'I was horrified by message I spotted from my husband's female colleague'

A woman was left feeling insecure after she noticed her husband had been meeting up with a colleague one-on-one behind her back - but she was worried she was just being 'jealous'

When you're married to someone, you'll assume they'll be faithful to you and won't skip out any juicy details about what they're up to.

So when one woman found out that her husband of 10 years had been meeting up with a female colleague behind her back, she was left seething - and she only realised because she saw his work messages.

"A new woman started at my husband's work about a year ago. They worked very closely together and would occasionally text, but he has always been open about the texts, nothing secretive," the wife explained on Mumsnet.

She shared that the female colleague is "married with children" who are the same age as their child (six), so they "bonded" over that - but she was concerned when she found out they'd been meeting up for lunch, and he hadn't mentioned anything.

The stressed wife shared: "He took a new role (same company, just a different team), but they had a catch-up, and she got tearful, saying she missed him. He told me about it, and I thought that was a little odd; I said it sounds like more of an emotional connection than is perhaps healthy, and perhaps he should back off."

But rather than backing off, "they have been meeting for one-on-one lunches out of the office during work time". The woman only found out because she saw a message on his Teams that popped up "saying she was looking forward to seeing him".

"I asked him about this, saying why have you been doing this and why keep it secret if you didn't think it was anything wrong?," she fumed, continuing: "I said I didn't feel comfortable with him spending time out of the office, going on walks etc just the two of them as this feels like more of a date! I asked how many times had they done this and he said two or three!"

Her husband said his colleague was "going through a rough time", and he was providing "emotional support". The wife told him that she didn't want him meeting up with her alone, but wasn't bothered about group settings as "they work together". However, she was worried she was just being "jealous".

In a Mumsnet poll, a whopping 89% of people said she wasn't being unreasonable. One woman wrote in response: "One of my friend's husband did exactly this, and he was 100% interested in the other woman. It's a well-trodden dynamic, the selfless work friend painting himself as a hero and emotional crutch to her, but of course, 'nothing more'.

"In my opinion, if you've got to the stage of telling him what he can't do because his own boundaries are so s**t, then you're wasting your time only to receive secrecy and disrespect."

Someone else disagreed, however, sharing: "I used to go out for coffee/lunch with a male colleague 3/4 times a week, often drinks after work. We became good friends, still keep in contact, went to each other’s weddings, and have been on holiday together. Never has there been any attraction from either side."