiting. She replied saying some dates and I told her our plans and when we would be free. She liked the messages but didnt reply. I told DH I wasn't sure how comfortable I was with this and he said if I dont want him to be friends with her he won't be.

This was about a week ago. This morning I couldn't find my phone so used DH's to make a phone call I needed to make to school. After curiosity got the better of me and I looked at the messages between them. There is nothing outright bad but she sends him 100s of messages, he often doesn't reply but then eventually does and they have had long chats over text. Nothing overly worrying on his part although he forwarded on a text I had sent to him about a funny thing my DD had said to me calling my boobs dusty (she was breastfed for a long time but no longer does), she's replied saying that she feels sorry for my DD. She messaged him to tell him she'd messaged me and he said that he might need to convince me about meeting up and she's replied that's fine because even if I dont want to they can still be friends. Then a couple of days after I messaged her in what I thought was fairly friendly and polite she has messaged him saying your wife messaged me and is obviously not convinced. He's not replied.

Ive not told him that I've seen the messages yet.

I have real concerns and doubts over this woman's intentions. I know that DH would cut her off if I ask him to but I dont know if I am being unreasonable to do that? I have a number of male friends so I dont have issues with friends of the opposite sex. He has a couple of female friends but none that he is overly close to. Am I right to be concerned about this friendship? My worry is not that anything has already happened as nothing makes me think that it has, but that the groundwork is being laid for something more.

Yes, she's a predator and your husband's boundaries are non existant for his own entertainment.

How did his first marriage crumble, don't tell me she had an affair and broke his heart.

Rough times ahead, you'd better polish up your armoury.

Just because he's gorgeous, make sure you don't put up with shit.

Yes agree

Nip it in the bud.
red flags all over it.

This woman who your husband has known a week has managed to throw a hand grenade into your marriage, you really should not be engaging with her after your message, block her, even if all of this is innocent (it isn’t by the way) there is something stalkerish about her behaviour, and I bet if you keep engaging this will escalate, this is not normal behaviour, you need to cut her off as does your husband, and I’m sorry but your husband’s response is very suspect, storming off and trying to make out you are in the wrong when he has been engaging in hundreds of texts messages with a woman he barely knows? You are not the dick here but your husband has more than likely been thinking with his.

Agreed. Please don't question yourself @Jucrae. Your husband storming out is not the actions of an innocent man who is sad his wife is upset. That should be his focus.

She's playing you . . .

Why don't you meet them and see what you think? They might turn out to be good mates. Trusting your gut is fine when you have actually met someone, otherwise it's all theoretical and it's easy to get your head in a tiz on MN!

If you meet her and still have doubts, then it would be appropriate to cut all contact. Or you could just kill her!

She's not gonna stop.

Regardless of your demands she will forge ahead, privately, I bet.

Chances are she’s also messaging your husband all upset that her friendly overtures towards you have been misconstrued and he’s having to try and make her feel better…

Of course she is, she's also mounting a smear campaign against op, hoping the devaluing works it's magic.

She was inappropriate. Your husband was flattered. Your gut was correct. She’s tried to flip it by manipulating you and done a great job of it. He’s angry because he feels a bit guilty too. Don’t reply to her anymore, ask your husband to block them both. Move on x

Don't just start taking your words back!!! Of course this woman is trying to say everything she can, so that you don't think she's after your husband. That's what I would do myself, if I had sent hundreds of messages to some man and his wife found out about them. That's obvious.

The messages were suspicious. No normal person would send that many messages without a purpose. And the woman's purpose was clearly to get to know your husband a little too well....

And the message about old breasts was really outrageous. Your husband should have stopped communicating immediately, after this message about breasts. Then I think your husband would have acted correctly, now he didn't. Yes, your husband has realized that the messages are "a little too much", but it has clearly boosted his self-esteem, etc.

Stop all communication. Don't meet them. Otherwise, you will 100% definitely regret it. The woman is clearly after your husband... However, it would be fair to your husband that you no longer see your male friends alone.

Totally agree

Unless OPs husband has form for regularly being spectacularly clueless and naive, I have to agree.

Even just the excessive amount of messages, after having only known someone for a week, would flag as unusually intense for most people - it would be quite normal to wonder if someone who was behaving like this had ulterior motives.

When you combine the way-too-many messages with her “she’s not convinced” and “dusty old” comments about you, the photo he chose to delete, and the fact that he wasn’t immediately honest when you asked about the messages, I don’t believe he hadn’t considered that she might be interested in him. It sounds like he chose to pursue an ego boost even if it meant arguing with you, over someone who’s not much more than a stranger to him.

It's easy to think MN is on your side, but there's a lot of posters looking for drama and/or projecting their own negative experiences. MN can be amazing, but with threads like this the "trust your gut" paranoia always dominates at the expense of common sense.

Didn't want to say this, but it's what I thought when he stormed off. So he can message her.

It's all very convenient.

Instead of staying home and reassuring his wife, as any loving partner would, he's now playing the victim.

Actually I think she may be quite genuine - problem is I’m not sure I would feel comfortable with a woman so intense sending messages all the time, I’ve been there before you see with a colleague of ours, single mum, a bit lonely, worked for us both but it was my H she was always messaging - I saw the messages , nothing really untoward but it just was all ‘a bit much’ and felt intrusive - she was reasonably attractive, right age group and definitely had a thing I felt that she was somewhat jealous of our lifestyle ( which by the way was confirtabke but not amazing) -she was always passing comments on it. Therefore I’m just wary of women who can have slight bunny boiler tendencies. I would just say you aren’t interested in being friends, or having them to stay, he must do what he feels comfortable with -

She was really intense with your husband and now she's bombarding you. I'd say she's really unhappy with her husband and is desperate. She might just be desperate to be friends but it's all a bit much for someone your DH met on holiday for a week and who you've never met.

I'd apologise to your DH if you didn't believe him about the photo with her DH and it turned out to be true and reply to her saying you really appreciate her understanding but you feel you've made everything awkward so it's best if you just leave it to a lovely holiday. Then block her before she starts trying to tell you how it's not awkward blah blah blah.

It will be interesting to see if she will try to continue messaging your DH after that. Wouldn't surprise me at all if she did.

@Jucrae, you were not mistaken. This woman is a threat to your marriage and family. She is playing you like a fiddle, as she will be desperate to not be cut off from H. Please don’t fall for her manipulation.

So far, both have told lies - her to H and H to you…

The over-familiarity and intimacy that infuses their dynamic is troubling. Examples:
(1) Her relentless reaching out to H signals entitlement and a deep need to connect with him, as well as confidence that he welcomes it. She is obsessed and he has lapped it up instead of shutting it down.

(2) His aligning with her by mentioning the need to convince you and by sharing your private communication, which she then used to ridicule you with her spin, was totally unacceptable.

(3) Her agenda to keep H onside by intentionally misrepresenting your friendly response was devious. [How is her lying about you or mocking your body being ‘a woman’s woman’ ?] He then protected her by lying by omission about her critical remark and deleting the bed photo.

So yes, very over-familiar (including the photo) and inappropriate. She is after him and he weakened his boundaries for her ‘feel-goods’. He is lashing out now because you have rumbled her game and his disloyalty.

Don’t gaslight yourself by playing into her hands, @Jucrae.

Her responses to you now are a huge red flag. I think you read the situation right. She is very invested in trying to prolong this and why? OP, I really wonder and think she probably is texting your DH at the same time about how mean you are to her. Be wary OP, this is a lot of drama your DH is allowing to mess up your marriage. It would make me look at him in a very different light. If she meant nothing to him then why not block and move on? Something about this whole thing is just not right.

I know that a lot of posters are saying that I was right in the first instance, I really dont think I was. I know for a fact that she wasn't messaging DH whilst messaging me because when he left, he left his phone so it was right beside me and apart from that the rate at which we were messaging, she couldn't have been anyway. I can see how she ended up sending him so many messages because she was messaging me loads also and that's clearly her manner of communication. She wasn't being forceful, after her first reply saying she would respect how I feel and leave things, I responded and asked some questions and it continued from there. It turns out that her DH and my DH have quite a traumatic experience in common, I knew that DH had had this but didnt know that her DH had. Later DH came home and we talked, he said that he was really upset that I thought that he would see anyone else that way and thought so little of him but after he had some space and time to think he saw why I might have seen it that way but that it wasn't the case at all. He told me that it was her DH that he had had the connection with. Her DH has had therapy for his experience, mine needs it but was always reluctant but he came home from this holiday suddenly open to it and now I know why. It makes it make sense why he wanted to stay in touch, DH says that this is a big part of it but also that he thought that it was another family who were very similar to us in so many ways, blended family, same interests, etc and he thought it would be nice to stay in touch. He said that it's not a big deal to keep in touch though and that he had said he would cut contact and that he would.
After all our discussions and my original message, it would be awkward now to continue communication or meet up as families anyway but at least I feel confident that there was nothing untoward and communication isn't ending on a sour note when it doesn't have to.

And I want to thank everyone for taking the time to reply and give advice. I know that I will get responses now telling me that Im being naive, I dont think that I am but it's not likely that the friendship will continue now anyway so it doesn't matter if Im being naive to believe that the intentions were genuine or not because it's done now, but on nicer terms. If anything does continue it will likely be between the husbands, and now knowing that her DH has been through the same trauma as DH and has had help dealing with this (and is apparently very open about it), I dont think that it would be a bad thing if they did keep in touch. I wish that DH had mentioned this before but it's something that he can find difficult to talk about.
Im going to leave the thread now but thank you again for the support and responses.

Well dh did leave an important factor out.

Good luck going forward. Hopefully dh will communicate better in future?

Then it should have been the DH’s communicating and all would have been fine

far too much drama brought into your marriage my a complete stranger to you and someone your DH barely knows either .

It sounds as though she was keen to facilitate that healing for your DH.

Great that you have managed to settle things calmly with him. 💗