Found flirty messages on dps phone

[Loolabells]

My dp came from from his work Christmas do late Friday night. He fell asleep downstairs when I went down in the morning his morning alarm was going off so I went to turn it off and a messaged was shown from a girl he worked with. I looked through the message chain and some was normal conversation texting about the Christmas do they both went in but there was some flirty messages. Him telling her she will look fire in her outfit him telling her he can’t wait to see her. I am so beyond shocked by it all and I don’t really know what to do. We’ve been together 10 years and have 2 young dcs.

You’re gross, and part of the problem

She literally said the message was showing and then she looked through the messages. Are you the husband? Or just some other kind of apologist for shit men?

It was unwritten, of course! Just part of the work culture.
This was back in the 2000s, and very sad indeed for young me.

Hmmmm… Yes, Me Too kinda covered a lot of this stuff.

what did he actually do OP?
was it a christmas kiss or a year long affair or what?

Caught doing what? Flirting? I’m not saying it’s OK, but it’s also not quite on the ‘betraying your children’ scale of potential infidelity. Are you saying he’s actually having a physical affair, or is the devastation literally just things telling a colleague she looks hot in an outfit?

Again, I’m not saying it’s OK for him to flirt like that - it isn’t. But there’s quite a difference between that and an affair. What exactly has he confessed to?

This might have been the case 30 years ago. It isn’t now. You’re being absurd to suggest this is standard office practice.

You’re naive.

This is a man making his attraction very, very clearly known to a woman in the hope that she will give him an opportunity. It has purpose and is not a coincidence.

Such men get bored of their sedate, mundane and sometimes comfortable family lives & stable relationships. They're fishing for that thrill again, and that for me would be gave over in terms of a relationship. Absolutely disrespectful and he's making a fucking fool out the OP.

Maybe things have changed since then. I’d hope so…
But, I bet the colleague is a nice-looking young lady.

Well thankfully the world has moved on since the 80’s

I think it’s actually easier to do nowadays, with smartphones.

But, at least there’s evidence now, with that. It still happens…

Have you finished with gaslighting the OP?

She hasn't misinterpreted the messages, and so what if she read his messages after seeing the screen message? Her instincts weren't wrong.

Imagine the 80s then

You weren't any better than them.

My point was it’s unacceptable nowadays and women aren’t expected to put up with it

Oh bore off. PP was presumably a junior employee with less experience and little job security. Smiling and nodding is/was socialised into women from birth.

Blame the married men choosing to betray their wives, not the young women trying to politely rebuff them so they don’t get fired.

OP I’d be asking him to leave for a few weeks so you can both consider the future of your relationship.

You both need to read Not Just Friends by Shirley Glass

Or you could just leave the disloyal cunt now you know what he's really like!

You bore off. Nobody excuses the married men.

She wasn't trying to rebuff them either, she said it was 'mostly' them, she saw it as part of her job to humour them.

We've all been young women, I don't remember messaging creeps back just to humour them.
Did you?

Not necessarily true. I found some iffy messages from my then DP on his phone, which looked like he was trying to arrange a sordid hook up whilst away with work….we moved past it, but it took a good year for me to stop checking his phone. That was nearly 16 years ago, we got married a year later, have two kids and another on the way. It took a little while to rebuild the trust, but we managed it. I can honestly say he’s never given me reason to doubt him since, and I’ve never been even tempted to try and snoop for years and years.

From personal experience, I wish I had monitored situations which might have made everything clear. I would suggest a strategy before entering into a big debate.

Good luck xx

He's got form and this is probably one of many.

I’m not naive at all. I am very far from naive. I clearly said it’s not acceptable for him to flirt like that, at all. Of course he fancies this woman.

But it’s still not on the same level of betrayal as fucking someone. It’s not OK, and who knows where it might have led if the OP hadn’t found out, but it’s a lot more fixable (if that’s what the OP wants) than actually having an affair. It doesn’t mean he isn’t in the wrong. He is. But it’s mad to suggest that flirting with someone is the same as shagging them. They’re not the same, and the OP hadn’t given any indication of what her DH had admitted to. My point is simply that one thing is more surmountable, should one wish, than the other.

Well, of course she’ll be attractive and probably younger. That doesn’t mean it’s assumed that she has to put up with married men flirting with her. It’s not even remotely expected/normal and it hasn’t been for decades.