'I think my friend has eyes for my wife. She disagrees and thinks I'm overreacting. AITA?' UPDATED 3X
"AITA? I think my friend has eyes for my wife."
I have a wife that I've been with for over 10 years and married for 3. We have a 10 month old son now. I recently met a guy who turned out to have a lot of common interests with me. Both into finance, fitness and stuff. We started hanging out more and more and work out together weekly in my home gym garage.
Obviously we are spending time together and we shoot the s--t often. His situation is that he's single, a father of a 7-year-old girl and his ex is a super b--ch to him. She publicly talks down to him the few times we all went out to dinner together. He still has to see her because they are co-parenting but he's been trying to date for the past year.
Anyway, we got on the topic of what he's looking for in a girl because he keeps on going on dates and they all suck according to him and none of the girls are his type. So I ask what his type is and he starts describing the traits of my wife. Could be a coincidence.
Whenever we go to dinner he'll be telling a story or whatever and show a picture on his phone but only to my wife, I have to ask him to see what the picture is before he puts it away. Not that I care that much but feels sus. Whatever. We've been hanging out more and having game night at my place with him and a few other friends.
Whenever he's in the presence of my wife he takes my son and puts him on his shoulders and plays with him in front of her. Makes weird comments (at least I think so) in front of my wife like, "I love being a father and providing for a family." "I wish I had a wife that was as good as raising kids as you" "Let me know if I can help you in any way with your son". Always directed to my wife and never me. Ok, whatever.
The thing is, these comments have been setting off eye raises for me so when I was working out with him the other day I said, do you think my wife is attractive? He said, oh hell yea dude. Your wife is hot. I said thanks but it raised my antenna even more. Now the reason I'm writing this is because his most recent comment to ME was "do you think your wife can find a girl for me at her workout class that looks like her?"
This coupled with what happened the other day at dinner. We were going to dinner with him and his family that were in town. It was at a big shopping center so we were waiting at a Starbucks for them to arrive at the restaurant. He comes to the Starbucks where we are while his family is at the restaurant, he waves and says we are ready. I start packing my sons bag while my wife handles the stroller.
This dude grabs my son and puts him on his shoulders and starts walking out. My wife is walking out and I'm grabbing the bag. Now I'm literally watching this guy walk next to my wife holding my child while shes pushing the stroller and I'm trailing them.
I felt I was watching a couple and their child and I was seething and feeling displaced. AITA? Because I'm cutting this AH off. Not letting him anywhere near my wife and kid again. If we happen to see him in a social setting of 6 or less, we are leaving.
Not long after posting, OP shared two small updates.
Edit: Asked my wife if he ever texted her or contacted her in any way on SM or TXT. She said no. I told her just now I feel he's peacocking and she said she doesn't get that vibe at all from him.
Edit 2: A female friend came over tonight who mutually knows this guy. She agreed that it's strange and thinks he is crushing on my wife, intentionally or not and told my wife to her face that. I told my wife that if another female can see it, it's obvious.
My wife now says she feels embarrassed that she doesn't see it and says it'll be awkward now because she doesn't want to think of him looking at her that way. Both her and the friend think it's best if we only see him in social settings with large groups and not at our house again.
Lesson: Seems the general consensus is to trust my gut if I feel something is off and it does. Going to talk to the wife and then tell this dude straight and then ghost him.
Commenters quickly weighed in with their thoughts.
Seaworthinessfun3703 wrote:
This man is peacocking in front of your wife to show he’s the better catch. That’s obvious. Whether he realizes it or not- he has a crush on her. Protect your marriage. Drop that “friend” and tell him why.
I guarantee he’s messaging/ texting your wife separately.
Whether she sees the truth or not, I hope she respect this boundary and respects he’s out of y’all’s lives.
OP responded:
That's the word I was looking for!! Yes. That's what it feels like. I don't think she sees him doing that or maybe she's willfully ignoring it.
RoosterEmotional5009 wrote:
Speak up. He’ll apologize or go away. Either way I’d let him know his actions are not acceptable.
OP responded:
The thing is...he's never directly said anything "flirty" to her but it's more of these weird general comments.
EnvironmentalChard31 wrote:
After reading all the comments you have gotten, what does your wife say about the whole thing now and what are your plans for the near future!!!?
OP responded:
I'm dialing back the contact. Talked to her about it and she is reluctant but supportive. She still thinks it's just his attempt at convincing her to set him up with a friend by trying to constantly remind her of his good traits. Either way, I told her my thoughts on it.
CollectorCCG wrote:
The second he expressed interest in another man’s infant child is the minute you should’ve told him to get the fuck out of your house and never spoken to him again. If you wanted to be extra spicy and a bit risky a punch in the face could’ve even came with it. To answer thread, no, this is the silliest thread I’ve read in a long time and I have no idea why you even entertain this shit with a guy you barely know.
OP responded:
I should have actually said we've known him for 2 years which is "recent" to me since most of my other friends are 10+ years. The only reason I haven't is because we typically let our friends (like at game night) hold our son. He's the only one that makes me feel weird with how he does it. Women I understand, men...it's sketch for me.
N0bodyimporant wrote:
The guy isn’t your friend, he is actively flirting with your wife.
Have you talked to your wife about him? Can she see his flirting and very obvious and thinly veiled attempts at her? How does she respond when you have said something about it?
I hope for your sake she sees it and has simply refused to engage. Talk to her and ask if he has tried to reach out directly at all, suggested exchanging info or connected on SM. His efforts are incredibly disrespectful to you and your marriage and he needs to be excluded from everything and anything your wife may be part of at a minimum or cut out completely.
OP responded:
She says she doesn't see it and is just a father who wishes he had a mother in his life. He keeps saying he wants more kids in front of both of us and always playing with our son saying he wish he had a son to raise. Wife thinks he just really likes being a father and wants more kids.
Three weeks later, OP shared an update.
Here's the update. After all the advice (thank you all) I decided to go the slow cutoff method rather than being direct. Mainly because my thinking is that if you tell someone that you're wise to their BS that they may just try to be more covert, cover their tracks and be sneakier with their behavior or try to buy sympathy with mutual friends.
There was a party we were invited to at his house (before all this unfolded) and I told my wife we aren't going. This caused a bit of tension within our house because it got pretty heated because, while she thinks he's doing it subconsciously.
She has zero interest in him so it doesn't bother and she said she didn't even notice until I brought it to her attention. Needless to say, the fact that it caused an argument and drama for me was more than enough grounds for me to never have this dude around my wife and kid ever again.
Anyway, because he was already introduced to all of my friends in my friend group, he invited all of them to this party. We didn't go and a few friends asked if we were going, I explained the situation and a few of them agreed that they saw what I saw.
They said they were not going to the party. One couple did decide to go because they and him became close over the fact that they both really are into sports. The girl texted my wife and told her that they were the only couple that showed up (so really my friends are the only ones he invited) but she also said he had a girl there with him.
They said the girl barely spoke English but he said they were dating but she was acting very odd. Now this is the part where I'm not sure if he was made aware of my discontent with him because I had already started cutting him off. (Not answering calls. Not initiating any texts. Being very curt with my responses. "Cool bro". Etc.)
After this party he randomly texts me photos of him with this girl professing how hot she is and what a great catch she is and how they are dating. One phrase he used which further raised my suspicions was "It'll be good to go on a double date so you can see I have a girl". I'm thinking to myself, why would he care about that and what an odd thing to say. I asked how they met and he said Tinder.
I asked to see the convo...he deleted the convo. He sent her Instagram photos and she has 37K followers and half her photos are of her in Dubai, London, etc and doing n-de photo shoots. Considering he is a st--p club kind of guy, this makes me think he may be paying for this "companionship" just to get his foot back in the door, but I could be wrong.
So all is right. I'm plenty busy with work and Wife and I are fine. Son is happy as can be and I'm going to make sure I keep the grass cut so I can see the snakes before they get to my door. Thanks everyone for the reassurances!
The comments kept coming.
Jsmith2127 wrote:
Either your wife, or one of your friends told him why you are distancing yourself, so he got someone to pretend to be his gf, to try to prove to you that he is okay to be around your wife.
OP responded:
Probably one of our friends. I have access to her stuff. Wasn't her. It was most likely the friends that went to the party and not her. Irregardless, his feeble attempts to get me to engage are no working. He will never be around my wife and child again.
N0b0dy-Imp0rtant wrote:
The last post she said it made her feel different about him that he thought of her this way and now on this post she is upset because you weren’t going to his party.
It sounds like your wife likes the attention and was only upset because you and others noticed when she thought it was fairly discrete. You might keep a closer eye on your wife and comms with him after her reaction, it’s a bit off if she was uneasy about his actions after they were pointed out. The two don’t add up at all.
OP responded:
She said it made her uneasy because of it but she wanted to go to the party because all of our friends were going so she thought it wouldn't be a big deal if we were all there together as opposed to when he would just be with us alone. Either way, we got into a fight about it because I said hard pass. Made up for it though by going out and doing something else social that day.
After being told he's throwing away a friendship, OP responded:
Friends are easy to come by. Marriage is not. Nor is having a fantastic mother to my child. I'll gladly ditch any "friend" who I even think would endanger that. I also have plenty of other friends who I would have zero second thoughts about if they spent the weekend alone at my house. This dude has just been setting off all types of alarms in my gut.
Awkward-Hall8245 wrote:
You're not over reacting. In my almost 64 years I've yet to meet a woman that couldn't tell when a guy was crushing on them. I've known many deny they're aware only to say they did later. She likes the attention and doesn't want to miss a chance at getting it. If she didn't like him, knowing he's crushing, she's not want to be near him. I'd do a bit of digging.