Mentionitis? Should I be worried.

[overthinkingmum1]

DH is a headteacher, and, therefore a DSL. I have no idea about the context but since September a child/family in the school have got a social worker, something quite serious I assume as he is attending a lot of meetings about it.

DH talks endlessly about this SW. How hard she works, the hours she’s doing, she was poorly, she was in again today etc etc. Something feels uncomfortable and I don’t want to hear about her again! At the same time, I could be being really unkind, without knowing what’s going on, he could be quite upset about the situation and the SW is a bit of a comfort. How can I manage this?

While I agree mentionitis is real (and I’ve seen a very real example) it’s not always.

I never talk about work with DH but circumstances meant that I did talk a lot about one particular colleague, who I was suddenly working with very closely. I was aware it sounded like mentionitis so I had to shoehorn into conversation with DH the fact that this (male) colleague is married to a man.

Possibly.

at the end of the you know him better than us. Don’t be playful or jokey just ask him about it properly.

as @Eyeshadow said sometimes you admire someone professionally especially if they’re bossing a stressful and complex situation

You need to be honest about your concerns. Don't address it in a playful or jokey way. This isn't a joke. This is your marriage, and it deserves respect.

Say something like, look, you never stop talking about this woman and it's disrespectful to me. I hope I don't need to remind you that I'm your wife and I should not be put in second place to another woman. If you cheat on me, whether that's physically or emotionally, you won't get another chance. Have a serious talk with yourself about what you're doing at the moment and let me know when you've decided how you're going to fix this.

You know him better than us OP, if this is bothering you then there is something about it that isn’t normal about his behaviour and it’s not sitting right with you and that is all that matters.
We Randoms on the internet can only speak from our own experiences so you will get a confusing and conflicting picture of those who think it’s nothing and those who think it’s definitely something.
One thing I would warn against is ever saying ‘my husband would never …..’ because I was that person and I was wrong. My husband believed he was definitely that person who would never and he was wrong too under the ‘right’ circumstances.
They are never that person who would until they are and absolutely anyone is capable of infidelity, they just have to start crossing small boundaries because ‘it’s just a bit of flirting/ a quick message….where’s the harm?’ then getting a kick out of it and obsessing and boundaries fall like dominoes over time.
Which is why, if this is bothering you and definitely a noticeable change in his behaviour for you, I would nip it in the bud.
Four times in one evening? About the ongoing case or about how marvellous she apparently is? Not acceptable to me.

She wouldn't have posted here if this was his normal behaviour.

He has an equally impressive job, this is not like someone without a career looking up to neurosurgeons.

you need to sit him down for a serious talk, ask him to be honest with himself and you about this woman. Does he find her attractive, does he have a crush on her. You can feed or starve a crush and that is his choice. Tell him you know he won't cross a line and you trust him, but you are hurt because you believe this woman is turning his head. Remind him we are only human but it is up to him to reign his feelings in and look after you and his marriage.

You’ve put this well. I agree with what you’re saying. Although it hurts that he even has a crush on another woman it’s not the end of the world if he limits contact and just stops prattling on about her as she’ll likely not be in his life for much longer. The problem is though that these little things kill a relationship if you’re not careful. I’m sure OP is amazing in different ways and it stings that the person you’re devoted to doesn’t always see or bang on about how wonderful you are and then down the road you feel resentful even if nothing happened and then someone shows you a bit of attention and sees how incredible you are and then you’re had your head turned a bit and so on and so forth. I wish men were a bit smarter, OP seems really sensible and from what she’s said he’s a decent man usually so why can’t he just have some self reflection that talking about another woman positively and repeatedly isn’t going to exactly fan the flames of love for your wife is it? Even the smart ones are a bit dense.

Yes, he fancies her and you need to let him know that you know this.

How can we know for sure? Because he mentions her more often than other people that he works with, right?

just to address the point that she won’t be working with him for long. He’s said her patch covers his school. So there is the potential that she’ll be in and out for years!

i feel like I’m seeing a whole new side to him. He feels quite important in his job, I couldn’t imagine him looking up to her. Which makes me worry that she is attractive. Him saying he thinks she’s the same age as him was another comment that prickled.

Honestly I would say “you can’t stop talking about Sally the Social Worker and it’s looking like you have a crush on her “

See what he says?

He's feeling personally involved and emotionally bonding with her and he's bringing her into your home with his constant mentionitis.

If he can't remain professional and maintain professional and personal boundaries when he's dealing with situations like this, he's going to burn out professionally or crash out by falling for her. Either way, it would affect his career.

You need to have a talk with him about how strongly he seems to have bonded with her to the point that he's talking about her constantly at home. That's not normal behaviour. This is affecting how you feel in your marriage. It might be time for marriage counseling.

I worked horrific cases that were so complex that we would have team meetings to discuss where we were going medically. Nobody was going home talking about their coworkers constantly to their spouse. You leave work at work. If you can't do that, you need therapy or to change jobs. He's not leaving this at work. He's let his relationship with a coworker intrude into your home life and that's not a good situation.

From my experience, it’s when he stops talking about her you really need to be concerned. And if he starts eating mints, buying new shirts and locking his phone, it’s too late. I don’t mean to sound flippant, this was all absolutely true in my case and it started with them being unusually pally, and him talking about her a lot. We even brought back a foodie snack she was missing from her home country at one point, ffs.

Trust your gut OP, it’s hard to say because nine of us know your DH like you do.

I got a new male colleague a few years back... got on like a house on fire, loved working with him.
Absolutely zero going on, and I don't think I mentioned him anymore than any other colleagues ( mainly female) but then I started worrying that I was mentioning him more, and didn't want husband to get concerned- as there genuinely wasn't anything there.

All I'm saying is... its possible there really isn't anything going other than platonic respect... ask him outright if he fancies her and see what he says...
I

Yes.
Also "mentionitis" gives me rash.

I doubt he looks up to her OP, am guessing completely of course but it’s more likely he’s white-knighting and being protective. As he feels important in his job as you say, her maybe leaning on him a bit and confiding in him feeds into his feelings of importance and ranking and therefore his ego.
Crushes etc are usually more about how their attention makes you feel, and the role she allows him to play probably feeds his ego, it’s that he’s enjoying, not her as a person so much.
My husband’s affair had this dynamic. Much younger, lower work status woman with way less money, big age gap made him into a kind of wealthy wise older hero/father-figure/ romantic white knight to her, she felt good attracting an older, higher status wealthy man who spent money like water on her, and in return her wanting to sleep with him was a massive feather in his stupid ageing cap, due to his attracting a very attractive very much younger woman who doted on his every word, constantly told him how clever, high ranking etc he was. Afterwards he did a lot if work on wtf was going on with himself and he admitted it was a huge ego trip and the dopamine hits just kept on coming…he felt like ‘James fucking Bond’ (his words) and she obviously thought she’d got it made. Both roles played fed into both egos and the circumstances and timing were exactly right for Mr Would Never Ever to reinvent himself and try out being a different, worshipped leading-man version of himself. Deeply ashamed, remorseful that and embarrassed are the understatements of the year.
So, don’t ever allow even a bit of mentionitis to make you feel insecure or ‘less than’, because the limerant object is never ‘better’ or ‘more special’ than you, they’re just the person in that situation who is saying the right things and allowing him to play a role that taps into his self esteem and ego around how much he enjoys status and ‘superiority.’Maybe there’s a status/ power imbalance that he’s enjoying from a higher status / taking a supportive role.
Before it gets any further, it needs to stop and become strictly professional, no personal stuff.
Time to tell him how this makes you feel and tell him that if he’s like this at work, people will be gossiping and he and you indirectly will be a laughing stock, which you feel is also incredibly disrespectful to you and your marriage.

In primary or a small school, it’s common for head to be a DSL, but not in a larger school or secondary

Maybe suggest to him that with all her ‘problems’, she’s not actually entirely up to the job she’s doing. See how he reacts to that!

Nothing more icky than a man going on about another women.
Tell him to shut it

What do you mean?

Maybe he's finding the thing that's going on emotionally quite hard. Does he get professional supervision? Who does he report to?

It does sound plausible that maybe the SW is the one with a crush and he hasn't quite picked up on it too.

Op you're being incredibly naive here. He seems to know an awful lot about her for it to just be in safeguarding meetings and a professional capacity. She will be very busy during her working hours and i doubt has much time to tell him so much about her life. Are you sure he is actually in meetings and not meeting her outside of a professional capacity in pub somewhere? Have you seen the 7am email? I don't think its a crush ,the real possibility is he's seeing her outside of work . And of course he cannot share information with you about a safeguarding case so its the perfect cover up

Had it out with him. I cried at him really. He said she’s married with children which is reassuring.

Well what did he say about his crush?

So what she's married he could still fancy her.

Why? I'm unclear as to why its reassuring