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.

He is disrespecting you and your marriage. I have great working relationships with male colleagues and I have gone away for weekends with a group of male colleagues to visit another former colleague who has moved abroad. My DH is fine with it - because our messages are all about how we will visit X,Y,Z sites etc - not how much we miss each other or great someone is!!! There is no way that messages as you describe are in any way acceptable.

OP, if you did get to the point where you left, or told him to leave - would that jolt him into changing his ways or is he too far entrenched by now?

OP I have read through your posts and I'm really sorry you're going through this.

What stands out is you've said a few things like "if he does this, I've told him we're done". He seems to have done those things - are you still together? So I think he's probably thinking he's getting away with it, and won't change.

Easier said than done of course, to leave him after so many years. I hope things improve for you soon x

I wish I could forget stuff and not still be affected by it.
We went out for a nice family meal this week but when we came home I remembered a similar time quite a while ago and just felt sad all over again.
After that particular meal (well over a year ago but it still stings) I had later discovered that he had texted her as soon as we got home that evening to say what a shame it was that he hadn’t been able to see her much at work that day and they hadn’t been able to have their lunch together (they see each other everyday anyway).
Half an hour before, we had been sitting in a restaurant as a family but he came home and chose to tell her that.

A message like that can only make someone feel that they are quite special to you, can’t it? Or am I being over sensitive?

I’m so confused. He is a good person, I see it everyday but there is this distance now I feel with him because of things like this. He knows I saw the message (I told him) and I know it’s wrong to snoop but it was back when he said he would reduce their messages a bit as he knew it upset me so much but I had my doubts.

You are not confused - a message like that is telling her she’s special and that he misses their time together. I am sorry :( it’s painful but he’s not a good man or he would see what this was doing to you.

I'm sorry you're going through this OP

It may be just a friendship but he's prioritising this over his relationship with you which is not ok.

If nothing else, it’s most definitely an inappropriate friendship that tramples over the boundaries of most marriages

And I assume he doesn’t message his friends Dave, Phil and Tommy like that?

Did you ever suggest couples therapy?

It sounds utterly miserable just treading water like this.

@Teaandbiscuits123456 i wonder how he’d feel if it was you sending messages like that to a male colleague….
Im sorry but these are not the actions of a ‘good man’. He KNOWS how this makes you feel but continues. How is that the behaviour of a loving friend never mind a husband?
Id have been incandescent if my dh had done that. Oh and stuff the ‘its wrong to snoop’ -because its MUCH worse to cheat on your wife

This.
I have a male workmate nothing ither than a friendship and support system
The idea a man and woman can not be friends or close friends is something I refuse to accept as ok.

He may be a good man but he is not a good husband

Completely agree. I have male friends, husband has quite a few other female friends.
but I wouldn’t send those sort of messages. Partly because I would assume they would think there was something on my part that wanted more/saw them in a different light than just mates and partly because their partner would probably be somewhat upset or at least a bit concerned if they saw them.

But that’s not what this is, is it ? Of course men and women can be friends. But there have to be boundaries when either or both friends are married. And when the extent of a work friendship is intruding on a marriage to the extent that OP says is happening here , then those boundaries are not only not being respected, they’re being obliterated.

There is a huge difference between your partner having an opposite sex friendship, and you being forced to watch another woman get so inappropriately close to him that you fear if there isn’t an affair now, there soon will - evidenced here by some of the totally inappropriate texts OP has found.

And if he’s so invested in this ‘friendship’ that he refuses to dial it back even though he knows it causes his wife pain, then it’s clearly tipped him over into emotional affair territory. I’d be gone and the divorce papers would have been served long ago. They deserve each other, and OP deserves much better.

Agree. I think the self righteous posts about snooping are totally inappropriate here.

OP is living with this 24/7. She’s watching her DH allowing - hell, encouraging - another woman to get inappropriately close to him, and worse, he knows it’s hurting OP and he doesn’t care. I defy any partner, man or woman, not to ‘snoop’ in these circumstances. The nature of the messages OP has found to date seems to suggest that the ends justify the means.

I can completely understand why that past message would upset you. Your family had been out for a nice meal where it's reasonable to imagine his focus was on your family unit, yet as soon as he had the chance he scurried off to tell this woman what a shame he'd not had lunch with her that day. What can that make you think other than this is what he was focussed on while he was out with you?

This is a horrible situation to be in. Even if he has never actually shagged this female he is clearly obsessed with her and she takes up a huge amount of his head space. She appears to be some sort of addiction that he just can't give up. I refuse to believe that he doesn't understand how this makes you feel - yet he continues with it anyway. How can he profess to love you and care about you, yet behave like this.

I don’t think any amount of couples therapy can fix the fact that DH knows how much this is hurting OP, how anxious it’s making her, and doesn’t care. He’s signalled that his ‘friendship’ and whatever buzz he gets from it, is more important to him than the fact it distresses his wife. OP only has his word that it is just friendship and he’s forcing her to live with that doubt 24/7. It’s relationship ending.

@DotAndCarryOne2 oh, I don't disagree and would completely support @Teaandbiscuits123456 ending it if that is what she concludes. I merely thought perhaps couples therapy might get through to him about his behaviour. Even if it does end, it might repair some hurt should he recognise the impact of his selfish behaviour. 99% sure it won't happen but I still think it's a fair suggestion.

He is not a particularly good man and certainly not a good husband.

That doesn't mean he's evil, but he is clearly selfish and self-absorbed. He's refusing to see things from your point of view or to be considerate of your feelings in all this.

Easier said than done, but try to take a massive step back emotionally from him. Focus on yourself, your hobbies, your friends, your kids.

Your husband is having what I can only describe after reading your information.

An emotional affair.
That's how it looks.
And as uncomfortable as it feels.
Has been allowed to continue (in his mind) to do this.
You on the other hand.
As it isn't a physical affair.
Feels almost like it's not happening.
So your accepting it maybe because it doesn't feel real.
But on the other hand your mind is, what feels like to me and I'm not sure obviously.
Is at a crossroads.

A. Do I accept it and feel this constant nagging of doubt and lack of trust until I can bare it no longer for a peaceful life now. As it may fizzle out.
Or
B. Tell him I can't accept this and begin to break my family apart and all that entails. And consequently have family and friends blame me for something they can't see because it isnt a physical relationship.
Or
C. Tell him its over but stay together for the kids sake. And not have all of the above. Still be miserable. But together in your misery not separate.

Thats what I'm getting from all you have shared. That and the fact your very miserable at this moment.

That message after your evening out was a huge transgression.

It tells me he is preoccupied with her.

His head was full of her when you were out together so much so he describes his pining for her in the text.

Very easy ‘test’ as PP has indicated - does he send same messages to his male mates? Does he even send such messages to you?

He may be still physically present in your life but emotionally he is totally disconnected and attached elsewhere. That is what your mind and body already senses and knows - it’s your conscious brain that is taking time to accept.

It’s about care - he doesn’t care about you or for you.

It would be very easy to make a minor habit change (eg not text in family time) to ease the discomfort for anyone you cared about whether it seemed rational to you or not.

Do you text each other daily, have lunch rush to message him as soon as you get in from a family meal are you married?

Excellent post @DotAndCarryOne2

You don’t need to weigh up whether or not this is inappropriate, or try to explain to him why this is inappropriate.

1. It absolutely is.
2. He is not going to listen because it means he can’t do what he wants.
3. Seeing as it absolutely is inappropriate, the fact is that your husband is having an inappropriate relationship with another woman.
4. He has shown you where his priorities lie and is showing no signs of stopping despite knowing damn well what he’s doing and how you feel.

Is this what you want your life to be? As long as he works with and stays in contact with this woman, your life will be a living hell of hurt, betrayal, anger and suspicion.
Your mental and probably physical health too, will take a nosedive.
Of course you’re snooping and he has given you cause to because he is hiding, deleting, lying and gaslighting. He has control of your life so far. He controls the information and situation with you and her, so that you can rely on nothing. The fear this instills keeps him where he wants you and until you make a stand, he’s going to keep doing it.
Snooping makes you feel more in control as you cannot, with very good reason, believe or trust a thing he says. It gives you a sense of safety whilst living in a hall of mirrors, where everything looks distorted and different and you have no way out. Don’t add guilt to all the other painful emotions you are experiencing. You are just trying to find safety and peace.
He needs consequences that you will follow through or nothing, absolutely nothing will change.
It’s terrifying, but the only way out of this one way or another. Consequences mean change, because reasoning and arguing your totally legitimate point is falling on deaf ears to him. We can agree with you all day long, but he’s just not listening OP.
Time to do something he thinks you’ll never do.

And that’s the difference isn’t it ? For me the incident on coming home from the family meal would have been the end. Not only was the text utterly inappropriate and disrespectful of OP, but it clearly indicates that this woman had been in his head the whole time he was spending time with his family and he couldn’t wait to get home for another fix.