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Girlfriend Texting/Hanging with married man?
I am Male mid 20's
She is female mid 20's
Her friend is Male 30's I think???
First of all I am not a guy that is getting jealous about my girl texting other guys. It is just a very strange scenario. I will explain it a little bit.
1. She usually hangs out with the guy, his wife and kids. They are basically family friends, all good I get it.
2. When the wife and kids leave town and he stays because of work, she goes over there because he does not like to be alone.
3. Whenever we hang out, they usually text frequently unless we are on a date out of respect. Totally fine with it.
4. However, when she is over there. Especially on those weekends when the wife and kids leave town. Her replies to me are virtually none at all. Maybe 1 every 2-3 hours if any at all. (again totally fine but kinda of sketchy when looking at number 2&3.
Again, I totally love her and am not super jealous easily. I really have not gotten paranoid about this at all. She is super open about. She is the one who tells me she is going to hang out with him because he is home alone, when she could totally lie about it. I don't get pissy or mopey and try to make her feel bad about going over there because I trust her.
However it is slightly concerning to me, I just want other peoples feed back.
Am I just being paranoid and should not worry?
Or should I lay some rules down about this whole thing with her going over there alone with just those two. I would honestly say the most concerning thing to me is how she texts him when we hang and texts me when she is over there and the family is all there, but does not reply when it is just him and her there alone. I don't know, I don't want to start assuming anything but it is a strange situation. Any help would be awesome!
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There really isn't enough details to really go on here.
I suppose the statics of the situation would really depend on whether you have valid reasons to suspect anything may be going on.
One thing that raises a little concern is how she is always texting the guy, Has she crossed the line between having boundaries in the friendship in anyway? Does she seem to ignore you?
How often does this situation of his wife not being home occur? Perhaps it could be an innocent friendship but how come she never invited you to tag along?, Why does she feel the need to go over because "He doesn't like being alone" this is where I would be a bit awry of the situation. It is awesome that you are laid back and trust her but my friend, Sometimes being completely 100% laid back about things isn't always necessarily a good thing. Many times the ones who shrug it off and try to be cool about things are the ones who miss the clues. I would speak to her about it, Let her know that you are okay with the friendship but you are feeling as if they may be hanging out a bit much and maybe she should talk to him about learning to cope while his wife is away rather then relying so much on a companion to keep him company. One way to not be paranoid so much is to try and include yourself, Get to know the guy and let him know that she is your girl. (Not coming out and saying it but you know where I'm getting at) Talk to your girlfriend about setting higher boundaries. Let her know that you wish you two could spend more time together etc. However on the trust thing, Wonderful! Just don't let your trust end up getting the better of you.
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I wonder exactly how regularly this is occurring that his wife and kids leave on the weekends. I can't say how much is too much but it sure looks odd to me that a wife is leaving home every weekend she can...maybe to visit relatives. When you get married, usually you spend more time with the spouse on weekends than parents and siblings even if you are close family. Does he work out of home and require peace and quiet so they leave, or does she leave for other reasons not related to wanting to see the family, such as marital issues? You don't know and I cant begin to guess. You don't know the guy.
You said the excuse or reason she goes to see him when he is alone is simply cus he doesnt like being alone. Big whoop de do! Aw...Poor 30 yr old baby. Time he grows up! My daughter had a Navy husband and had to get used to being alone for great chunks of time. If this guy can't handle a weekend alone, the issue may be that he has a phobia...a fear of being alone that he has not addressed or gone to see a Dr. about. If he is just feeling lonely, how come he can't handle two days alone? Lots of us have to face more than that alone and still keep our focus on our partners as our priority.
While the age spread isn't a big thing, there is a brain issue that is. It is a well documented fact that the pre-frontal cortex of our brains aren't fully done developing until we hit our mid 20s at least. Before then, we are prone to not make the very best judgements and decisions and think things through. So I ask, what is a 30 yr old or older married man who should mentally know better by now, doing inviting over a 20 year old to keep him company just because the poor lonely married man is "lonely?" A couple hundred years ago, A married man being alone in the presence of an unmarried female would be not be considered a gentleman, he'd be a terrible scoundrel to be avoided and develop a bad reputation for himself as well as ruining reputation of the unmarried young women.
Even if he had nothing but pure intentions, a man would at least care enough about the reputation of the young lady to not do anything to place her in such a position of question-ability.
This all leads me to believe this man isn't thinking first of your girlfriends reputation or how it will look to others. I am prone to believe he is thinking more about himself. Even if he has never asked her to come over, and she volunteered, he should still be giving consideration to how it looks.
So why does it have to be her going over? Why can't he be the one to leave his house and go elsewhere? And why does it have to be just her. Does he have no one else who can be company for him when the family is away. Haha, if he really misses the family all that much, then he'd find a way to spend more time together with them now, despite his job, wouldn't he? If he misses his wife that much by the end of Saturday, why isn't he on the phone to talk to her instead of calling your girlfriend or having her over to visit. I say theres a possibility that something isn't quite right with the marriage. That they have issues which they may or may not have even addressed. Your girlfriend may not be experienced enough in life yet to be able to see or spot these possible issues if they were staring her in the face.
If he were lonely, didn't anyone think that a long phone call chatting should take care of it? I have had a bored or lonely friend, male or female call me before, but they don't expect me, a married woman to leave my husband alone to come keep them company.
So we've got a man who doesnt even think about her reputation and has a fear of being alone or doesnt like being alone and has no other friends he can hang with. Makes me think there is something very questionable and weird about him. Also, he may possibly be a worka holic on top of it all because he works weekends, thats if he works M-F also and has no time off during the week.
But apparently you've never met and know nothing about him, right? So all guesses on my part and yours are just wild guesses until you meet and can determine for yourself if there are any problems with the guy. So what you could do is tell the girlfriend that you'd like to meet her friends, go over sometime to meet the family, find out what he does for work if he works from home. Do they have a lot of friends. Just get a feel for him. If something doesnt add up, discuss it later with the girlfriend. But you can't really say anything if you dont know the guy. Once you've met, then next time she says she's going to visit just him, tell her to invite him over or better yet invite him yourself.
If he continually turns you down in favor of the company of your girlfriend at his house, then it's not a matter of him having problems being alone cus he wouldn't be alone if hanging out with the both of you, its him wanting just her alone which could mean he doesnt like your company at all, can't stand you as a person or he's having an affair with the girlfriend.
Neither of you discussed this beforehand or laid any ground rules. Too late to do so now just because you don't like the texting pattern change.
I will say that spending time visiting is one thing, but constant texting or calling and talking with him during the week is a bit overboard. Perhaps as a female, she is enjoying soaking up the attention from another male. I have 3 daughters ranging from 22 to 28. They all have a boyfriend. Some of their girlfriends are married. None of them have any separate contact with the husbands of the girlfriends even if they now consider those husbands to be friends of theirs.
They are crazy about their boyfriends and it would be pretty rude to consistantly talk to others, anyone other than the boyfriend they are with...thats how they see it. Even if its me calling and they've promised focused time with the boyfriend, my daughters will ask me to call later and give a time or promise to call me later or tomorrow. They have their priorities straight, meaning they give their full attention to the person they are with, the guy they tell me is very special to them. If you were that special to her, I would think you could expect at least a little more attention and focus from your girl when you are with her. I guess I am just from another generation, and I consider that rude behavior. And then not to answer you when you try to reach her when she's away? Give it some time, time will tell if she's really that into you or not. She may be open about what she is doing going over there and she may be all innocent in that but taking choosing to take texts or calls consistantly when together with you is a way of showing that the person on the other end of the line is more than the person she is currently with. I am not sayng she can't answer a text or call but to answer saying, hey Danny and I are having some alone time and are waiting for a movie to start we planned to watch on TV, so can you call later or I'll chat with you tomorrow. It may not have occurred to her to do so. You may bring up this issue with her, that when you two are actually doing something together, not on an official date but doing something together at home or when just hanging out together, that you would appreciate if she give priority to you instead of taking time to have a text conversation or phone conversation with other people, no matter who. Don't say that this is only about accepting text/calls from the 30yr old cus its not just about him but her not giving you the same amount of time and priority and attention. This should apply to any person calling, even her mom unless its an emergency or to pass a piece of info quickly.
What counts in the end is that the both of you have a loving healthy relationship. The relationship is in balance, with both of you getting all your needs met from the other and both putting in equal amount of energy into the relationship to make it work. A person can not do that if their attention is divided into too many directions, and priority given or too much time put into other things. I've heard it explained that males tend to have several priorities in life, not just one. Most young women have just the one priority, their guy. Guys on the other hand are doing well if they are juggling the 3 most important ones, giving equal time to each, meaning work or school being one, a girlfriend or wife number two, family or buddies, number three usually. Perhaps she is able to juggle more than just a boyfriend as one of her priorities. It becomes an issue if she lets you slip to 2nd or 3rd priority down on the totem pole and you would have to bring that up with her. What ever has displaced you as a top priority needs to be discussed. If she cannot give you that same status again or you never had it, then you are not as important to her as she is to you....not a good mix for a relationship.
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I agree it is a strange situation and you have the right to be curious, the fact that alarm bells are ringing is a good thing as you probably do not want their relationship to escalate int something more than friendship.
At this point I would suggest proving that you are the better man and fight for her. Try and discreetly prevent her from seeing him on his own as often by deciding to take her for a meal or to see a film. Do not at any point let on that you are suspicious or do not trust her because that could be the excuse she is looking for to get rid of you but do not just shrug it off either.
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Ever here the expression; "where there is smoke there is fire." This is one of these scenarios that the expression fits. She is 20; he is 30 not much of an age difference between them. His wife is out of town and they have the house to themselves. This definitely gives the opportunity for some friction to cause some smoke to happen. Once the smoke starts fire is not far behind.
To be more direct I think you might just be a little too trusting a little bit too naïve about what could be happening especially given #4.
Laying down rules with her is not the way to go. What you need to do is to tell her that it is not proper for her to be alone with a married man in his home when his wife is a way. It just doesn't look right. It just starts people's tongues wagging and before she knows it she has a reputation she does not want or need. He also gets a reputation he does not need and this gossip gets back to his wife. Gossip true or false will hurt his marriage and their friendship.
What I've just written is not 100% the reason you are talking to her about what is going on with her friends. It is better than confronting her with what you believe might be going on. If she is having an affair with him she might defend her relationship to vehemently and that will be your key to know if this is anything more than a platonic relationship. Where you go from there is up to you.
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I think laying down 'rules' is unwise. The if delayed texting is your only objective evidence, that's really really thin. Different friendships have different norms, and it could be as simple as that her norm with him doesn't involve checking her phone as often.
So take an alternate approach: Invite him over to hang out with you both. Go to a bar, make a meal, go to a movie or an event.
My boyfriend had a similar female friend when we moved in together. Frankly, she is now one of my better friends, and I never have the briefest of worries when they hang out one on one. I'm comfortable knowing that they both (him and her) respect and care for me too, and enjoy our time all together, but also I know they talk up a storm one-on-one and I don't expect to hear from him until he is on his way home.
Perhaps more importantly, if she is going to cheat, or has cheated, making rules about texting is not going to change or stop that. Your default should be trust, and it sounds like that is your default. Your gut doesn't seem to be telling you anything is off, you are just feeling a bit jealous about the quality of texting.
By all means also ask her to be more responsive when she is over there, but also invite her friend (and his wife too?) to get to know you as a couple and as people.
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