Husband lying about 2 female colleagues

[Changernamerjoker]

Found out my husband has had two younger (20s) female team members for three years, but he hid it from me and then lied about how long they’d been there.

I recently learned my husband has two younger women on his team. He never mentioned them, and when I asked, he apologized but said he didn’t tell me because I’m “weird about women.”
For context: we’ve been together 15 years, we both work full-time, but he’s in corporate finance and is basically unavailable on weekdays. I handle the kids and the house completely. I never call him, never check up on him, never question late nights (often 10pm–midnight). I’ve always trusted him 100%.

What really upset me was the lie — and then finding out he lied again. He first said they’d only been around a year, but I checked and they’ve been on his team for three years. He eventually admitted it.

I’m 38 and scheduled for a hysterectomy in Jan ‘26. It’s necessary surgery, but I feel like I need full trust in my marriage before going through something major. Right now, I don’t trust him despite his apologies. What do you think? What would you do? We’ve talked twice since Friday and barely any interaction since.

The comments - supportive to my feeling and those saying it’s my own problem are obviously all valid. I have asked for public opinion on this.

I SO appreciate those who are ‘getting’ my situation and circumstance and who have taken time out of their day to respond, as honestly this is really weighing on me. This, but as a symptom of bigger issues with in my marriage.

I don’t have family around or friends I’ve been able to speak to, so even if I haven’t loved all the responses, I do appreciate them.

i appreciate a few of you on here more than others 🙈 but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to reflect on myself in this.

I personally do, and obviously do think he behaviours is strange.

No, my gut isn’t telling me he is having an affair.

I’m gutted he has kept this from me. I’m gutted if has this this view of me (that I’m weird about women) I hope I'm not, I have a teenage daughter with whom I champion women, and at home we really try to change the narrative around things like ‘oh girls are always the problem’ ‘boys are so much easier’ as my daughter is navigating a hard time with female friendships currently (as 13 year old often do)

so it’s hit me on many levels.

I do not like this deflection to me being the problem, because I don’t believe I am - but I am taking it on board.

I’m not sure what more I can add, but some of the support on here has really helped me today. Thank you.

I need to feel fully secure in our future, as it would hurt me deeply if our marriage ended, and he gave our children other siblings, and this was something I could not give another partner and my existing kids.

It would deeply hurt most people (certainly i would be very upset if my dh did this)...but there are no guarantees in this life...
For example... what's to say you dont have surgery and you stay married... then you get to 48/50/52 and he leaves and knocks up a 23 yr old anyway... it can and does happen.

Fwiw i think its a bit weird but not totally weord on his side and your reaction is fair / normal given the stste of your marriage (and you yourself recognise this isnt really about knowing how many 20 somethings he manages)

Is it a lie or an omission?

My ex was very weird about me interacting with men. At work, in a pub, on the train, in Tesco, anywhere. I omitted to tell him about men on my team (he never met any of my colleagues anyway) as despite me never ever straying, or even any thoughts of doing so, it wasn't worth the absolute carnage of him going off on one.

Eventually his controlling abuse escalated to include female friends and colleagues, and eventually my family being excluded from my life. I left him in 2009 and have healthy relationships with both sexes without fear since then.

I don't think your reaction is healthy op. How would you explain to us his comments about you being 'weird about women'?

Interesting comment and perspective.

I don’t call my husband when he is out - do you?

Do you call your husband when he is in a work trip?

I ask, because your comment suggests that I might start doing that, and that isn’t reasonable.

In personally think it is reasonable for a wife to be able to check in with her husband on a night out or when he’s working away. I tend not too, and we text about the standard stuff ‘kids ok’ etc.

some have said I give him too much freedom, and others have said I’m totally in the wrong for expecting to know who his colleagues are.

curious about your comment as it’s all ‘but you might call him in the future had you known about the women’ - maybe, but also maybe not. He didn’t give me the opportunity did he. And is it wrong to call your husband? I never do to give him that full commitment to ‘be present at work’ but is it fundamentally wrong by 8/9/10pm?

PS OP don’t waste time dwelling on DH viewing you as being “weird about women”. You know you’re not. He knows you’re not. Its ridiculous. It’s gaslighting. Making you question or doubt yourself & having the desired effect of shifting blame onto you, for his actions, rather than himself. It’s worth instead considering how quick he was to blame you, when by the sounds of it, you do very little complaining & your absolute best to facilitate his working demands & keep the family running. That’s very poor of him & you do deserve better. So don’t get sidetracked or get into debate or try to prove to him how you’re evidently not weird about women. It’s all a waste of time & serving the purpose of distraction from the main issue.

I hope I'm not, I have a teenage daughter with whom I champion women, and at home we really try to change the narrative around things like ‘oh girls are always the problem’ ‘boys are so much easier’ as my daughter is navigating a hard time with female friendships currently (as 13 year old often do)

I don't think this is what he's implying when he says "weird about women". He's implying that you're a bit territorial and jealous when he interacts with other women. He's implying that if he told you about female colleagues, you'd have unfounded suspicions and questions, particularly over the later nights.

I don't know if any of this is true - he may be gaslighting you completely, or your suspicions may be founded. But that's what he means.

Regarding the larger real issue, I want to emphasise that a happy upbringing for your children doesn't necessarily need to be an unaltered one. It can be even more damaging to kids to grow up in a loveless environment. In my experience, kids whose parents "ripped the plaster off" when they were still children/early teens have grown into much more well-adjusted adults than the ones who lived in a household where they knew their parents didn't even like each other any more, but they had to live in it throughout their teenage years.

Well, I can’t give any examples about me being weird with women.

I know they exist, I know he has women at his firm. I know that there are women on his many many many business trips. I know he has female clients who he goes on trips with. I’ve never had an issue or been weird about it.

I don’t call him during the week, just text about the basics, I don’t check up on him or questions him on who he is with or what he is doing. As I’ve said he has complete freedom away from the home Monday - Friday.

I don’t think I am weird about women, truly. I don’t buy his response as I believe my actions over 15 years have proven this.

I would also like to add, when I asked him who was in his team and he told me - he did continue to lie (not omit) as he said it was only for a year, but they have been in his team for over 3 years.

is that not weird?

This is strange to me. I work on a small team (8 people) which includes a handful of younger and frankly, really attractive men. I've literally never discussed this with my husband - he's met one or two of my colleagues, but I bet he's forgotten their names already, and he's never asked details about the rest of the team, whether they're male, younger, good looking etc.

He works in the nighttime economy and no doubt comes into contact with loads of younger, good looking women, but it's never occurred to me to even think about them, much less ask for details.

I'm not having a go at you, but I think he fact this is such an issue for you points to a deeper insecurity in your relationship which it would be worth exploring.

Is your DH , Brad Pitt. Why in God’s name would two women in their 20s be interested in him?

I think he is being wierd and creepy keeping the women he works with a secret. Just why?

Oh that made me laugh.

I did think this was vain as well in all honestly…

No he isn’t. He’s a good looking guy and he has a lovely demeanour - his man child ways was actually one of the things I loved about him early on. Not so much 15 years down the road with 2 kids.

I agree with this comment though…

To be honest your updates point to a deeper issue within the marriage rather than just the fact that he hasn't told you about his female colleagues.

I think you are focusing on the wrong thing here and need to look at the bigger picture as there are obviously deep seated problems within your marriage that need addressing.

At home, I talk about my project manager because she is a nightmare and 2 colleagues that I get on well with and chat to frequently. Both these colleagues are women. I am not deliberately not mentioning the (majority) men on the team; I just have nothing in particular to say about them as I only interact with them as required for work purposes.

My DH rarely mentions work colleagues at all, and he is in a majority female team.

See for me, I find it weird that you don’t know about your partner’s work life and he yours. It’s totally fair if that works for you guys.

From my side, It’s that he does tell me about the guys in his team, does tell me about work, but omitted telling me about the only two young females.

Then lied about the time frames they’d worked there? Just why?

People love to be obtuse on here OP - bleating on that you must be totally controlling if you need to know the names of everyone he works with - completely missing the point that there are only 5 people in the team and you know all about the 3 male members.

Then of course they're all frothing at the mouth over the 'weird about women' comment - he must mean something by that, how are you weird? - when this sounds more like him gas lighting you and trying to put HIS weird behaviour on to you.

If this was me you can be sure I'd be asking a lot more questions that you are! I've no interest in playing the cool wife - if I'm at home with the kids and he's finished work, disappeared for several hours and then eventually turned up shit faced - you can be absolutely sure that I'd be wanting answers.

I don't think you're too controlling at all OP, quite the opposite. I think you've let him get away with doing whatever he pleases for far, far too long.

I would trust your gut on this one. I wouldnt tell my DH the sex of my team, but I talk about them, so he knows about them. I think i have talked about all of them over the years. My EXH used to lie about females he worked with, and used to say I was 'weird' about women when i questioned things. Turns out I wasnt weird at all and he had multiple affairs. If he always talks about 3 and never mentions 2, there is likely something in that. What you do about that I dont know. Would he go to counselling?

There is a ted talk that talks about when women are told they are over reacting.

You entered this marriage as equal partners, no doubt expecting to be treated as an equal both in your work life and in your home life... and 15 years and 2 children in, you wake up one day and take a look around.

Your husband, in his well paid corporate finance job, has two much younger women working for him.. but no older females in the team. You and your children are absent from his life, Monday to Friday, while he travels, socialises, drinks, works late as if there is no one else in his life. Meanwhile, you manage your career (with all the disadvantages that come with being female and having taken time out to give birth and take care of the babies you both wanted), you manage everything in your household including raising a daughter to believe that she can have everything her brother dreams of and you wonder how you ended up here.. how you have borne an unequal share of the parenting burden, how your husband seems to go through life bearing the badges of honour that come with having a perfect family without the battle scars... and as you start to contemplate your future, your changing perception of who you are, with this change in your fertility (this reflextion amd realisation comes with menopause too... but hysterectomy is more abrupt and more intense!) you see that even there, your husband could carry on and make a new cosy family if he wished and you would bear the burden of healing your own fractured family.

Decide if this is how you want to spend the rest of your life. Decide if he can be reached and if he is capable of seeing the inequality of your lives and working his way back to supporting you as an equal partner.

If not, join a women's circle, find a therapist, find yourself and put yourself first.

Hire help to run your household, get your husband to pay. Go out dancing and work till midnight.

You are not defined by whether you are fertile or not.... but you are defined by how you see yourself. Take back control!!

https://www.ted.com/talks/tracee_ellis_ross_a_woman_s_fury_holds_lifetimes_of_wisdom?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=social&utm_content=2021-7-30-cutdown&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQMMzUwNjg1NTMxNzI4AAEeEFZHmmsmDStnGs9Nr6oUXKKQLoL6kvcgwk0BJiP44yY09uXc-rVdI-tGCbA_aem_5IU7Lzkn1C-_OIYk2pdBRA

(PS.. I think you know what the culture of his work is like.... and I think you know that women play supporting roles.. whatever that looks like in reality.. his comment to you was incredibly disrespectful.)

Well, OP, considering that your DH has led, for all interests and purposes, a single life while you have dealt with life admin, kids and the resultant impact on your career, I think you are the opposite of controlling. You are underreacting,

I suspect that this has been a vital piece of the jigsaw, and it has thrown everything else into a new light.
Like some PPs have said, you could maybe accept that he hadn't mentioned these women, for whatever reason. But then why, when you found out, would he lie about how long they'd worked there for?
Your life together demonstrates that you aren't the suspicious type, so that leaves:
He has something to hide, or:
He's a compulsive liar.
Neither of those bodes well for a happy future together.

Thank you. I am going o listen to this tonight. Very much appreciate your supportive, thoughful and understanding message.

This, 100%.

OP you are very clearly self reflective and extremely reasonable- beyond reasonable.

I just cannot believe all those saying "but you MUST be weird about other women if he's said you are" ???

this is precisely how deflective gaslighters work. To me, it's obvious - but then I've had this happen to me. in my case, he'd gaslight to an extent i could never have believed any sane human could be capable of. Was completely suspicious of me with zero grounds to be, and as a consequence was utterly controlling. Yet he would behave in the most inappropriate ways in relation to other women, and when confronted about his secrecy he'd say it was because of my "previous reactions" - but I knew and he knew this was never the case.

So people can say ahhh but there must be something in it. You don't know unless you're in that situation.

I'm sorry you feel you have to keep justifying yourself, OP. As you say, your husband's lied by omission - quite deliberately and carefully.

I suspect "Weird about women" is a projection. As to whether he's "weird" about working with women, is irrationally convinced you'll be upset that he works with women, has designs on the women or has screwed one/both of them, I can't tell.

I might add that, given the sketch you've drawn of his professional life, I'd be surprised if he has been faithful the whole time. You must be at least somewhat familiar with this type of work culture and the prevailing ethos that "what happens at work stays at work".

Regardless, it is odd that he's kept two-fifths of his team under wraps and I'd be pissed off too.

Yes same for me. DH knows who my clients are, the sort of work I do, some of the big gossip. He’s come to the pub a few times for work outings. He would have zero idea about the men/ women I work with day to day, no clue. I’m not evasive it just never comes up.

I think you are overreacting about these team members but UNDER reacting about his general shittiness as a husband - completely checked out of family life etc.

Does he appreciate all the family support that you provide without complaint that allows him to work ridiculously long hours and to socialise with his team until late whenever he needs to or wants to, or does he just take it all for granted?

You facilitate this lifestyle at the expense of your own career/business and you do everything for your children. His caginess about the women on his team is odd, particularly as he often talks about his male team members and I find it disrespectful.

Your husband takes you completely for granted. He is so lucky to have a wife who has her own successful business and who deals with absolutely everything at home but it's now something that he doesn't particularly notice or appreciate. He would certainly notice it if you stopped doing it.

Are you weird about women in the sense that he feels it's just easier to lie by ommision.
I don't think it's any big deal .