My (37F) husband’s (38M, married 5y) potential emotional affair partner is meeting with me to discuss a semi-unrelated conflict. How do I handle this?

My husband and I work in the same very small field, but at different employers. I have a lot of leadership stuff within our local professional community. He works with a woman who, in my opinion, has been incredibly inappropriate with him. Really clingy, late night calls about how she’s lonely, very touchy-feely, has told me that she knows him better than I do (she’d known him for all of 6 months at that point), has tried to get him to go for drinks/meals one-on-one, strokes his ego nonstop, etc. About a year ago, she came to our house for a professional event and made several comments about how people with my credentials were not qualified to do the job that we both do. I am quite a bit senior and more successful, objectively, than she is, FWIW. After that incident, I have avoided her. I’ve never been rude or anything, but I don’t go out of my way to talk to her on the 3-ish times a year that I see her.

She has used this as an excuse to complain about what a meanie I am to many of our colleagues and very frequently to my husband. Like, a lot. Like many many more times (that I know of) than I have actually seen her. So finally, being fed up, I texted her yesterday saying that I had heard that she felt that there was an issue between us, and I would like to clear it up. She thanked me for reaching out, and we are meeting today.

So here is my question: how should I address this? I feel like it is reasonable to discuss the professional comments, but I am not sure if I should bring up the other stuff, or how inappropriate it is that she complains about me to my husband. TBH, if it weren’t for the stupid shit with my husband, I would have forgotten about this a long time ago. Also, I feel like the only reason that she cares this much about me just mildly avoiding her on a semi-yearly basis is to stir up drama and have a wedge with my husband.

Yes, it is totally my husband’s job to shut this down. But after about 4 million conversations about it, he won’t, partly due to a spine deficiency and partly because he wants the attention (my interpretation). He will not be present. He is a whole topic for another day.

TL;DR: Husband’s potential EA partner is coming over for a sit-down. How to proceed?

Submitted May 05, 2019 at 04:33AM by EAThrowAway100 http://bit.ly/2ZZhZuP