Should I be concered?

[roxio]

I need a little impartial input. My husband and I have been married 14 years. He has a female friend (unmarried), they used to be co-workers but my husband changed jobs about a year ago. She text messages and calls him on his cell phone multiple times a week. She also sends him email to a hotmail account that is separate from the account we share. I don't believe they have a physical relationship, I am always invited when they get together, usually she invites him out to join a group of former coworkers for drinks or something.

 

What bothers me is their contact is all done is a manner that excludes me. She does not call the home phone. She primarily contacts him with text messages on his cell phone. She does this on weekends as well, when she knows he's at home and could just call him. Sometimes he tells me about it, sometimes not.

 

We have talked about it and he says it's no big deal. Mostly she just sends stupid stuff like a radio station with a good song on it, or a "have a great day" message. I don't know if he doesn't tell me about it because it doesn't mean anything to him or if he's hiding it. I don't think he is the initiator of most of the contact but he's not discouraging it either.

 

What do you think? Should I just "get over it" or is something going on?

 

I should mention he is not the sole focus of her attention - she has another married guy that she has basically the same type of relationship with.

[Skittles]

What do you think? Should I just "get over it" or is something going on?

 

 

Roxio, your husband has a relationship with this woman...and feeling threatened is natural.

I am not one to tell you to get over it, because if your internal warning system is going off, it's doing so for a reason imo.

 

I can't guess as to whether he is having an "affair" with her or not...You would be able to judge that based upon the knowledge you have of your relationship with him...

 

I do believe that her presence is drawing energy away from your marriage, and that in itself needs to be addressed .

 

Focusing on the "ow" is not the place to put it, what she does with other men is not your concern, what is your concern is your feelings about the contact he is having with her, and why he is having it with her.

 

 

You must communicate your unhappiness and hopefully he will respect you enough to make some changes.

 

 

Good Luck.

[midori]

Concerned about your husband: remains to be seen.

 

Hi Roxio,

 

I agree with Skittles. You shouldn't ignore the alarm that's going off in your head. Here's what I've gleaned from your post:

 

1. This woman has inappropriately made your husband the focus of her emotional life. I have lots of friends and acquaintances, but only rarely do I hear a song on the radio that moves me to contact one of them just to let them know. My mind doesn't automatically turn to my friends and acquaintances the moment some small thing moves me. My mind DOES turn to my boyfriend. He's the person I'm the most connected to emotionally. Which is as it should be.

 

The fact that this woman thinks of your husband all the time, to the point where she's moved to send him messages, phone him, etc., is evidence that he is, in her mind, a very significant figure. Which he shouldn't be. If she were healthy and realistic, he would be a friend that she occasionally runs into and chats with, someone whom she might think of whenever she hears about NASCAR (or whatever your husband might really be into), but who otherwise doesn't really factor into her daily mental life.

 

So, yes, she's a problem. Whether she's conscious of it or not.

 

2. Your husband may or may not be aware of how large he looms in this woman's life. My guess is that he's not actively aware of it, although he may be engaging in a bit of denial. It's fun to have someone around who's got a bit of a crush on you, and it's easy to convince yourself that the interaction is all perfectly innocent, completely non-romantic. Or he may feel that it would be rather cruel to ignore her or tell her to back off, since it seems harmless enough. He might be hoping that eventually she'll start dating someone and their friendship will remain intact but will no longer mean so much to her.

 

Whatever the case may be about your husband's state of awareness, what he's probably missing is that allowing the "innocent" interaction to continue is not a good thing. He's implicitly encouraging this woman, allowing her to make him an emotional focal point in her life. She needs to find someone else to think about when she hears songs on the radio. That in and of itself is enough to warrant him putting an end to the frequent contact. But more importantly, she's not going to be satisfied in the long run with thinking about him and texting/phoning a few times a week. She's going to keep trying to escalate the interaction. And it will all seem innocent. She might even think it's innocent. People don't like to admit to themselves that they're headed down a bad path in which someone might get hurt, they don't like to think of themselves as doing something unscrupulous or even just plain wrong. They rationalize and make all kinds of excuses. I've done it myself.

 

I think you need to tell your husband that you're a bit alarmed by how much this woman seems to be focused on him, how you know that it's all perfectly innocent at the moment, but it's not harmless for her to be so focused on him. It's not harmless for this woman to focus on an unavailable man for her emotional outlet; and it's a bit troubling that she seems to view her relationship with him as one that exists independently, having nothing to do with the rest of his life, i.e. you. That's not a real friendship. If she's lonely she needs to find someone who's available, and/or widen her circle of friends so that she's not so dependent on any one person. It's not about being territorial or mean or unsympathetic to this woman and her needs. It's about recognizing that she can't get her needs met with your husband. She needs someone -- your husband -- to get her back on a path that could actually yield the true companionship she's looking for. The texts and frequent phone calls should cease.

 

It sounds like your husband needs to wake up a bit to what's going on. There may not be any deliberately bad intentions here, but it's still not a healthy thing.

[roxio]

Wow - thank you so much. Your comments and observations are right on.

 

I just don't know how to approach the subject. We've talked about her at length, but more about how frequently we do things with her. He's said he will stop being friends with her but I've always discouraged that because it doesn't seem fair. She is his friend and he likes spending time with her. I don't feel I can forbid that. I just want it to be an up and up friendship not some secret thing.

 

We haven't talked specifically about this phone/text mail thing. Although I have said to him I don't understand why she can't call him on the phone at home in the evening instead of contacting him during his work day. I didn't get much of a response.

 

I've had to resort to snooping to see what's really going on - checking his phone text messages and email (which he doesn't know I do). So bringing up the subject when technically I'm not supposed to know it's happening is a problem.

 

I'm really trying not to turn into the raging, jealous wife.

[Skittles]

We haven't talked specifically about this phone/text mail thing. Although I have said to him I don't understand why she can't call him on the phone at home in the evening instead of contacting him during his work day. I didn't get much of a response.

 

 

Roxio, I'm not sure you can control the parameters of their relationship. Either he is going to have one with her or not. It seems to me that he has accepted the terms of their relationship and I don't get that she is going to comply with your wishes necessarily. Those requests need to come from him, because after all, she is his friend, not yours...

Don't rage just yet, but if this friendship is making you uncomfortable, you need to resolve the situation.

 

I would think he would put your wishes first.

[peakey]

Dear Roxio,

 

I really feel for your situation. It's hard to live life snooping on your husband. I know what that's like, as I've been snooping on my H for more than three years. In my case, it's because he's had several affairs. One of them did start as just a friendship. He had a female friend that he only ever talked to on the internet, by email or by ICQ and other internet chat programs. For a long time, it was just friendship, but it did develop into something more. And when it did, I just got a gut feeling that something was different. And when I did my snooping, I found that their relationship had turned into an emotional attachment. They didn't sleep together, but he basically fell in love with her.

 

In your case, it's still hard to tell if your H and his friend are just friends. If you're snooping and not finding anything, that's a good sign. From what you have described, though, I would think that although he may not be having an affair, he is emotionally attached to this friend beyond what is "normal" for a friendship. So you are right to be concerned. It's easy for friendships to develop into something more.

 

And you definitely have to do something about it, because if you continue to spy and snoop, you're going to make your life hell. Seriously. You're going to spend way too much energy figuring out ways to check if he's telling you the truth, and find out what they say to each other etc. It takes over your life, and makes your life un-peaceful. I know all about that!

 

Can I ask if there's anything else "wrong" with your marriage? Are you happy? Is he happy? If things are rocky between you anyway, you'd better talk about it now before it's too late.

 

He's your husband. You should be his number one friend. Like Skittles said, that means he would (or should) put your wishes first, before any other friend.

 

I hope you can resolve your situation, for peace of mind and all!

[roxio]

Peaky -

Except for this one thing I think we have a great marriage and have for the past 14 years, and I think he would say the same thing. I have never had any doubts before this about his honesty or faithfulness for as long as I've know him. This is a new situation for me.

 

I'm just not sure how to have this discussion and do it in a way that he will understand the impact of this seemingly innocent friendship on our marriage. I have always been a rather independant person and completely non-jealous so I'm not sure that I have been expressing myself to him accurately. In fact maybe I'm giving him mixed signals by telling him this bothers me but then encouraging him to remain friends with her.

 

How do I let him know the real impact this has on me and our marriage without sounds like I'm psycho? All of their contact with each other is relatively innocent in content (i.e. there is no touching, sexual inuendo or anything overt). But I go agree with Midori about about the emotional connection being a problem.

 

How do we talk about this?

[midori]

Tell him exactly what we've discussed here. Say, "you know I've been trying to figure out for a while just what it is about Belinda [let's call her that] that bothers me. Because I know that it's all perfectly innocent and that you wouldn't stand for anything that wasn't innocent. I've finally realized what's wrong with the situation: she puts way too much significance on your role in her life. I know she's a single woman and might be kind of lonely sometimes, but if so she needs to direct her energy and attention in directions that might actually have potential for her to find a relationship of her own..."

 

You should point out that you're a bit uncomfortable to know that there's a woman out there who calls or texts your husband when she hears songs on the radio. You could ask him how he'd feel if there was a guy who was always going out of his way to communicate with you and hang out, but rarely interacted with your husband. Tell him that Belinda needs to get a grip and realize that she can't establish any kind of significant friendship with your husband, especially if her interaction with him seeks to exclude you.

[Benedict]

He seems pretty non-committal about the whole thing... at least by reading your posts.

 

My wife had a friend from junior f*cking high school contact her out of the blue... right about when we were starting to have problems crop up for us. That would be the 5 year mark, for those keeping score . I was never a suspicious guy. I took her relationship with him as it was presented to me, i.e. No Big Deal. I never was, then or now, one to tell anyone with whom they could hang out.

 

So I let it be.

 

And I let it be. We had actually begun working on the marriage via counseling and all. We were also making good progress. It was during all of this, as we spent more time paying attention to each other, that I began to be suspicious. Suspicion is a nasty, ugly thing. It made it acceptable to me at the time to do things I would ordinarily never do: snoop. And I learned exactly what I suspected I would learn: a whole, full-blown relationship-affair.

 

It was not a good day.

 

Being that it was over with - I iearned this from my snoopery - I decided to let it lie, and go away. "Yeah, right" I hear you all thinking, lol. Well, you're correct. Three months later, I laid it all on the table... to stunned silence, then Hellish fury... not entirely unearned, I might add.

 

We are working past it. Honestly, it hurt the most, but I truly believe that it was not the biggest problem we dealt with. I maintain that infidelity is a symptom, not a cause. Be that as it may, I think I can trust her again. I sure hope that I can. I am not sure though. I guess I never will be. I do know that I won't snoop to find out again, though. I suppose if my suspicions ever arise again, I will just ask.

 

Anyway, I guess my point is that you need to know. Ask him. You have every right to assert yourself in this. In my case, ther are many things I would do differently, given the chance. Snooping her email? Given the same circumstances, I would do that again 100 out of 100 times; I felt I was fighting for my family - and I was.

[peakey]

Originally posted by Benedict

 

Snooping her email? Given the same circumstances, I would do that again 100 out of 100 times; I felt I was fighting for my family - and I was.

 

Geez, I know exactly how you feel! It was through snooping that I found out about my H's affairs. But I hated myself for it. I felt I'd become scum, to pry into his privacy. But even so, I can still justify it to myself. Because I'm sure he wouldn't have told me about it unless I had found out about it first. And I had a gut feeling something was going on. Even when my H wasn't in an affair, I would snoop, and that's how I could prove to myself that he wasn't cheating. But he hated it. He hated being spied on, and to tell the truth, it further undermined an already rocky relationship. For me, snooping became an obsession! Yuck.

 

Roxio, I'm glad to hear that you guys have a great marriage. So let's hope that this issue can be resolved for you. I liked Midori's suggestion for how to approach your husband about this. I especially liked the vote of confidence she included in saying "I know that it's all perfectly innocent and that you wouldn't stand for anything that wasn't innocent". Emphasize that you trust him, but do tell him you're worried about how much energy/effort he expends on her. After all, many affairs start out with innocent friendship.

 

I know that no one should be able to dictate who we pick as our friends, so of course you haven't discouraged his friendship with her. And I truly don't know whether you can really ask him to stop being her friend for your sake. But ask him to step into your shoes for a minute, maybe then he'll understand.

 

All the best.