AIBU regarding DH work colleague?

[tinker2190]

DH works in a role where he has to travel to different sites and sometimes car shares with colleagues (male and female). One of the colleagues is a woman about 6 years older than him, also married with children around the same age as ours.

They’ve car shared a few times in the last few months. She asks him lots of questions about his personal life, and he’s come home telling me things she’s said about her kids etc. One time when I bumped into them unexpectedly, they both looked uncomfortable, which I brushed off at the time.

Then twice, around 9pm, she texted him asking how his day was. The first time, he showed me and said he wouldn’t respond at that time of night. The second time, he didn’t reply at all. Between those two occasions, I’d already told him I thought she might have a crush on him, and that I wasn’t comfortable.

Fast forward to this week. We had a very sad and difficult family event at the weekend, and he told her all about it at work. I felt really hurt — it feels like he went to her for emotional support instead of me. I told him that, but he doesn’t see what the problem is.

I reminded him that I had already expressed my discomfort before, and asked him to put some boundaries in place. But instead, he’s shared something deeply personal with her, after I’d warned him how I felt. I told him it hurts more because my feelings weren’t taken into account, and that it’s his responsibility to set the boundaries with her, not mine.

He’s apologised, but to me it feels hollow when he was pre-warned and still chose to do it. I told him it makes me feel like he’s disrespected our marriage. He doesn’t agree he’s done anything wrong.

Am I being unreasonable to feel this way? Or am I overreacting?

I think your emotions are probably running high after an emotional time over the weekend.

Sometimes people need to talk to people outside their relationship about things that are affecting them emotionally and it doesn’t mean there’s a romantic connection. If they’re car sharing and she’s the sort to ask him questions and he opened up with what was on his mind then I don’t really see the problem with this. If they’ve been having long text/phone conversations outside of work about personal things that would be different.

Ask yourself honestly if you would care if he had told a male colleague in the same circumstances about this personal event?

No you aren't being unreasonable.

You are quite right to expect him to have appropriate boundaries as a married man. And you have reminded him of them.
But either he doesnt understand the boundaries he should have in place with this work colleague or he is deliberately riding rough shod over them.

Their relationship has already migrated from work colleagues to something much closer.
Why is she messaging him out with work hours and quite late in the evening? Sheuis already seeing him at work. She is car sharing with him. She actually probably sees him as much, if not more, than you do by the sound of it .

You need to talk to him seriously about this again before their relationship becomes even closer. If he isn't prepared to put boundaries in place with her then you need to think what you are going to do going forward.

Not responding to her late night messages and showing you the messages shows he does have boundaries. Now that you are aware of her inappropriate messaging I appreciate why you don’t want them having emotional conversations but I wouldn’t make this about him being in the wrong because I don’t think he is. You can still tell him it makes you uncomfortable but give him space to work out how to navigate it. You telling him what he can and can’t talk to her about will just come across controlling and he’s more likely to rebel against it.

The boundaries are there. He showed you the texts and he clearly didn't respond to them.
Boundaries aren't an all-or-nothing kind of thing. I would even say that he's shown a lot of respect for you and for your marriage by not responding to those texts.
The fact that he needed someone to confide in during a very emotional time, doesn't have to be this huge problem. Sometimes emotions come spilling out, even at work.
I would say that this was a problem if he was choosing not to talk to you while at home, keeping everything inside and then running to her while at work to confide in her. That would be a red flag. But maybe give him the benefit of the doubt. He may have been feeling emotionally overwhelmed and turned to someone who was available at that time. It doesn't have to be anything bigger than that.

I don’t see that he has done anything wrong here.

He car shares with colleagues when working with them on location. He’s developed a friendship with one who he’s seen a few times in the last few months, always at work.
He told you he had received a message from this colleague (which he didn’t need to do!) but he didn’t reply to messages from the colleague in the evening.
He told the colleague, at work, about something difficult that he had experienced over the weekend. Unless this event related to your personal health (should be private) there’s no reason he shouldn’t offload to a colleague.

This seems odd to me “One time when I bumped into them unexpectedly they both looked uncomfortable”. How did you come to bump into them when they were working?

Poor boundaries and inconsiderate of him, at best.

When you raised the issue with him did you ask about his thoughts/feelings about and behaviour towards her? (Rather than just hers)