'AITA for telling my husband's single female friend to back off?' UPDATED
"AITA for telling my husband's single female friend to back off?"
My marriage is on the rocks right now. They worked together for years, but at different sites. Three years ago I confronted him about the number of messages that were coming through to him that weren't work related. He told me it was nothing.
About 12 months ago he moved company and took her with him. This job saw them working long hours in the same team. I tried to be cool about it, despite them both staying in the same hotel on week days.
He eventually left that job. I noticed on a recent trip that she had messaged him multiple times. His call log flashed up when we got back and there were about 10 in a row from her. I have access to his phone records and discovered that they talk 3-4 times on the phone per day and often call each other right before bed.
My husband called me completely crazy, so I messaged her asking her (kind of) nicely to respect my marriage and reduce contact. She didn't reply. My husband is absolutely livid. He says he's allowed female friends, I'm a control freak, I need mental help and that they only talk at those hours because they both work long shifts. I don't understand why they need to check in multiple times per day.
He does prefer phone calls and he does call his other friends too, but this one really sticks out on the call log. Regardless, a single woman isn't the same as a male friend or a married female friend. My husband says it makes no difference and I need to address my trust issues.
It hurts that he often called her just before or after saying goodnight to me. He also called her at the airport before our flight. It's worth mentioning that he never ever mentions he has contacted her. He claims this is because I would read into it and that he doesn't have to tell me everything. He denies that it would bother him if I called a single guy late at night.
I don't think he has physically cheated, but this borders on an emotional affair to me.
We can't agree on this and divorce is on the table. I just want him to acknowledge that my feelings are valid. AITA? Am I just a psycho wife or am I right?
Here's what people had to say to OP:
Birdflower99 said:
You did nothing wrong and it’s very suspicious that she didn’t reply at least to explain nothing is going on. NTA.
hiswife10 said:
I would not be okay with this amount of contact between my husband and a female friend, married or single. But the biggest issue is the secrecy. He is hiding it because he knows deep down that it is wrong.
He is making you feel like a psycho wife to deflect the attention off of him and his inappropriate behavior. I wouldn't allow this to go further and give him an ultimatum that you'd be willing to stand by. No empty threats. NTA.
And tealparadise said:
My best friend is a guy, so usually I take the opposite side in this topic. Your husband is cheating tho. It's gross that he is treating you like an idiot and subhuman instead of taking the L. He thinks he's king of the world and if he throws enough BS your way you'll have to back off. No one does good morning / good night calls daily with a friend. It's just not a thing.
A few weeks later, she shared this update:
Thanks so much to everyone for your kindness in response to my previous post. It's been a rough couple of weeks. My husband was very upset at being accused of cheating. We've argued a lot. He told me that he and his friend haven't spoken much, although she did invite him with other friends to go to her house at Christmas.
He declined, but it said everything about her willingness to help the situation. In what world was that an appropriate move? My husband said she was shocked by my message and supposedly didn't know that I had an issue with her. She's since blocked me.
My husband said he hid their contact because he knew I wouldn't like it. I've dug deeper and the extent of it is actually horrific. They started calling each other at the time they started working together more closely and it's been pretty much constant calls since. Most mornings and evenings. My birthday.
Multiple times last Christmas day when I was in the shower. Immediately before and after we went abroad. It goes on and on. I counted 12 calls on the day he started his new job and they were no longer working together.
He swears he's never physically cheated and still insists it is just a normal close friendship. He insists that he would be with her if he wanted to be. Regardless of whether anything physical took place, I won't compete with another woman in my own marriage. In the end it doesn't really matter whether it was just emotional.
He said he's lonely and needs friends. I've been alone Mon to Fri most days as someone who WFH and I've been dealing with severe work stress on top of my mother's cancer. I've not been perfect in the marriage, but who is?
To add to this, when I tried to arrange just one call with a male friend, which my husband knew about and was invited to, he hit the roof. Suddenly I'm cheating because I message him about once a month, but the 7+ calls per day to his friend are all fine in his eyes. It says a lot. I've asked for a divorce. It won't be easy to bounce back from this, but I can't live this way.
Here are comments from the update:
You’ve told him what your boundaries are and he doesn’t want to respect them. Does he want to work on your marriage or he’s seriously picking her over you?
Nice_Job_6410 OP:
He says he does, but he won't admit he's doing anything wrong or agree to make any changes. He also says I'm stopping him from being his true self.
I remember your other post. Seriously, good on you for recognizing the behavior and sticking to your boundaries. That is so extremely hard to do but it’s also extremely worth it. Keep your support network close during this time
OP answered a comment from the original post with this:
This was over a year ago now, but you are right. I did leave him in the end. He was using escorts on top of everything else, which I would actually have never discovered had he not been messing around with his colleague. It was a great lesson in trusting your instincts and of course demanding better for yourself in a relationship.