A middle-aged mum has appealed to fellow parents on Mumsnet after discovering a 'relationship' between her 47-year-old husband and a younger woman. Alarm bells started ringing when she learned her husband had been exchanging texts with a former colleague, a young woman in her twenties. "She used to work for him," the woman explained, “he was her manager. At the time, things weren’t great between us. He was coming home every day in a foul mood, not even acknowledging me most nights.
According to the wife, the husband would "blame the stress of work " for his behaviour at home. However, he seems to display little awareness or sympathy towards his wife when he goes on to explain how much fun he is having at work.
"He then talked about how much fun he had at work and that they 'spent the whole day laughing'. He mentioned a few colleagues but this one (the girl) he mentioned more than most. I actually lost my temper with him because he was mentioning her so much."
The young woman left the company to the relief of the wife, who was becoming concerned about the relationship. "I thought that would be the end of it", she added.
Unfortunately for her, the pair continued to speak, as that's when the texting started: "At the weekend [he] showed me his phone and I could see that there was a conversation between the two of them.
"Basically she was asking him if he was going to someone’s leaving do and he said he wasn’t. All innocent enough, but why are they still in contact? Especially as I raised concerns about her in the past."
Flooding to the comments section on the post, many Mumsnet respondents did not mince their words: "My DH [darling husband] has female friends from before he retired but the main difference is that I am friendly with them too and he never came home and treated me like s****.”
Another commenter fired from both barrels, writing: "Men seem to want to put little effort into the long term relationships, like to have a partner at home doing all the grunt work and then let their heads be turned by anyone carefree and fun meanwhile having the benefits of someone washing their pants and cleaning their toilet s. You are not wrong to be p***** off by this".
Meanwhile, a third Mumsnet user was even more direct: "I think they are both pathetic, she obviously likes the attention and he's probably fantasising about her while telling himself he's just a cool guy that young people want to be friends with".
Others offered a different point of view, with one arguing: "The workplace has many age ranges. I manage staff half my age and a text from one of them asking if I was going to a leaving do is really nothing, even if they've left. Staff who've left still consider former colleagues as friends".
