DH’s friendship with woman at work is killing our marriage

[Teaandbiscuits123456]

DH and I have been together for over 20 years and have two dc all grown up now. DH has made a very good woman friend at work and although not an affair it is very cosy iykwim. Private jokes, DMs at all hours and weekends, breaks spent in each other’s company.
I told him how this made me feel anxious and upset and his response was that that’s just how it is and he can’t help feeling like he does but insists it is just friendship. That just about broke my heart and has made me question where I figure in his life. They’ve only known each other for 2 years.
Knowing all this I’m worried I’m starting to think I might be falling out of love with him almost as a way of self-preservation if that makes any sense?
All the time they are working together I’m not sure if we can get back what we had even though I wish we could. I just don’t know what to do.

have been clinging to the hope that things will be better and he will keep home and work separate and boundaried with this woman.

But he hasn’t. He’s lied to my face and with each message he responds to or initiates my trust has slowly eroded. It’s heartbreaking because we have built a life and a family together and are so intertwined.

I do still love him but I don’t think I like him much anymore. He doesn’t make me feel safe.

Sorry to hear this. I was hoping with you being away from the thread that he has seen sense and you were working things through together.

I totally understand the not feeling safe. I’ve had a similar feeling due to how I was treated, no one else involved but felt like he was setting out to hurt me, knew it was working and couldn’t care less. It’s like a punch in the gut. We are working on repairing it now but it’s very difficult to get over tbh.

It’s hard but your friends seem to be giving sound advice. 💐

It’s no way to live, not feeling safe, that’s not living, it’s surviving.
He knows you caught him deleting the messages? Messages that he lied to you about owning and was so concerned about you seeing that he had to lie and delete? So sorry. He’s an idiot.
That’s game over for this ‘friendship’ that isn’t a friendship, if you still want to stay with him and he wants to stay with you.
He can bleat about it being a friend all he likes now, nobody has to hide, lie about and delete messages from friends because they can’t show them to their wife. He hasn’t got a leg to stand on.
Tell him that he’d have no need to lie, hide and delete stuff he could actually show you, he’s proved beyond reasonable doubt that this ‘friendship’ has gone too far by lying abd deleting.
Time for him to choose (if you still want him) and if his job needs to change, so be it, he’s made his own position untenable.
Don’t care how difficult it is to find another one, to prove to you that you and your marriage mean more to him than she does, he needs to get rid. Permanently.
He was given a chance to change this and respect you, he ignored it and completely blew it. No more chances, you’re done. He gets rid.
If he refuses, ask him to move out. If he wants to throw away his happy family life with you and his children, let him. He’d be a bloody fool. He knows that, that’s why he’s trying to have his cake and eat it.
Unless a consequence/ ultimatum ensues, this will be your life for the foreseeable future: tell him to stop messaging her/ he says ok I will/ but he doesn’t/ you snoop/ worry yourself sick/ wonder what he’s up to / catch him out/ get more lies and fake promises/ rinse and repeat.
If you want to stay married to him, and he to you, the OW (that’s whom we now definitely know she is) has to go.
I am still with my husband who had an affair eight years ago. Being a bloody fool with a younger woman. He had no intention of ever leaving me, not that he told her that obviously. He was immediately given a clear choice, get rid, no more contact, move jobs, no more long distance commute, or divorce.
Hurt like hell and was scary to say it, like you I didn’t like him one bit at that time but I still loved him. We’d built a life and family over 35 years together at the time, but my take was, if you don’t value that enough to wake up and stop you being a total arsehole and trashing your life, you get out. I told him what he had to do and he did it all, not a peep out of him. If you’re lucky enough to even get a second chance, you don’t get to negotiate terms when you’ve been a prize shit to your family. What you say, goes. I don’t care how reasonable he thinks that is or isn’t, he was treated reasonably initially and didn’t respect that very reasonable request.
He could have stopped this and didn’t, he lied about it. He got grumpy and sulked about the conference and lied to you about what he was doing and took it all underground.
He’s had his chance, he’s gone unless he agrees to all your conditions that restore your safety.
Or, if you think he’s already had plenty of chances, it’s your call, chuck him out.
He gets to listen hard and comply now, not grump about it and make more false promises.
He has to do whatever it takes and whatever you need to see to make you feel safe again with no peep about it, or he can go. Be strong, if you don’t spell it out to him and follow through, your life will be miserable OP. Draw the line. Follow through if he’s still being a twat.

Thank you x
I’m beginning to actually consider if I want to give him another chance. If they want to send each other smutty little messages at their age then they can carry on with this pathetic and quite frankly, embarrassing, behaviour.
He went away last week for a few days (work, not with her) and I realised how much I relaxed in my own home. I think my nervous system was rebalancing without him here and I felt much calmer.

If you already feel calmer with him gone then I think you know what to do.

This is easy for me to say, but the more times he lies to you without consequence, the more comfortable he’ll get with lying to you.

IMO, there has to be consequences to lying other why bother asking him questions or checking his phone? If you allow him to just get away with it then you may as well save yourself the heartache of asking and just let him get on with it without interference.

If, on the other hand, you aren’t ok with him lying to you then there comes a point where you have to draw the line. He needs to know that if he lies, there will be consequences.

You might not be ready to split permanently but asking him to leave so you have some space to consider how you feel about his constant lying seems reasonable.

I’d also try to get some solo counselling so you can talk this through with someone objectively.

I know it’s not as easy in real life but you seem to be doubting your own convictions. If you’re unsure, just flip the positions - how would he feel about you sending smutty messages to another man and lying to him about whether you were still in contact? He’s behaving appallingly and showing you absolutely zero respect.

He's lying to your face @Teaandbiscuits123456. He knows your uncomfortable with this relationship but has chosen to continue it regardless. His "friendship" with her is more important to him than his marriage to you.

My best mate of over 30 years is a man. We are both married. We meet up often. I would never intrude on his marriage. I don't text more than once or twice a week. We call twice a month. Meet every other month usually with the kids. I certainly wouldn't delete my messages.

@Teaandbiscuits123456 I think you’re beginning to answer your own question. Whatever you choose to do, you have certainly got the right attitude.
Let him. Let her. Let them.
You’re exactly right, if he wants to behave like this, he can, and he can reap what he’s sown with the ensuing consequences.
The edge you have on him is that you already know that you can’t control other people’s behaviour, only your own. His lying and attempts at manipulating show he thinks he can control yours. He’s about to get a rude awakening.
None of this is on you, nothing you did or didn’t do, said or didn’t say, could have caused or prevented this, it’s all his own personal choice and therefore all on him.
Cheats like to look elsewhere for someone to blame to avoid their own guilt.
Accept no blame or shame, it’s all his. Be prepared for his attitude to change when you show him you mean business, don’t listen to pathetic excuses, there are none. It’s all his own embarrassing and deluded work.
Find your peace and a happy life will follow OP. X

Thank you for all the gentle comments. I do agree but can’t deny that it’s so bloody tough. Aside from this thing he seems to have for her, he is a lovely person and a wonderful father. We have much in common and laugh a lot together when things are good. Which they have been.
But I also know the situation is damaging my mental health (am already taking ADs) and it can’t continue.

It is a very bad sign when a wife has to go on anti depressants. Does he realise he is the cause and doesn’t stop?
Ive been reading you updates but it’s the first time I’ve commented. It’s really sad that you have this beautiful relationship on one side and on the other, he’s messing around with another woman. It’s tough but I’ve think you’ve been accommodating and your trusted has continued to be broken after you’ve asked him not to message. He’s become better at hiding it which shows a very deceptive and determined side of him. It’s just not fair on you :(

This seems a clear choice he’s made that is 100% incompatible with being married.

He is showing you who he is.

believe him.

It sounds like you can’t quite believe what’s going on as it is so different to his usual behaviour. I would be arranging to meet them both at the same time to clear the really see what’s going on.

@Teaandbiscuits123456 people assert that bad people cheat, that unhappy marriages cause cheating. Neither is always true. It is possible for an otherwise good person in a marriage where they like being your husband, like being with you, want to be with you, enjoy family life and don’t want to be single, to cheat.
They cheat because of their own issues. If they have issues in the marriage, their personal issues over avoidance mean they won’t tackle it honestly, they’ll medicate it dishonestly. They avoid dealing with those issues, they become unhappy within themselves, then create a negative narrative about their life and spouse and marriage to match those feelings and justify medicating that unhappiness with infidelity.
Infidelity is the Nirvana of people with faulty coping mechanisms, people who look outside themselves for validation and creates a second version of themselves and fear and avoid potential conflict. Infidelity is a second chance to reinvent your current unhappy older, married, parental self. You can be the adored, flawless one and avoid dealing with their unhappiness with who you perceive yourself to have become.
The new person you’ve met listens hard in order to be able to tell you not the truth, but exactly what you want to hear, which is already based on a false narrative you invented to excuse your cheating. Now you and the new person are partners in your unhappiness, with only each other for comfort and understanding.
The walls of the bubble are made of shared and sympathised mutual misery, in-jokes, situational empathy, anything that makes you a unique club of two and firmly excludes everything to do with your real lives.
Affair partners are photo filters, reflecting back a perfected fake image of who they really are.
And it feels good in LaLa Land, it’s addictive in fact. Good people can get sucked into this by their own egos, they know they shouldn’t do it, but it makes them feel good so the lying and deleting commences.
Good people can become drug addicts, alcoholics, develop eating disorders, sex and porn addicts and cheats. Cheating and losing control around food are far more common panaceas because they are less frowned upon and in the short term at least, less disruptive to your life.
Don’t take it personally OP, whatever you decide, it’s not and never was about you. It’s hard to get your head around how a good husband and father could wind up doing things that they know make them a lousy husband and father, but they absolutely can.
Of course it’s hard and it hurts, because you know that he can be so much better than this,. If he takes his head out of arse and wakes up to himself, he could be again, but the damage might be too great for you to stomach even if he did.
Only you know that and it’s your prerogative to call time on it all. At present no, he’s not safe to be with at all in terms of peace of mind, he’s obsessed and will lie to keep the obsession alive. Staying with him with this ‘friendship’ ongoing is not possible, it’s extraordinarily hurtful and will drive you crazy. Basically you’re dealing with someone in the throes of an obsession here who, until consequences make him realise that, and until he finally sees what he’s become and stands to lose, won’t be listening, I’m afraid.

What an excellent post from @Thewookiemustgo

@Janeaway thank you. I found these books very helpful with this stuff:
Two books that are an easy read and explore how good people or indeed any of us can end up in a bad place and how obsession/ addiction / self medication work and why are:
Mistakes Were Made, But Not By Me
and
Dopamine Nation.
Am always rubbish at remembering authors’ names so apologies to the authors, but both of these books are eye opening and shed a lot of common-sense light on things, when you’re left scratching your head with your jaw dropped because you’ve just found out something unbelievable about somebody you thought you knew well. They’re not specifically about infidelity, but infidelity is discussed in both books. Interesting to read in their own right, but really helpful if you’re struggling with self-blame or have no idea what the hell they’re thinking, if your spouse/ loved one has cheated on you or has become an addict.
You’ll discover that it’s not about you or anything you said/ did/ didn’t say/didn’t do, it’s absolutely all about them. It’s not personal, although it bloody feels like it. It’s done to you, yes, with you as indirect collateral damage, but not because of you. Hence you scream “How could you do this to me?” and he says “But I never meant to hurt you.” And you’re left wondering how the hell he thinks that’s even possible.
The answer is it was never about you, you are not to blame.
He didn’t do it specifically to hurt you, but he still did it knowing it would.

I agree, excellent post by @Thewookiemustgo

What makes all this worse is the uncertainty of their obsession, how deep is it, how long will it last, how will it play out out, will they end the marriage themselves.
That's even before you begin to decide about forgiveness or ending things yourself, it's a complete minefield of negotiations, strategy, pain, loss, heartbreak and so many other worries about the future, it's no wonder you feel unsafe and this period can last a long time, being undecided in no man's land.

No matter how long this period is, don't be affraid to come back for support, those in long marriages know how hard it is to make choices when you are suffering with trauma and betrayal.

Great post - my H fully admits it was an ego boost and distraction from stuff that was going wrong in life, nothing connected to me and hecwasn’t unhappy with ‘us’ - he was unhappy with life generally - so just like many women turn to over or under eating - he turned to an emotional distraction - in some ways it’s easier to factor this in if you know it was indeed the case, in our case his much loved mum was terminally ill , his dad was struggling to cope and our joint business had some real issues. In some cases yes the person will be unhappy with the ‘us’ ( I was guilty of this in my first marriage and was unhappy with my H) but in many instances it’s a manifestation of unhappiness with life

@Crikeyalmighty thank you, your posts have always been useful to me, too.
Incredible how a traumatic event can precede this stuff. It never excuses it as I know you already know, but in my husband’s case it was also preceded by an event which impacted deeply. Totally agree with ‘unhappy with life’, it’s often a turning point.
Faulty coping mechanisms, terror of emotional overwhelm and not feeling in control, not feeling like they are coping, is hell, especially in my case to a high achieving perfectionist who likes to be in control. It can develop into a huge sense of injustice with life which adds to the sense of entitlement factor: “Life’s dealt me a bad hand after I was the good guy, I played by all the rules, worked hard etc so I don’t deserve this unhappiness, I can do what I want to make myself feel better.”
Also if you fear not being in control of your destiny or your emotions, an affair really ticks those boxes in that it puts you further back in control, calling the shots, lying and manipulating people at that level and getting the OW to do your every bidding, whenever you want them to, feeling like you’re so adored you can’t lose, adds to the high. Addictive as feck.
“I wasn’t in love with her, I was in love with the situation. She made it incredibly easy for me. She could have been anybody really, anybody who I found attractive and added to my ego, who was willing to let me call all the shots. I felt like James Fucking Bond.”
”I felt like nobody gave a shit about me, even life didn’t give a shit about me, so why shouldn’t I enjoy myself? The people who didn’t give a shit about me didn’t deserve me, so I didn’t owe them anything any more.”
“I stacked up a story for OW and for my conscience to kill off the guilt and convince her that despite cheating with her, I was still a good guy. I gave myself permission to give up on who I was. This new guy was way more exciting. Can’t believe how much I liked that version of myself then and fucking hate it now.”
”Even she told me what a good man I was! Laughable now that she could say that when she knew she was in bed with a married man with two kids who was being a total bastard and lying to them all. But I bought it, and she knew I did, she had plenty more where that came from. I guess she had to believe that stuff, or the alternative was to entertain the thought that she might be getting played. It was all so fucked up and twisted, but somehow it made sense at the time. It kind of had to or the whole thing would unravel.”

“I know none of it was true. If I’m being honest with myself, it was part of the crap I told myself to keep the perfect guy image and keep the rush going. I gradually got in way over my head, couldn’t believe the mess I’d got myself into. Couldn’t see a way out without my life blowing up. Add to that, that It was all my own fault. Totally mental.”

So OP, he probably totally believes a ton of crap he’s constructed presently, because he fears losing the high, embodied in the mutual misery club he’s got with her. He’s not going to let that go until consequences wake him up to the madness he’s bought into and even then, he might have trouble giving it up. He was warned, but the high was more powerful.
Time he got a big shock.
Choose you, OP. Once you do, he’ll either choose you, too, or he won’t, but either way it’s your choice as to whether you still want him or not. As he is currently, it would be a ‘no’ from me.

Sad. Can men and women ever be friends? Naaa - you pretty much wanna nail 'em too' (When Harry met Sally'). The fact thst he foesn't even reassure you thst yoh can trust him says a lot. Give him an ultimatum. If he likes het so much, why hsven't you been introduced? Ask to meet her.

Wookie where are those quotes from? Really interesting insight, I hope the OP takes heed.

OP what's the worst thing that would happen if you give him an ultimatum?

I mean that as a serious question. If you think about the worst thing you can decide if that happening would be better or worse than the current limbo.

Yep mine is a high achieving control freak/perfectionist too - and when it felt that things were out of his control that’s when he wanted a pleasant and uplifting total distraction - it’s not dissimilar to knowing you are skint but booking that holiday anyway- except the repercussions aren’t a big credit card to pay down but risking your marriage !

I agree. Lying is the worst. How can you trust what he says at all. If he’s say that there is “nothing going on” then why delete messages and say you haven’t been messaging? You don’t cover up nothing by deleting AND denying.

you won’t be divorcing him for the friendship - it will be because of lies and dishonesty. Actions have consequences and he needs to face them. He knows he’s getting away with it and that’s why he continues.

I agree - wasting your time with finding words of persuasion and logic when his mindset is delusional and irrational. Don’t try to twist your mind to meet his nonsense. He’s not listening he’s deep in his satisfying, insulated love bubble - whether genitals are involved yet is irrelevant because his whole physiology driven by his oxytocin is flooded and enmeshed with hers - every cell in his head, heart and body is fizzing with her - even if his cock hasn’t entered her vagina.

Save your breath and your dignity.

Time now for actions - boundaries, consequences and deadlines.

You need for him to move out because his emotional and physiological preoccupation / distraction out of your marriage, family life and home is having a deleterious impact on you.

That’s the only way the bubble might burst (it might not) - open the door for him to walk deeper into that bubble - and it requires him to leave his home. Both are tenable. After a few months - he might see the light. Or he might not.

I am sorry this is happening to you - but I believe that you need an intervention to shift the dynamic by using your agency just to prevent more MH issues for you - and even if you think you can shoulder it a bit more - you need enough of your own emotional capacity to support your DCs at this time.

😂 That’s one of my absolute favourite movies and that line is one reason why.