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?

agreed. It’s one thing going through a partner’s personal messages IF (and only if) you have strong reasons to suspect wrongdoing but going through work messages on teams is a whole new level of insane. I’d be furious if my partner did this and certainly wouldn’t pander to them.

but why because shes a woman is it any different than if it was a male friend ?

Not overly. I am a female and worked in a male dominated environment. Have plenty of male colleagues, often stayed overnight in hotels. sometimes going out for a drink or meal with them, in a group, or even one person sometimes ( we have to eat ! ). Often had banter, I am going back a bit now, so less so electronically in the past, but it is more of a thing now, and easily 20 messages if being gossipy about work is normal. Could count a few times over 20 years when someone was "working out whether they could chance an approach" always side-stepped. If I'm honest, I would reacted very badly if my husband had gone on about any of it. I am trustworthy, and don't wish to sleep with my colleagues or male friends. I would have also not been happy (although I maybe would not have cared, given there is no intent) at him looking at messages. That said, everyone is different, and if you love someone, and you do not want to give them stress, then I can see how a small modification might help them. It absolutely comes down to whether you trust someone or not. In my time I also saw plenty of work affairs, so it isn't always clear cut - it definitely comes down to the people involved. HTH xxx

See this doesn’t make sense.

He forgot.

Yet he’d be annoyed if the other way round.

And the amount of time messaging this woman alone versus the lack of time spent not messaging other colleagues is an alarm bell.

It’s incredibly inappropriate for you to have trawled through his work teams account. That contains confidential information surely ? Im failing to see how there’s any difference between your behaviour and someone who is coercive and controlling. ( going through his phone and telling him who he can be friends with. )

Agree. What an over reaction.

20-30 messages a day between two people is not normal.

For a start, him allowing someone who does. My work for the organisation, to access and read his Teams messages would be a Gross Misconduct in most companies.

As for the rest:

“Sorry female colleague, I can’t talk to you in the way I do my other colleagues”
”why?”
”My Wife won’t let me”
“Sorry work folk I can’t come to the pub for drinks anymore”
“why?”
“my wife won’t let me”
“Sorry work friends, you can’t text me on my personal number either during or outside of working hours”
”why?”
“my wife won’t let me”

…if it was the other way round people would Cs telling him to leave.

Right, so based on this thread (and other similar ones), what can the partner do to reassure OP?

Tell the colleague to cut down on the messages - RED FLAG, shows he's feeling guilty

Not tell her to cut down on messages - RED FLAG, he wants to carry on messaging

Promise to stop talking to her - RED FLAG, he's only doing this to shut you up

Not promise to stop talking to her - RED FLAG, he's starting an EA

Give OP access to his phone - RED FLAG, it means he's just deleted everything dodgy, clear sign of guilt

Not give OP access to his phone - RED FLAG, what's he hiding on there?

Apologise - RED FLAG, it means he knows he's in the wrong

Not apologise - RED FLAG, he's a cheating bastard

And I could add:

Not mention the colleague driving him home - RED FLAG, he's hiding the fact that they interacted

Mentioning that the colleague drove him home - RED FLAG, he's got "mentionitis"

Work life would be pretty dull if no one had a bit of a laugh with their work colleagues.

I genuinely can’t imagine a life where I have to tell my OH about everyone I’m friends with at work. And he would have absolutely zero interest in hearing about it. Occasionally a few of us from work will have a weekend away, mixed group usually, I’m not sure I even mention who’s going to be honest.

I have been a "work wife" to many a guy, We share messages all the time about everything from office issues to dealing with kids/SOs to politics.

Guys are typically bad at sharing personal and relationship issues with other guys, and if as a female I can help, all the better.

Yes, sometimes the topics are sensitive, biut so what.

As pp said going through teams messages is wrong in HR terms. FWIW, yes I do think he probably enjoyed the attention and was maybe flirting, I honestly think it was more friendly, but your new rules for him are very OTT. Of course he’s following through to keep you happy.

Yes, a couple of times and nothing remotely flirtatious. I have many of my make colleagues’ personal numbers and send them the odd text. I would not dream of mentioning it to my partner.

Frankly, the OP is dangerously close to coercive control and many women on this thread are encouraging it. It’s disgusting.

Affairs come from fancying someone and making a decision to shag them behind your partner’s back. It will happen if the people involved want it to. OP should not be telling her husband he’s not allowed to speak to anyone. It is abusive and controlling, quite frankly.

Do you not have many friends?

I really can't see what he's done wrong here. He has a friend in work who he chats to, occasionally out of work. Nothing inappropriate has happened so the fact that she's the opposite sex to him is irrelevant really.

His only "crime" is that he hasn't mentioned her to OP, but that's ridiculous, I've got plenty of people I chat to in work that I've never mentioned to DP, and I'd imagine DP has the same.

Yes same here, lots of friends DP doesn't know and vice versa. I also was chatting to him the other week about two women from work I often go to the pub with after work to play pool (let's call them Alex and Sam) - DP thought they were men for about a year 😂 (and obviously didn't care cos he's not weird)

I have many. But at work I’m working shockingly. I’m not messaging one person 20-30 times. How inefficient.

And why be so rude for no reason?

I wasn't trying to be rude, I simply assumed you didn't have many friends.

You didn't say anything about messages during the work day anyway. Your entire post read "20-30 messages a day between two people is not normal."

20-30 messages is extremely normal between friends.

It's so normal to message friends multiple times a day. While at work or otherwise. I'm sure I am as busy at work as you if not more so and yet send hundreds of messages. It takes about 5 seconds to type a sentence

I fully agree with this. Some posters here seem to be assuming that the messages being exchanged must all be multi-paragraph, thoughtfully crafted missives that would take ages to compose. It's highly likely that a good proportion of the conversation actually goes something like this:

A: omg what
B: ikr??
A: 😂

In which case, it would be incredibly easy to exchange 20-30 messages a day and still keep almost all of your focus on your work.

I want to add something...he doesn't mention me at all in the messages ...even when she asks what are you doing this weekend and it's clearly my birthday and he says not sure. Is that not sneaky?

Yes.

I really hate to say this but I got the chills when I read it.
My partner had an emotional affair that was honestly devastating. With a woman I'd naively encouraged him to be friends with. I checked his messages as his behaviour towards me completely changed. When I gently said I thought the "friendship" was causing problems he exploded into venomous hate.
They were messaging all day, every day, there wasn't a single mention of me. You would definitely have thought him either a single man or I didn't exist. I don't expect to be a hot topic but our life and the stuff we did together was reframed as "I". Same as your birthday scenario, identical.
I sometimes avoid commenting on these posts because lots of people who have opposite sex friends get argumentative and I do have opposite sex friends but these intense new friendship can be trouble. To say the least.
Personally I think the level of contact, leaving her out of conversations with you and you out of conversations with her is very worrying. Take care xx