Time to leave my DH because of his feelings for his colleague?

[Whereismymind12]

We’ve been happily married for a long time. Raised a family, have lots in common, he’s a good man and kind. Everything should feel good but I feel so, so sad as I’m pretty sure he is in love with another woman.
Last year I began to get upset about how much they saw each other in and out of work and how much they were in contact when not in the office. He played this down but I know he lies about this as our work paths have crossed a couple of times (we work in different companies but in the same profession) and I have seen for myself what he tells me and the reality aren’t the same.
He insists they are just friends. Two nights ago he told me during a horrible row that if I didn’t like their friendship then I could leave because it wasn’t going to change.
I’m very close to leaving as it’s completely bringing me down emotionally. But I’m clinging to the hope that I’m wrong (as he insists) and don’t want to upend my life and our family’s if I’m being paranoid and overthinking this.
Increasingly I think I am the far less interesting, fun, captivating woman in his world compared to her, and it’s a desperately sad feeling I’m secretly holding every day.

It’s really hard as we’re only hearing one side. I had a male colleague at work and we were great friends. But I had 0 interest in him romantically. But we just got along so well!! I’d be annoyed if my DH said I couldn’t see him, as I know exactly how I felt about him, which was nothing romantically, so 0 risk of running off together. And then if DH kept going on and on and on about, then I’d get really pissed off. Maybe your DH feels like this? Just to put another perspective out there.
however, I would have handled it differently. I would encourage you to meet her to prove you’re just friends, I’d be reassuring you in a nice way. But he could be just done in with you speaking about it. None of us really know what’s happening here.

It's really very simple - he knows how upset you are about this; you've told him. If your marriage and your feelings mattered more than his friendship with her, he would shut it down. He's not shutting it down because he is having an emotional affair and he is enjoying that.

Of course he is saying it would be better if you stopped stressing about it - then he could have his emotional affair and have his wife at home, and have his cake and eat it. This is true regardless of how things are between you otherwise. Don't be confused by him being nice to you, or things being nice between you apart from this. It's not on you to fix your discomfort here - it's on him, and he's decided not to bother.

When someone marries this relationship is supposed to becomes their primary relationship That's what monogomous marriage is supposed to be about.

OP has every right to be upset when when her H has already told her this woman means more to him than she, his wife, the woman he made vows to.

From what you say in your marriage your friendships take precedence over your H's happiness. But that is not how marriage works for most people.

OP you are not pathetic, and any assessments of your marriage are from people on the outside of it and only based on things you have said here. The full picture it absolutely isn’t, only you can know that.
You sound exhausted, numb and paralysed with it all at the moment and I’m not surprised. Don’t beat yourself up, you are in a horrible situation and torn between keeping the family together at the expense of your mental heath and risking him blowing it up. NB HE is blowing it up by refusing to budge on this, NOT you.
You have never sounded ‘obsessed’ or ‘jealous’, you sound sidelined, anxious, stressed and desperately trying to make what he says true, which would magically make all your worries disappear.
The problem is that for some reason you can’t make what he says ring true, no matter how hard you try. And you have been trying very hard, but it just doesn’t work, does it?
There is a reason for that, your subconscious is desperately trying to protect you from what you know is the actual truth. The truth terrifies you so it’s easier to create a narrative that makes it palatable or become paralysed and shut down. No shame there OP, you face this when you are ready, don’t feel bullied or pressured by opinion here. There is only one way through this though, by taking action at some point. When you are ready you will feel strong enough to draw the boundary.
There is a term for where you are now, it’s called ‘betrayal blindness’. An American psychologist called Michelle Mays wrote a book called “the Betrayal Bind” and it explains attachment theory perfectly and explains why when we are betrayed we act the way we do and why sometimes we do not see, or we ignore or try to ignore or explain away signs and gut feelings that something is terribly wrong, when we actually know it is. I will post you a link to read more.
My feeling is that you have exhausted yourself trying to bash a square peg into a round hole and it’s time to stop.
Firstly do not meet this woman. I think if you met her you would do nothing but compare yourself with her, (pointless exercise, she’s not better than you, she’s just a novelty) You’d watch their interactions like a hawk and believe me, if your suspicions are correct (I agree with your suspicions) she’d love it and it will give her more power over you than she merits. He’d love it seeing two women being nice but silently ‘fighting’ over him. Ugh. Don’t give him the satisfaction.
The only way out of this painful limbo is to call his bluff I’m afraid, if he chooses this friendship over you and your children then you haven’t blown up your family, he has. You know he is lying about this friendship, he doesn’t even seem to care how you feel. If it was innocent, he’d be horrified that you’d think it wasn’t and rush to reassure you, not shrug and dig his heels in.
Tell him that regardless of what he thinks about the friendship, he is dismissing your feelings about it totally, you should come first here and it has become obvious that you do not. Then add the consequences for his not agreeing to work contact only. Or none whatsoever, if that’s your preference.

Here’s a link to Michelle Mays’ site:

michellemays.com/the-knowing-and-not-knowing-of-betrayal-blindness/

My ex had a friend like this. As pp said, he pushed me aside and made his primary relationship with her. He refused to alter that and our lives revolves around her life. She was married too. Anyway, he and I split up for this and other reasons; he and she are now married to each other.

I don’t think your gut lies to you. I’d be tempted to ask him for marriage counselling, our therapist sided with me over this friendship and ex was gobsmacked, he had really made himself believe that I was the unreasonable one and he was shocked that the therapist was like no, you are essentially behaving like this OW’s husband while your wife is a single parent and her husband does his own thing.

Good luck, I hope he comes back to you before he drifts too far away.

OP - take your time to digest and process what’s happening in your marriage. Re read all the posts, lots of good advice and insight here, but there’s no need for you to put additional pressure on yourself to make a decision now. This must be so raw for you, so hard to confront. Look after yourself. Breathe. Observe. Take one step at a time. You’ll be ok.

Was your male friend ten years younger than you and resembled your husband when he was younger and in his prime? This is what the OP is dealing with so there is a big difference to what you have described, if my husband spent all his spare time texting, gaming with a colleague who he has also spent 8 hours with at work, who is the younger, single version of me and has told me he values his “friendship” with her before his marriage to me, then I would not tolerate it and would divorce him, no way would I let my husband treat me as second best to another woman.

So he does recognise that you don't like her, or at least feel threatened, are wary of her and don't wish for him to be in her company.

He doesn't want your judgement and they would both feel uncomfortable.

He bloody does know, he knows full well this is making you very ill, he is being incredibly unkind and cruel pulling away from affection, denying your feelings, and telling you to like it or lump it.

Whatever happens you will not forgive this cruelty, this type of betrayal whereby they laugh in your face whist you ask for mercy is the cruellest, most hateful betrayal.
Acting so ignorant and smug denying ANY bad behaviour, this is the worst type of man in my opinion, a gaslighting bastard.

Op I hope one day you will find your anger and in the future will repay this sociopath by shitting on him in some way from a great height.

The war has begun and he is confident he is winning these early battles but as time goes on you will find your strength and fight back, this man has signed you up for this hell, broken up his marriage agreement and has enlisted a stupid woman to fight along side him, against you.

It's the highest form of treason, what a cunt.

The reason your marriage is a shit show is is not entirely because of this woman. It's because your husband no longer loves you. That is a painful pill to swallow and will take you a while to get your head around.

No man who is truly in love with his wife treats her the way yours treats you. My husband would die rather than hurt me in any way. Yours is very happy to watch you suffer while he persists in chasing after this woman.

Even if he does decide to give her up, the damage is done. He won't, but there is a small possibility she may find someone else, and he may be forced to take a step back. If so, he will spin that to you as complying with your wishes because he loves you. Don't fall for it.

The point is that your marriage is already dead. It's just that neither of you have realised it yet. In your shoes, I would detach from him entirely and get myself some therapy to work out why my self-esteem is so low that I'm clinging on to a man like this. Your life could be so much happier without living in this hideous vacuum of emotional neglect and disrespect every minute of every day.

A good husband does not make his wife feel this way! A good husband puts you first! A good husband cares deeply when something is hurting you and would do anything to stop that hurt! Your husband is twisting the knife in the open wound because he can. He is enjoying you being upset and the idea of two women who want him so much. He is telling you he doesn't care about your feelings because he wants to be with another woman. He has told you he would pick her over you. Let her have him.

A colleague of my husband just rubbed me wrong with her persistent texting. It took me mentioning it one time that it made me uncomfortable and that was that, it stopped. My DH told me he wished he knew sooner and always let him know because he would never want me to feel anxious or upset if he could prevent it. Your DH told you to basically go way so he can play with his new girlfriend. He want you to be anxious and upset. Why are you letting him treat you this way?

She is not innocent either. No woman in her right mind would believe it is okay to be that involved with a married man. You know there is much more to this then he is telling you. You know what their relationship really is OP. Stand up for yourself and call his bluff. You aren't blowing up your marriage, he is. Let him live with his choices.

Well you clearly want more evidence so yes I’d do whatever it takes for you to see sense

My Ex husband was like this. This work colleague was suddenly his best friend from absolutely no where. He was on his phone (strategically deleting messages of course), “working late”, going on work nights out when he hadn’t bothered before, picking fights with me for no reason so I was the bad guy, being short and snappy with the kids.

He denied it of course, she was just a friend, I was just jealous, didn’t I trust him?

So I ran about, trying to be the best wife, be more affectionate and loving while he looked at me with almost hatred.

I didn’t realise it at the time I was doing the “pick me” dance.

I finally caught him red handed, when I managed to sync his WhatsApp onto an old iPad and watched the messages go back and forth where it was obvious they were sleeping together. Although their chat was pretty dire, they spent most of it degrading me, how ugly I was, how my body was wrecked (my youngest was barely a year).

I went full on scorched earth that very minute. Now he’s my Ex, karma came back on her pretty hard as well.

You need to take control. I know you are afraid, I was too. Get planning on how you will survive on your own because you are on your own. Once you have a plan, you’ll find your strength to tell him to go.

Now he’s my Ex, karma came back on her pretty hard as well

Did they end up together what happened to her? (Sorry I’m nosey)

🤣 No, they didn’t even get together after. She lost her job (not through being the office bike), was a total crack head and crazy to boot. 3 close family members including her husband died in quick succession so she’s on her own looking haggard as fuck.

I know, I know, she didn’t owe me anything, it was my Ex who broke his vows but she absolutely deserves everything that’s happened to her.

I still have plenty of hatred for him too. But she didn’t have to deal with the impact their affair had on my kids so she can drop dead.

😆 You let it all out.

😆 You let it all out.

Interesting that these ‘friendships’ are invariably with younger, attractive women eh?

And always very "close" and intense. No wonder.

It's never 57 year old Brenda from Accounts is it?!

It really isn’t!

typically, when there is an issue in a marriage, the recovery is all about how the couple instigate repair. You have told him your concerns repeatedly, and he minimizes them, repeatedly. Has he ever attempted to repair things? Has he ever asked you what you need from him in order to feel secure again?

I would go ahead with meeting her, personally. I would also be getting my ducks in a row.

I think that you already know what to do OP. He just isn’t going to make this easy for you as he doesn’t want to be the bad guy.

I asked my divorced brother once why he never dated women his own age rather than women 15+ years younger.
"They have me sussed" was his reply.