Husband (36M) said I (F33) am abusive and controlling because I am uncomfortable with his female friend. Do I have grounds for concern or is my behaviour the issue?

Hi.

So, I’ve been with my husband about three years and in this time, he’s had a female friend (he plays music with) who I have always been uncomfortable with. I find her perhaps not intentionally disrespectful of my boundaries but does a lot of things I find upsetting, which my husband tells me I’m overreacting about.

I don’t want to jump to making assumptions about the nature of their relationship, so I’m going to stick to things I’ve experienced that have made me feel uncomfortable. Interestingly, my husband’s last (volatile) marriage ended after his last wife contacted this girl and accused them of sleeping together. So I’m not the first partner with a problem. I just don’t get what’s going on and what I should do.

The things I’ve found inappropriate:

-while they were away over Christmas for 17 days for a music tour in 2017-18, she sent me a photo of them on Xmas day. No text or context, just them together. Our marriage counsellor at the time found it strange and to me it felt like a rub in my face. Husband defended her and said she was just trying to include me. However on the day, I told her I was struggling and missed him and she snapped “sorry for taking your husband, next time I won’t ask him to tour.”

-when we first met, she told me my husband thought she has nice legs. Has made weird comments like this at times - he’s generally a nice dude and comments to people about these things, so I don’t think he’s actively trying to do the wrong thing here. But her relaying it to me sucks

-posts stories and photos of them on instagram together on special occasions like NYE countdowns. Which would be fine except I’m excluded from those things as it’s “work” and we were supposed to use the time around this recent 2018/19 and NYE to go away together - which he ended up taking gigs with her over because he said he needed money. I even offered my work bonus as I had taken 2 weeks off work to spend with him but he said no and took nye with her anyway.

-she touches him in front of me. Seems harmless but I don’t like it. Recently my husband put on a bit of weight and she was rubbing his belly in front of me while we were talking about it.

-she asks him to take posed photos of her and asked him what he thought of a photo shoot she did recently (granted she asks me and others too and is obsessed with social media). She often seeks validation from him and it’s a bit of a theme. At one point she asserted he would be proud as she dumped a guy she was having issues with. She often asks him for advice or comes to him when things go wrong, like not making it onto a talent singing show, or her mum making negative comments about her photos. He insists they never discuss us.

-in January, he was supposed to meet friends for dinner. He told them he didn’t want to go to a busy club but took her out to another pub for dinner and paid for her meal. He generally pays for people so this is just his nature but he didn’t tell me. I found out through her saying to me how nice my husband was for taking her for a meal. At this point he minimised it when I raised the issue of him not telling me, saying I was being inappropriate and that he doesn’t have to tell me who he’s eating with.

-he has advised me frequently that they “rarely talk” (exact words) and that I talk to her more than him. For some reason my gut told me this was not the case, so I checked our phone bill on the weekend (as I pay it) to see that over the year, they have long phone conversations - one as long as an hour an a half back in April. Within the last month, they’ve talked 7 times (that’s only his calls to her that I can see too) and often for 45 mins - an hour at a time on average. I challenged him about this, specifically him telling me they “rarely talk” and then he said “you talk on the phone too, doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong”. He then denied lying to me about their contact and said he’s only been speaking to her recently about his issues with work, her losing her job and a music project he is going to work on with her. My issue is being told “we rarely talk” and then seeing evidence of hour long phone calls, particularly over the last month. I’ve noticed he has stopped talking to me about personal things or asking about my life and I feel it’s because he is getting it from her - however; he is allowed to have friends and these are just my feelings - he says he doesn’t talk to me because I’m “nasty” and attributes his distance to this. However, he still maintains he’s not lying and I’m just trying to control his friendship.

-he effectively agreed to work on a project producing her next EP, but without any remuneration discussed. So he is basically going to be working for free and he says this is fine as “I’m only doing it when I have time” and that he just wants to do it. I find this frustrating because he has a huge tax bills and is constantly telling me he has no money (I bought him a surprise overseas trip for his bday and he has done nothing but complain about work he will miss and how he can’t afford it) but is willing to give time for free to her. Additionally, he rarely spends any time with me apart from going out for breakfast every so often and attributes this to being time poor - yet has time to spend on long phone calls and potentially work on a project “when he has the time” without money discussed.

-she sometimes baby talks him and calls him his full name in a drawn out high pitched voice.

Overall, I’ve discussed my concerns with him and my boundaries and he’s brushed it off, called me controlling, said they are just friends an that he’s not doing anything wrong however he doesn’t speak to other friends or even me that much. He calls me controlling yet has been annoyed at me for wearing shorts home (this followed accusations I was doing something inappropriate and lying about who owned the shorts) and recently told me to “back off” a male friend for no good reason, as well as insinuated I was trying to force myself onto him (I’m also friends with this guy’s girlfriend and there is nothing going on - I also tell him whenever I go out with friends etc).

I told husband I was unhappy about being lied to about the phone contact and that I’d like him to stop talking to her outside of work but he’s calling me controlling, saying he will talk to her as he wishes and that I’m not to give ultimatums. I told him I would not continue a marriage with him if he chose to continue to speak to her the way he currently is, in spite of knowing it’s hurting me and he said “your choice”. He’s unwilling to compromise with her, is highly protective of their friendship and just calls me controlling. My gut feels so off about her and I’ve been in 10 year relationships and never felt like this once. I feel she has a pretty strong hold on husband and is virtually untouchable.

I haven’t said “don’t work with her” - I’ve merely asked for him to just keep it to work. When we first got together he said she was nothing but a colleague he didn’t care that much about but his actions and words now indicate otherwise to me and you just don’t speak for that long to people on the phone that regularly If you’re married, surely. She’s also single, so leans on him for support she should be getting from a friend, psych or partner. I have no other issues with any of his other female friends either. He once told me when I asked he wasn’t attracted to her but that “even if I liked her she wouldn’t be interested in me anyway because she likes muscly guys.”

I told him I would approach her if he can’t set a boundary but he told me if I approached her with this he would break up with me. My concerns have been ongoing for some time.

Am I being a controlling partner or do I have grounds for concern here? What should I do?

Thanks for reading. I’m really struggling.

TL;DR: My husband has a female friend who makes me uncomfortable. I talked to him and he believes I’m controlling, refusing to stop contacting her out of work. Not sure if I’m being controlling or whether there is an issue here.

Submitted July 01, 2019 at 03:14PM by chooseyourweapon https://ift.tt/3017TbV