‘I hate seeing him laughing and joking with her.’ (Picture: Getty Images)
When your suspicions are raised and emotions are running high, it can be hard to maintain perspective.
That goes double, if not triple, if your partner and a close pal are the ones you’re suspicious of.
That’s why one mum has taken to a Mumsnet forum to ask for a ‘sanity check’ on her suspicions over her husband and supposed best friend.
In the post, she starts by explaining that she’d just returned from a 10-day holiday with her husband and their son, along with a close friend and her son.
‘She is on a lower income, so we offered for her and her son to join us, and we paid for everything,’ she explained. ‘She’s married too, but she and her husband aren’t close, so he stayed home, so [we] just took her and her son.
‘She’s mainly my best friend, and we’re super close and I trust her implicitly, but my husband also counts her as his best friend. They used to work together years ago.
‘At home, they go out alone together all the time, play sport together, meet for coffee and if one is WFH, they meet up at our house or hers for lunch without me. Our sons are in [the] same class at school, and it’s all one merged family.
‘Her husband doesn’t seem to care what she does.’
Even though she writes about how much she trusts her friend, this holiday left the mum with alarm bells ringing in her head.
Is it really just a friendship? (Picture: Getty Images/Image Source)
‘In the first week of the holiday they were spending loads of time together, and I felt a bit like a spare part sometimes,’ she explained. ‘He chats to her more than me, they joke together, they went to watch the sunset together on the beach alone etc.
‘If we go somewhere, he sits in the middle of us with one of us on either side, but then he talks to her and ignores me, and if I bring this up he just makes out that it’s his right and that I’m boring him by even mentioning it.
‘I love her to bits and believe she is fully on my side, but I hate seeing him laughing and joking with her. I trust her, and I’ve no physical evidence to doubt that he is doing anything, though he’s always on his phone late at night.
‘My family says that I’m being too trusting and that it’s not right. When I’ve tried speaking to him about it and how I feel, he shuts it down and says I’m being ridiculous, and turns it into an argument about how it’s my fault, and I’m being silly.’
Yikes.
But there’s an incident in particular that really made a mark on the poster.
‘One thing that really stood out was a night on holiday where both our DS [darling sons] had fallen asleep in “our” hotel room, so I stayed with them, and DH [darling husband] who’d been texting her all eve went to her hotel room and was gone for ages.
‘When I went over and knocked, they were just sitting on sofa, and she was in her PJs. I have no reason to think anything happened then or any other time, but maybe I’m also being naive!?’
She goes on to ask the key question of the forum – ‘am I being unreasonable’ – and seeks validation for her suspicions that something isn’t quite right between her partner and their friend.
She adds: ‘I trust her, and I’ve never seen any evidence of him cheating. It’s just a bit uncomfortable with it sometimes and any of my other friends who hear about it think I’m a mug.
‘I also hate how he just shuts me down and says I’m being too clingy for even mentioning it.
‘Now we’re back in the UK they’re literally finding every opportunity to go for walks together, and again I feel like the spare part.’
In the comments, people are overwhelmingly in agreement that this just isn’t right.
One person wrote: ‘She is not your friend, if she was, she would know his behaviour is out of line, and she would take a step back.
‘Her husband doesn’t find her interesting but yours certainly does, she cares more about getting attention from him than how his behaviour makes you feel.’
Another simply wrote: ‘Sounds disrespectful to me.’
‘He’s having an affair with her in plain sight,’ commented someone else. ‘He’s gaslighting you when you bring it up.
‘Sorry OP, but he’s checked out of your marriage, and your friend is no friend.’
‘Wake up woman,’ said another. ‘Stop trying to be a cool wife and realise that at the very minimum, the pair of them are treating you with a total lack of respect.’
‘I feel like the spare part.’