Should I worry about my husband's close friendship with a colleague?

[Owls1234]

Apologies for not using the lingo. I have recently found out by looking at my husband's phone that he has a close female colleague at work. I have read all the texts (not that many and mainly about people at work) and his teams chat which is usually every working day they exchange around 20-30 messages just generally about work people or having banter. He has never mentioned her and she is younger and single. She seems to be one of his closest friend in the office and the group of friends he has often go out together during and after work to the pub. I am currently pregnant and my reaction has not been rational. I have confronted him and he assured me it just slipped his mind and he has openly let me read all the messages. The messages themselves don't bother me just the fact he didn't tell me. He speaks to this colleague the most via messages but not via calls.
The group of friends is a mixture of women and men.
Should I be worried?

Exactly.

Does he mention and talk about other people from work? Just leave only her out of conversations?
or is he genuinely not talking about work people at home at all because he is not bothered about them.

Im a bit mortified for the woman receiving this call from your husband saying they can’t be friends anymore.

How did you know she is single?

If it was nothing he wouldn’t be so quick to tell her (that would be embarrassing for ‘one of the lads’), promise to stop taking to her, and ‘do anything’. That screams guilt to me.

Quite mad. I can’t imagine a situation in which my DH would get to veto one of my friendships.

I am normally on the woman’s side (wife/partner) but I feel sorry for the husband here. You are treating him like a child. What else will he not be allowed to do? How mortifying that he had to tell a colleague he could not longer speak to her. Who the hell do you think you are. You’re his wife but you don’t own him.

As a woman who has multiple male friends at work, kindly, you need to back off. If my DH dared to tell me who I could or could not be friends with, I’d go mad. Jealousy is such an unattractive trait. I do not fancy a single person from my guy group. The fact my husband knows this and is so confident in our marriage that he would never have cause to read my messages tells me he believes everything I tell him. I’m guessing you have other reasons to suspect your DH?

Same. He’s done nothing wrong

20-30 times a day!!!!! That is an insane amount to be messaging anyone. How many times a day does he message you ?

I would be worried that he is obsessed with her and that he is going to get fired for not working and texting all the time !

This thread is slightly terrifying - haven’t even flirting or saying anything to try to get closer. And maybe his instinct was let’s not upset my pregnant wife that I love above everyone else but .. I actually feel sorry for him, and scared by the posters saying it was wrong of him to talk to her just because it involved his phone. Like wtf?

Yes he can have friends of the opposite sex at work but it’s not appropriate to text them that many times when they also speak daily at work. He just needs to cut out spending so much time texting her when he should be spending that time outside work with you.

More fool him for agreeing. No one gets a veto on my friendships.

Same here, I'm a woman and get on really well with a male colleague. We back each other up when needed, banter and chat a lot. There's absolutely nothing romantic going on at all.

Come on this is just silly. I easily send 20-30 messages with my colleague every day, and it's 100% innocent

I think this is absolutely ridiculous. It is totally possible to have work colleagues of the opposite sex as friends.

I was pleased for you reading your previous response and thought he’d done the right thing

then this message made me think this is a mother leak - it’s suspicious - what else has t he told you

men are much more likely to commit infidelities when partners are pregnant

You forgot exchanged personal
mobile numbers so they could talk outside of wine boundaries

Something is being formed OP - they have escalated their connection having now exchanged private mobile numbers - you know those kind of friendships where that person is your everyday pal in life and you chat excessively - it gives you a lift

red flag because you are pregnant and a common time for men to attach to others

How many of your friends have your mobile number???

I don’t think you have anything to worry about, nothing flirty and he has let you see the messages.

not sure his employer would be impressed with work chats been shown to non employees.

was there something else that made you suspicious?

All of the ones my husband knew about before we exchanged private numbers

Sorry OP but messaging a work colleague every 20 mins for banter is a social friendship developing - a special buddy

I don't know any friends who text each other 20 to 30 times a day every day. She was also texting him at home. They moved to phone messaging because of work gossip.

Thete's some red flags there. You can think it's ridiculous all you want.

I think this was the start of a potential emotional affair but @Owls1234 has nipped it before it became that. She's pregnant and that's where her husband's attention should be. She wasn't good with it and her husband has taken her feelings into consideration here.

Her husband was in constant contact with this woman, he's going to the pub with her and getting a ride with her but he's never mentioned his new friend until Owls saw her messaging him. Of course Owls doesn't want her husband in constant contact with another woman, especially since she's pregnant.

Affairs come from little choices made daily that push more and more boundaries.

I have read the full thread now. This is crackers.

OP it might be the hormones but you are behaving in an incredibly controlling way. Seriously you need to be questioning why.

If they work together its really not feasible to just not talk. You have seen there is nothing in the messages and now if they do interact you are going to fuel your paranoia

You can’t dictate to your husband who he can or cannot be friends with inside or outside of work.

It’s really not. If you use teams or slack and talk about work during the day it’s very easy to rack up that many messages.

You don't know ANY friends who text each other 20-30 times a day??

I think OP is getting bad advice here from people who either don't have many friends or don't message in the way that younger people do (ie multiple short messages as a "chat" rather than long paragraphs at a time with lots of info).

A poster above said they can't be doing any work if they're messaging 20 times?!!

In the interests of science I just had a quick look at my chat history from the few people I contact the most. I got bored of scrolling but there are 7 individuals (2 from work, 3 friends, my sister & my mum) I've easily texted 30 times a day this week, plus 2 group chats (one friends from work one a mixture of work and other) who have sent had hundreds of messages over this week. Some people just text a lot and in a chatty way. And yes most of my friends are male and if my partner told me I was not allowed to talk to them any more I would be...surprised.