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!

Awful op, this does sound like an emotional affair. I’ve been where you are, gaslit in the same way you are being by your husband. In the end I told him to go and stay with his mum because it was to hard for me to live with a man who although he said he loved me clearly valued his ego boost more than how shit he was making me feel.
This shocked him, I think maybe he thought he could keep both parts of his life, me at home her at work.
I told him that if he truly wanted to save our marriage he had to address and put in the effort to prove to me that he loved and respected our relationship but he couldn’t do that at home.. I couldn’t be witness to how much she obviously meant to him because she clearly did.
He was gone for a few months , begging to come home etc etc.. we had a few therapy sessions and he found a new job. It’s never been repeated and it’s been 10 years now and we’re good. I know how hurtful it feels but please put yourself first here, your not going mad and it’s quite evil of your husband to make you feel you are, time to get strong and really really angry, men and there egos, pathetic!

@ImpossibleGermanyhave you been consuming too much true crime? Relax, no one is on trial here. You’re on an anonymous forum, you’re never going to know if who you’re talking to is who they say they are. At best you’re arguing with an engagement baiter, at worst you’re kicking a woman when she’s down.

@ElizaD81 I’m so sorry, we often put our husbands on some kind of pedestal thinking they care for us and respect put boundaries and this sort of thing absolutely blindsides us.

Has his behaviour been any different? Phone use etc? Do you need to dig deeper?

You do need to be firmer and you do need to act against him minimising this.

Well you are relentless ImpossibleGermany
Please show some respect

Hi op sorry this is happening just ignore the haters you will always get some nastiness on here. Your dh being disrespectful to you. Maybe you say how about I give it to her husband and let him decide. Have you asked to see his phone. I will just say I’ve worked with plenty of people who have had affairs within the office hours and it not even gone into after work apart from the messaging so it definitely does happen.

Or maybe people like you could just shut up and fuuuuuck off of your own accord, you absolute ghoul.

I’ll probably get a temp ban for this comment but it’ll be worth it. I’m so sick of people righteously proclaiming threads to be AI when anyone with half an ear for human tone can tell they’re not.

Then these assholes insist on doubling down and re-doubling down as it becomes perfectly obvious with every post that they’re kicking a real person faced with a real problem.

@ImpossibleGermany if you think something is AI just report it like a troll instead of boring all of us with your posturing.

I reported @ImpossibleGermany as I’m sure did others. And when are MN users going to get that a poster doesn’t owe you a response immediately, that day OR ever!!!

I hope @ElizaD81 is still around and can get the support she needs from this thread.

Can you say something to him like,

“Can you help me understand something? When you respond by focusing on her perspective, I end up feeling unsupported. I don’t know if that’s your intention, but it’s the impact it’s having on me.”

And see how he replies.

aahh hhaaa… so you’re being old fashioned are you? OK - time to give your philandering cheater an old fashioned bollocking! No holds barred. Ultimatum if necessary. Actually, you should have done that when you discovered the note. So now you need to know EXACTLY what is going on. Not necessarily between him and his Coffee-Mate, but what’s going on inside his head. Why would he do this to you? Sneaking around behind your back? Keeping tawdry little love notes? You are NOT being “old fashioned”. You are being mistreated and cheated by the one person who you’ve built the last 18 years around. If his explanations continue to be wafer-thin and his behaviour doesn’t change …. time to rearrange your building blocks. You deserve MUCH better than this. Be strong.

well said.

She definitely overstepped a boundary writing the note.

The fact your husband left it in his coat pocket makes me think it was either so insignificant to him that he didn't feel like he needed to a) keep the note safe for him to treasure/re-read at his leisure or b.) hide it from you. He can't possibly have worn a winter coat recently either, so guessing it's been there for months.

I’m really sorry you are going thru this.
Please don’t be fobbed off.
Take the advice from the women on here who’ve been where you are.
My husband tried fobbing me off with the “we are just good friends” crap.
I turned detective - he’d been having a full on affair with work colleague for over 4 years.
Can you get in to his phone? It will tell you all you need to know - that’s if he hasn’t already deleted everything since you found the note.
Best wishes 💐

OP, his refusal to discuss is a common tactic in those that don't wish to trip themselves up.

He can't hang himself if he refuses to discuss.

This refusal IS strategic and would convince me that there is something going on.

I would think ofvtelling him that you will be getting a picture of that note to her husband and see if you can get answers there as you simply do not believe him.

If you get fury, it will confirm it.

Any man that shuts you down like that doesn't give a shit about you.
I'm sorry, but start protecting yourself.

What is bizarre to me is that 1. He kept it and brought it home and 2. This clearly knows he’s in a long term happy relationship with you and is still comfortable enough to write these things when she should respect boundaries and her place which isn’t to be that close

Also the massive fact that he kept it. So clearly it meant something to him.

She should write to unmarried men,and try and get her own partner not try and flatter yours ,she is trouble!

Ultimately he doesn’t need to agree a boundary has been crossed for you to feel that way. He doesn’t get to unilaterally decide what is acceptable in a relationship. If he was my husband I would be pointing out to him if he didn’t feel those notes about another woman’s feelings towards him crossed a boundary then you have very incompatible views on what is acceptable in a relationship. That incompatibility and his reluctance to discuss it means there is no way forward together.

The alternative is he does know it crosses a boundary and would not be ok with you sending or receiving that type of note from a colleague but to admit this would mean he has to stop his inappropriate relationship with this woman and he doesn’t want to do that. He doesn’t want to discuss it because it then may open up the discussion around other boundaries that have been crossed which would risk his relationship with you and her.

Either way you can’t have a relationship with someone who doesn’t have the same values as you and doesn’t care how their actions impact you.

He’s not taking any accountability for this so he’s giving you nothing to work with. I would be acting on the assumption that the first scenario is true, unless he accepts responsibility for the second and takes steps to rebuild the boundaries and remove any doubt you have.

Maybe you should tell him that you'll send it onto her husband and ask his opinion on it, to see if he thinks you're being old fashioned, and whether he would think its ' innocent and just a nice note'
I'm guessing thats the last thing he'd want you to do. Make sure you take a picture of the note in case it goes 'missing'

I have rtt but am quoting your last post on here OP because I know exactly how you must be feeling and how frustrating it is not to be heard by your dh. I hate how dismissive he has been of your feelings. He’s known her for about 18 months you say and this note was probably given to him 6 months ago. I understand how difficult it is to open up a conversation when dh has such an attitude and seems determined to make you feel like an idiot BUT she has focussed on your dh instead of her own, for whatever reason and that note was his cue to say to her that he is sorry to hear her dh is not the light of her day etc but it’s not appropriate to think of him that way. If their marriage is that bad, she needs to talk to him etc He should have backed away and told you about this too. Instead it looks like he’s enjoyed the ego stroking element etc and thinks he can just continue and his reaction to you sounds guilty because he knows what it looks like. Ask him if they are still “friends” and what does that entail? This has been a secret from you instead of “Jane stuck a note on my desk today which made me feel really uncomfortable.”