Friend messaging my husband

[LaylaXxX]

I’ve seen a fair few threads like this but wanted to put my own personal story across. Any feedback is appreciated.

The friend in question is an old school friend. We haven’t met for around 15 years. We have eachother on social media and occasionally bump into eachother and chat then, but that’s all really. Haven’t fallen out or anything like that, life just happened I guess.

The other week my husband came home and said this friend had been messaging him. Her friend was married to one of my husbands former friends. They’ve recently broke up and she was asking him all kinds of questions about his former friend. A lot of voice messages, 5/6 minutes long. I thought it was a bit strange as they barely knew eachother but didn’t think too much about it.

A few days later my husband put some post up about going to the gym and she private messaged him about it. Just randomly started talking about how she’d just started, how much weight she’d lost, her muscle gains etc. She was rabbiting on, One message was ten paragraphs long. My husband showed me the messages. He was being polite, answering any questions or replying, but keeping it short.

I just thought this was really odd. No message to me saying she’d been asking my husband a few gym questions, or about his former friend. And like I said previously they barely knew eachother. I think he’s maybe bumped into her with me maybe 2/3 times.

Anyway am I reading too much into this and it’s just a coincidence that my husband has known about the two subjects she’s been asking about? Or is there maybe more too it? He said since they started chatting she likes a lot of his posts relating to the gym. But again, maybe just a mutual hobby and I’m looking too much into it. Me personally, I would have messaged my friend, and asked if she minded me asking her husband a few questions. But that’s just me.

How sad

Your husband doesn't sound remotely interested, I don't think you have anything to worry about there. He does sound like he was polite, responded and is now starting to get a bit concerned [hence flagging it to you] and doesn't know how to bluntly tell her he's not interested .

I'd send her a message. " Hi X, How are you? DH said you'd been in touch asking for gym tips. I hope you are well? Are you still in touch with X, we should catch up some time.

Then tell your husband he can safely ignore her and not engage, and tell her you are looking for a gym buddy and see her run away very fast. :)

Set up a group chat with the 3 of you... Tell him he can use that only to message her... She's a cf imo.

He needs to stop replying.

"She is hitting on your husband"

She sure is.

I don't know your husband but I know mine and he would be polite. But if he was telling me and showing me, he would be telling me that he was uncomfortable with them and a bit stumped on how to handle it.

Does he want her to stop? He can just ignore her or go straight for block if he doesnt want to talk to her.

She wants your husband or at least feel that your husband is interested in her in that way. Your husband needs to shut it down and stop talking to her. Tbh I’d also stop talking to her as don’t think she can be trusted, but I’m cynical like that. Nice that your husband told you, although he’s encouraged it with the answering of questions. He could’ve left her on read. Long voice notes are weird with anyone you don’t know very well, not sure what that’s about!

It’s very odd behaviour to the extent I’d wonder if she was quite well. If you wanted to seduce someone, bombarding them with very long messages like this is bizarre.

She has a long term partner herself, so maybe my husband thought it was innocent, but thought he’d better tell me anyway. Men can be quite naive when it comes to things like this though.

Id personally tell him to stop replying to her full stop and to stop being polite.

She is onto him! I am a bloke and this has happened to me from a neighbour when I had my wife and she alwasy envied our lives and one day she saw me in the garden and opened her upstairs shower window and exposed her self whilst she was taking a shower(obviously knowing i was in our garden and playing dumb)

Your husband needs to stop replying

IME, it's not even the attention from other men , she can get that elsewhere without upsetting her friendship with OP

She saw OP recently and thought how beautiful/successful/happy/content OP, if she gets some interest from your H , it's a ego boost that she just trumped all of that she sees in you, in her mind. This is much more likely than attraction even.

Get him to block and delete, and then act normal when you see her as a middle finger up

Sorry, this happens sometimes in the sisterhood :(

the first few times he would have assumed it is nothing out of the ordinary , genuine gym burning question etc, but then she kept it up

Men are simple, but not sure I would say naive

Interested in the woman/ ready to risk the marriage to see where it goes = keep replying
Not interested in the woman/do not want to risk marriage = stop replying after a few polite courteous replies, and show her friends messages to the wife

Sometimes they are not attracted to the woman either likewise but keep up the secret messaging for an ego boost without intention to do anything more at the time

It seems odd to be messaging this much to someone you barely know.
It seems she has put in an awful lot of effort in long messages .
She wants something thats for sure.
What does your husband think and what does he want to do?
Id suggest not responding to her messages and she if she takes the hint .
If she doesn't or reacts you know somethings up.

Could it be a link to this bit ? "Her friend was married to one of my husbands former friends. They’ve recently broke up and she was asking him all kinds of questions about his former friend." and now perhaps trying to get chatty with him about a shared hobby so that she can sidle some more questions in about his former friend?

NOTHING @LaylaXxX said indicates that she doesn't trust her husband. You really didn't understand that it's her friend's behavior she's questioning? Her husband has been telling her and showing her the messages. He apparently also finds it odd. But absolutely no indication she doesn't trust her DH.

Please don't stir or victim-blame. Don't make her think she's jealous or overreacting.

I would be wondering why he is getting women hitting on him wherever he goes: do you see this yourself or is this what he tells you? If he is telling you I would be wondering if he is enjoying making you feel insecure

If women are hiting on him how does he react? Does he make it clear he is a happily married man?

I would be wondering why he isn't shutting your friend down.

I would be wondering why she assumes he is open to her attention.

The easy answer is for him to just not engage with her.

It’s very odd of her, but I don’t understand why he engaged at all? Just block her 🤷‍♀️

I agree with @gamerchick my DH would default to polite and mention it to me. He had something similar years ago when a colleague took a shine to him. He was really uncomfortable but in the end polite brief responses weren’t enough and nor was being curt. He had to tell her to fuck off in the end. Some people can be very determined.

She sounds like she has her sights on your DH. He doesn’t owe her good manners. He should block and ignore and be ready to be very direct if she tries harder. She knows what she’s doing.

Why doesn’t he just block her? If some bloke started randomly sending me conversational paragraphs, I’d laugh and hit the block button.

The gym is a tricky one because yes, it's about fitness and it's feel-good hobby for people, but it's also about the body and a way for people to show off theirs. Sometimes that can get murky when it comes to motivations. Instagram in particular seems rife with cheaters and people with very poor relationship boundaries.

I'd say she's after him.

If you have mutual acquaintances and you vaguely revolve in similar social circles, then blocking her this early is not necessarily a good idea. Some women just love that drama, love knowing that they might have stirred trouble between a couple.

The best way to handle it is to simply ignore. He's currently too available for her, and unfortunately, even his polite replies is encouraging more contact. He shouldn't respond to her asking why he's not replying either. Just totally ignore or do a slow-fade. Eventually, it's likely she'll find someone else and move on.

Seems like your DH is responding because he doesn't want to be rude to a friend of yours and make things difficult for you but is showing you because he's not really 100% comfortable about it. Which is how I would handle a friend of my DH's who I didn't really know messaging me.

I agree with pp that she is testing his boundaries. I would ask him to just stop responding. Block her if he wants. And I would either cut back contact or drop her entirely, depending on the likelihood of that disrupting friendships with mutual friends.

Generally speaking, I just don’t message other people’s husbands.