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?

I'm a bit horrified by this. Two of my closest work friends are blokes, and I've worked with them for almost 20 years. Often we have lunch together, and sometimes dinner if we're working late or working in another city. Nothing about it is romantic in the slightest, and if my husband wanted me to stop speaking to them, I'd think that was appallingly controlling.

One of my husband's closest friends is a woman. Again, they've known each other for 20+ years, before and after our marriage. They go out for dinner (usually a burger and then craft ales which is the real purpose of the evening) every couple of months and I am totally comfortable with it.

I recognise that you're pregnant, but pregnancy is not a good reason to control your partner.

Hear hear. This thread is an explosion of sexual paranoia.

I mean, just because some of you only view men as sex objects and can’t envisage completely unproblematic opposite-sex friendships, don’t tar the rest of us with your brush.

Do you talk about your husband with them?

OP is air brushed out… find that very strange

I’d speak openly about my husband though…wouldn’t you?

I can’t imagine hiding my husband - he’s so important to me I would find it hard not to talk about him

I’ve just been flicking back through a lengthy thread of WhatsApps and text messages to and from my closest friend, and tbh, my DH seldom comes up. She’s not friends with my DH, nor all that keen on him, and ditto for my feelings about her DH. I’m not ‘hiding’ him. I’m just not talking about him.

But do you send each other 30 private messages a day?

Nope. It’s a boundary. He can carry on talking. She can leave

It’s not a boundary. It’s controlling behaviour. It’s not okay. It’s abuse.

OP Said her husband lied about what he was doing on her birthday (so hiding her) and said he just said he didn’t know his plans when his “friend” asked him - his plans were to celebrate wife’s birthday

so would you hide your husbands birthday celebrations?

The OP doesn’t say that they were doing anything particular, though. I mean, I assume the OP’s husband would have said if they were going away somewhere interesting for the weekend, or doing something exciting, but I’d probably be far less likely to mention the birthday of someone the colleague will never have met unless it was significantly impacting what I was doing at the weekend, as that was the question. Again, not ‘hiding’ DH. But the colleague is interested in what his plans for the weekend are, not whether he’s giving a woman she’s never met a piece of jewellery and breakfast in bed.

It sounds very much like a friendship I have with a colleague at work. I’m 40ish and single, he’s 50ish and married. We go walks at lunchtime, sometimes in a bigger group, sometimes the 2 of us (if none of the rest of the team are in the office that day). When we’re both wfh we message a lot - banter but purely platonic.

I am the exact same with every other member of our team, the only difference is they’re female. should I be treating him differently from my other colleagues since he’s the only male?

I’ve got no idea how much of this his wife does or doesn’t know but as far as I can’t tell they’re extremely happy and secure in their marriage and our friendship is 100% platonic

Oh come on

op thought it was odd - I’m sure you’d say “ah it’s my wife’s birthday so we might do x y or z”

Im sorry all but this sound alike an emotional
affair on its way - not a platonic friendship - the OP Is pregnant - most common time
for this sort of attachment to start

Sorry update since OP’s last post. That does seem a bit strange that he’s ’hiding’ you.
my male colleague/friend talks about his wife all the time - her birthday is a good example as I was asking what her got her, where he was taking her for dinner etc.
she’s always mentioned when talking about what we did at weekend, what we’ve been watching on tv, holidays etc

yea those of you describing male friendships sound clearly platonic

this doesn’t

Agreed, I previously posted that I have a similar relationship with a male colleague and it's totally innocent. However, our conversations do include our partners - admittedly only once on written chat, much more so during calls. I'm sorry OP, I agree the fact that he didn't mention your birthday plans sounds like a big red flag, unless you guys literally didn't do anything for that birthday, in which case maaaaybe it's ok, or if he may have genuinely forgotten your birthday was coming up (which seems unlikely but possible, depending on the bloke).

If I were in your shoes I'd ask my partner right out why he didn't even mention me when the friend explicitly asked what his weekend plans were (when it was your birthday) and watch his first reaction veeeeeery carefully: does he get flustered? Does he become shady? Or does he have a genuinely open and understandable reaction?

So sorry you're going through this while pregnant. If it helps, my relationship with my partner was on the rocks when I was pregnant, and it really really helped for me to plan a life in detail without him (without telling him,just for my own peace of mind). In the end, we worked things out, but having that plan of how I'd provide for the baby solo made me feel much more empowered and helped me stop putting up with his bullsh*t, which itself helped to flip the dynamic