Am I overreacting to this note from my husband's colleague?

[ElizaD81]

A year and a half ago a (married) woman joined the company my DH works at. They quickly struck up a close friendship. It made me a bit uneasy but I tried to ignore it. I trust him and he’s never shown me any reason not to.
Yesterday I was washing some winter coats and I found a little note she had written to him. It was about a page long and said ‘you brighten my day whenever I’m with you’ and ‘our coffees together are the nicest part of my day’ ‘I’m so glad to have met you XX’.
I asked him about this and he brushed it off. ‘She’s just a friend and I’m being old fashioned’. We’ve always both been relaxed about our friends of the opposite sex but this feels different and in truth it’s really playing on my mind and unsettling me. I’ve told him this but he shrugs it off.
We’ve been together for 18 pretty happy years. I’ve been hurt a long time ago in a previous relationship so worried I’m projecting this. This note has really worried me. Just don’t know what to think!

I’m a petty bitch so I’d take a picture of it, send it to her and ask her if her husband knows her favourite time of day is spending time with your husband.

If your husband blows up, overreacts and becomes defensive, at the very least, they’re emotionally involved with each other but likely are also having a physical affair.
Sorry OP, I’d be devastated and furious all in one.

A note like that is quite intimate. He should have shut that down, immediately. And told you. You have good cause to be concerned. And your husband is beyond stupid not to recognise that.

How many of his male colleagues have sent him a note like that?

That's your answer. She's offering herself on a plate for him. It's only a matter of time (if not already) that he takes her up on her offer.

That is totally inappropriate. I’d be inclined to post it to her husband.

It’s a love note you are not over reacting, how would he feel if you wrote that gor one of your colleagues? You need a further conversation with him about this - ask him if it’s so innocent does he mind showing it to her husband ? It is not right he hid it from you. Trust your instincts and have a deeper conversation with him about boundaries

Please don’t force some weird meal for the 4 of you - this is not an episode of Dallas.
Its wildly inappropriate- ‘people’ don’t wrote notes to colleagues like that.
i might say it ‘oh here’s my favourite colleague’ (but id say it loudly in front of other colleagues usually before i ask them to take on a task i don’t want to do!) i would never text it let alone write it though.

And if I was given a note like that by anyone - I wouldn’t cherish it or hide it. I’d either bin it or show DH and comment that one of my colleagues seemed lovesick / smitten

I’ll preface this by saying that I have a best friend at work who happens to be male. We clicked instantly and enjoy spending our time in the office together. The difference though is that we both knew our partners would get on great too so we have a group WhatsApp chat with them included and do things outside of work as couples. I think if you genuinely feel like someone is a great FRIEND you invite them into your life and everything is honest and open with your DP.

It might seem double standards but I wouldn’t be happy in your case, it’s the secrecy that makes me think it’s not ok.

When was the note sent and what else did she write?
Sit him down and ask him how would he feel had a male colleague sent a similar note to you?

If she is having coffees with him ever day why was the note necessary? There must have been others. When and how many?
Why is he having coffee with her every day when she clearly has no boundaries?
Tell him clearly he is being dismissive and projecting which suggests at the very least they are having an emotional affair.
Is there anyone else he works with that you would feel comfortable speaking to.
Ask him is her husband aware of their close 'friendship'
Why the XX?
Would he accept that from any male colleague?
This needs addressing. If he cannot be open and honest then you need to dig deeper. Tell him how disrespectful his response has been and if he cares anything about you, your children ( if you have any ) he will respond honestly.

He doesn't get to define your boundaries unless you let him. You've told him this crosses your boundary so he either fixes it or fucks off. Otherwise it'll drive you insane.

Agree with other PPs. That’s a rather emotional and romantic note. You are not over reacting. I’d be wanting the relationship outside necessary business interaction to end and if he could not see that, I’d be discussing divorce.

Did you ask him why he kept the note if he didn’t attach so much importance to it ?

I would try to meet her and make a point of saying (preferably in front of her DH)

‘aww I love the little notes you send to my husband, so sweet’

….and hopefully she’ll die from embarrassment and maybe it’ll give their heads a wobble

Do we know whether dh did try to shut it down, or whether it’s ongoing?

Or go nuclear. Tell him you have seen a solicitor about divorce.
Watch his reaction.

I have many male friends, at work and out of work. If any of them have me a note like that, I’d immediately realise they had feelings for me/were crossing a boundary, and shut it down. I’d also tell my husband what had happened and what I’d done about it.

the only reasons I wouldn’t tell my husband would be:

1. if I was having an affair with him
2. if I was entertaining the idea of an affair
3. if I was enjoying the attention of the man even if I had no intention of having an affair, and didn’t want my husband to know about it as I knew it was wrong

none of these feel great.

OP, trust your gut reaction, because it's accurate.

Tell your H that he doesn't get to tell you that your feelings aren't either valid nor an 'overreaction', they are an appropriate response to the 'love note' you found!

He doesn't get to minimize your response to finding this 'love note' and that his concern should be how he's made his Wife feel, and that he's simply insulting your intelligence by trying to pretend it's 'nothing', when it is clearly written in bloody black & white that he's enjoying an intense emotional 'affair' with a new female colleague ffs!

I'd make it 100% clear to him that this IS potentially marriage ending. Whether it actually ends your marriage will be entirely dependant upon what he intends to do from this moment onwards...

Putting something like that in writing is very risky, and him putting it in his pocket equally as risky.

Unusual to write a note rather than text nowadays. Maybe she assumed he'd destroy it.

But, to answer your question, I do not think that you are overreacting. But he will justify, minimise and deny there is anything more to it than just 'friends.'

Offer to show the note to her husband to get take his view on it.

I'd take photos of the notes and send them to her partner. I wonder if he knows another man is the highlight of her day?

If the note was from the winter, I’d sadly say things will have moved on considerably since then.
Thats like the kind of text I sent dh when we were falling hard for one another 🫪

Yes, his reaction to this would be very telling. Anger and panic I’d expect.

Yep, they've got the hots for each other. Doesn't sound from the note like they'd slept together at that point but who knows by now.

She sounds desperate and needy. Maybe message her and say you found the note, are feeling very sorry for her, and hope that she is now feeling a bit more settled in her life and has been able to speak to her husband about her lack of emotional stability in their relationship. suggest that she and her husband find a therapist to help them reconcile and make their relationship more meaningful , as you don’t think that sending notes to a colleague in this way is good for either her, her husband, your husband and their working relationship.

😈

Is he her line manager or more senior?

If i done this I would have to produce the notes I had found
see their faces and reacations then.