'My husband of 4 years has a weird relationship with his pregnant coworker. Should I be worried?' MAJOR UPDATE

"My [31F] husband [33M] of 4 years has a weird relationship with his pregnant coworker [23F]. I'm not sure if I should be worried or not."

My husband has worked with Kelsey for the last two years, and I never thought anything about their relationship was strange until now. For the past 5 months--the amount of time that has lapsed since my husband found out that Kelsey was pregnant--he has gone out of his way to support her in a way that makes me uncomfortable.

I might be able to understand his actions if they weren't so extreme, but they mostly strike me as downright strange and out of character for him. For one, when he found out she was pregnant, he came to me and asked if he could give her $1,000 to help her with some of her expenses.

He said that Kelsey's baby's father was out of the picture and she was struggling. I don't know Kelsey personally, but I can sympathize with her situation. I agreed to let him write her a check for $250. I did think this was odd, though, because my husband has never been all that charitable. I've never known him to be the type of person that goes out of his way to help a coworker or a stranger, but whatever.

A few weeks later my husband came to me and again asked me if we could help Kelsey out. This time he wanted to buy a pram for Kelsey. The one he had picked out was quite expensive, so I wasn't comfortable with just giving him the okay. We spent about a week discussing it before we finally agreed to purchase a cheaper one for her. This came after he asked her if the second one would be okay.

I took this opportunity to ask him how much more money he wanted to spend on Kelsey and her baby. We had already spent $500 on them at this point, and I was starting to get concerned. We had a fight about this where he accused me of being selfish. He said that he was trying to do a good deed for someone and that he thought I would be happy to support a young mother-to-be like Kelsey and her baby.

I did feel a little guilty afterwords, so I backed off. Fast forward to last week. I found out after the fact that my husband had bought a $150 giftcard to Babies R US for Kelsey as a Christmas present. We had another fight about how much money he's spending on her and her baby, and again he accused me of being stingy.

I asked him how much more he planned to spend, and he told me that he didn't know. I asked him if he could see how this situation could make me uncomfortable and how it might lead me to think something was going on between them. He said that he was disappointed that I would think his good deed was anything other than him trying to help a coworker.

He has been giving me the silent treatment since that fight and making passive-aggressive comments, which is frustrating. I can't get him to understand that my concerns are legitimate. Besides, it's not like we have the ability to keep spending this kind of money on Kelsey. In addition to spending money, my husband also has spent a lot of time helping Kelsey in other ways.

He's spent time fixing up things around her apartment before the baby comes and doing other odd jobs for her. All of this makes me extremely uncomfortable, but anytime I bring it up he accuses me of trying to stop him from helping someone in need of assistance or being greedy. He won't acknowledge what I think is very worrisome behavior. At this point I wonder what I'm supposed to do.

I think he really is trying to do a good deed, but part of me worries that something else is happening. I don't want to believe he would cheat on me (he's never given me a reason to suspect this), but I can't help but wonder sometimes, especially when he's gone with Kelsey to her OB/GYN appointment on two occasions, though he claimed it was because she needed a ride.

Does he have a point? Am I being selfish for hassling him over helping Kelsey? How should I try to get him to understand his behavior is making me uncomfortable? I'm not sure how I should handle this situation. Nothing seems to be working.

TL;DR: Husband has spent a lot of time and money helping his pregnant coworker. This makes me uncomfortable, but he says I am being greedy for trying to discourage him from doing a good deed. Am I worrying over nothing, or are my concerns justified?

The internet did not hold back.

miserylovescomputers wrote:

Sounds like she's pregnant with his child tbh.

OP responded:

It does seem like that could be true. The only thing is he's never given me reason to suspect him of cheating. No late nights at work. No business trips. No other odd behavior.

allyourcritbotthings wrote:

I don't know how you haven't asked him if he's the father at this point... this is just really weird behavior.

It'd be one thing if you guys had kids of your own and were done with babies, so he was just offering up anything you had in good condition that you would have otherwise donated, but he's taking a very, very active role in her pregnancy. And I don't know how you find out why, because he doesn't want to tell you.

OP responded:

I asked him if anything was going on between them, but he basically denied it. I didn't ask him if he was the father because I think I'm scared that he might say yes.

Yetikins wrote:

Does Kelsey even know you exist??

She's definitely pregnant with your husband's child, the only questions are has he been lying to her about his marital status and are you going to make him truthful when he tells women 10+ years younger than him he's single?

OP responded:

I don't know. I always assumed she knew I existed.

notantisocialthings wrote:

I am currently pregnant and I can tell you from reading the pregnancy subs that even fathers that are very committed to their marriages, wives and babies, even some of them are not that involved with the baby. My husband has made every appointment he could but he is not fixing everything little thing around the house and spending $2k on baby things. It's f#$king weird.

OP responded:

That doesn't make me feel good.

A little over a week later, OP shared an update.

Since many of you asked for an update, and you were kind enough to offer advice, I have decided to give one. The first thing I did after making my initial post was to confront my husband directly again.

I asked him point blank if he was so involved with Kelsey's pregnancy because he was the father of her child. He denied it. I then asked him to introduce me to Kelsey since he had given her money that belonged to both of us.

When I mentioned this, he got very defensive and accused me of being insecure. I responded by saying that I at least had a right to know the person I was helping and that he shouldn't have a problem with me meeting Kelsey if nothing was going on between them. He then told me that he wasn't going to introduce us and that I needed to work on my jealousy issues.

I decided to contact Kelsey the next day. I found her, or at least the woman I thought was her, through a mutual friend's Facebook page. I sent her a message telling her who I was. I explained to her why I was concerned about her relationship with my husband and requested that she please let me know if she was having my husband's baby.

She sent me a very nasty message back. I will spare you many of the details. The basic gist was that I was old and unattractive and unable to satisfy my husband, so he found someone better (i.e., Kelsey). Among other things, she claimed that the baby was my husband's and that he was planning to leave me but felt sorry for me and couldn't bring himself to do it.

She ended the message by telling me that I should let him go so they could be together. It hurt a lot to read that message. It still hurts me to think about it. I confronted my husband that same night. I showed him the message. He got really quiet and admitted that she was telling the truth but denied telling her all of the horrible things she said about me.

He said it (getting her pregnant) was a mistake and he was only trying to do the right thing by her and the baby. He denied that they were still sleeping together and said he wanted to stay with me and have a baby with me. I have no idea if either of these things are true. I'm not sure what I'm going to do.

Everything has happened so fast. A couple of days have passed now, and I'm still thinking things over. He wants us to go to counseling to try to work through this, but I don't think I'm interested in working on our marriage. It would be hard for me to get past this if he had cheated, but the fact that he may be having a child with this woman makes it harder. If I stay with him, she's always going to be in our lives.

I have thought about waiting until we can do a paternity test to make a final decision, but I don't know if I want to do that either. It may be easier if I just make the change now. I have started looking for divorce attorneys. Most of my family and friends have told me I need to get out of this marriage, and each day I get closer to making that move. I just need a bit more time before I'm ready to make a decision.

TL;DR It's my husband's baby. He wants me back and to work on our marriage, but most likely we'll be getting divorced.

The internet did not hold back one bit.

oh_boisterous wrote:

Honestly, even if it's not his baby, could you ever get past this? Not only did he lie to you, he almost impregnated another person (assuming the kid's not his), and spent hundreds of your money on the other woman. Let him go be with the psycho he knocked up so you can go off and be happy with someone who doesn't suck.

OP responded:

"Honestly, even if it's not his baby, could you ever get past this?"

No.

littlewoolie wrote:

This baby isn't going to go away if you decide to stay with him. Do you really want to spend the next 18 years physically paying for the result of his cheating, his lies, his manipulation? These people are awful and I pity that poor baby. At least you get a choice in whether you continue to put up with these people.

sleepfight wrote:

Divorce him.

"The basic gist was that I was old and unattractive and unable to satisfy my husband, so he found someone better." Whatever you do, please do not take this woman's words to heart. She is an awful human being, and your husband is as well.

tothebath wrote:

He has shown you who he is - believe him. He is the man who will cheat on you, who will lie to you, who will get someone else pregnant, and who will use your money to support this other woman.

What kind of life could you two have together now? First, this woman (who hates you) will always be in it. Second, he has a child who he needs to take responsibility for. That means you may be caring for another woman's child - or at the very least, a significant part of your household income will go to support this child.

He made so many choices that have brought him to this point. Now you need to make yours - know that you deserve better, contact a lawyer, and begin divorce proceedings. There's a better future that awaits you, I promise.