'My husband and his female BFF are keeping secrets and it's sabotaging my marriage.' UPDATED

"My husband’s female best friend is sabotaging our marriage."

My husband has many female friends however I’m only troubled by one of them. I have made it visible to him that I don’t like her but he dismisses my concerns. They have been friends before we met which is as why I initially respected his motive behind maintaining it.

Years prior, his ex girlfriend was so concerned she made him cut her off and when they broke up he got in contact with his friend again. I can now see her perspective over the course of our relationship.

They are crossing boundaries beyond friendship. For example, they would send each other selfies every day and use affectionate terms in their messenger conversations. Doesn’t appear platonic like his other female friends. This is why it stands out.

He lives in Dubai and she is overseas. After my disapproval he is now hiding his contact by calling her from the reception area of our apartment or outside. He texts her in the bathroom and will spend long periods there. 12am up until 4am frequently.

He revealed that when they first met, she had a huge crush on him and at one point try to kiss him but he rejected her advances. He said he doesn’t find her attractive and that she isn’t his type. Within his friendship group she has slept with his two closest friends who were both in serious relationships and married.

These ladies have no clue and have children with these men. I’m sitting with this dreadful information. When I was overseas at one point years prior, his grandmother (who he lived with) told me that she would frequently visit the house to see him. When I flew in she would never come around.

When she did come over to the house one time, he excused himself outside to see her in the parking area and she didn’t come inside the house and it seemed like she was avoiding me. Odd.

To make it worse he insisted that she become one of the bridesmaids for our wedding. On my wedding day during the reception, I wanted to follow him to the honeymoon suite. She had also disappeared for a while. A few people tried to stop me from following. Every time we are at a party or gathering they disappear and seem to be having a private chat.

I always catch them together. I got so upset one time that I ran crying in the restroom. I’m not included when they meet up. The one time I insisted we go for coffee and while we sat there they seemed quiet. I tried playing the friend card with her but she keeps meeting up in secret with him. They speak in their own language so I’m left out.

He says I’m jealous, insecure and need to get over it. Instead of reassuring he is defensive. This makes me wary. I blocked her on social media. She’s in a new relationship but I really think that this is a front. I have haven’t asked him to cut her off but it’s affecting how I feel about him.

He talks in depth about our issues and tells her that we have not been intimate enough (very detailed descriptions about our intimate life) when I saw the conversation I was distraught as I would never discuss this with anyone (hence why I’m posting it here). It’s an invasion of privacy.

He said she is his best friend and he needs to be able to speak to her about anything as a source of comfort. She jokes around in her messages about how he never gets any. We have not been intimate in months. We are basically room mates and it feels empty.

In her messages she would say “I’m thinking about you and me” and he would send ‘I love you’ gifs back. They refer to each other as bro. When I bring it up he says, “She’s one of the boys, I would never be with a girl like that because she’s had over 50+ intimate partners…she was always there for me when I was breaking up with my cheating ex.”

Above our bed where we sleep is a painting she gifted him and I’m prohibited from removing it. Am I the one who is the red flag? As I said most of his friends are female and I have complete trust that those friendships are valuable for him. Just not her. Perhaps it’s time for an ultimatum. Neither will accept changing. Neither think anything is wrong and I’m over retracting.

My instincts are on fire. As they say learn to trust your gut.

What is your advice? What are the next steps?

What do you think? Advice? This is what top commenters had to say:

Fiskies said:

It sounds like he has issues with her lifestyle/ sexual partners that keep him from being with her but he does have a strong emotional connection to her. Regardless, he is disrespecting you as his wife and he is not empathetic to your feelings.

I personally would not want to continue on with a person who is entangled with another. I am sorry you are experiencing this, it must be very painful. Do you have anyone you can go to to get away for a while?

LilacFilter said:

Girl he's cheating on you emotionally and most likely physically too. The fact she has slept with two friends who are married with kids says enough, he's probably the third. How do you not see the red flags? I'd be done with this marriage along time ago. You're letting your husband disrespect you and your marriage, divorce him, he's not worth it.

I am 95% sure he's cheating on you with her, he's gaslit you so many times, don't waste your time and energy in marriage where you're being disrespected like that. Also tell the wives of the married men she slept with, they deserve to know. He's toxic, manipulative, a gaslighter, my god he's full of red flags, leave him and tell the wives

LearnsFromExperience said:

Ummmmmm...his best friend isn't sabotaging the relationship. He is. He's made it consistently clear that he values his relationship with her over everything else, willing to lie and keep secrets to protect their relationship. He's even sacrificed a previous relationship for her. Does that sound like a healthy relationship to you?

It's okay to walk away and leave them to each other. Find someone who wants to spend time with you. With him, you'll always be #2. Always.

UnsightlyFuzz said:

There's something going on there. Your instincts are probably serving you well. But as to what you should do, I don't know you and your needs and supports well enough to advise.

MeesaMadeMeDoIt said:

Your husband is the real problem here, not the friend. If he had any respect for you he would care about how this situation hurts you and set normal boundaries with his friend, but instead he just expects you to suck it up and put up with it - and so far, you have.

Nothing is going to change as long as you keep putting up with this BS. I'd rather be single than married to a man who had such little regard for my feelings.

OP later shared this update:

After the post from yesterday and all of your valuable feedback, I confronted my husband once more about the matter. He was annoyed that I would bring up this ongoing issue once more since he feels that we were past that. He began laughing and said “You’re jealous of that person?!”

He said he will not cut her off that it is not an option. He said that I knew of their friendship when I got into this relationship. He was friends with her before me and so this justifies continuing. I said, what if the tables were turned and I did this with a male friend? He said, the difference is he was friends with her ‘before he met me’.

He said he cannot deal with my jealousy and lack of maturity. That I only see the negative side of friendship between the sexes. He said, you should see the benefits and that when we’re having marriage troubles that she was the one who encouraged him to contact me to mend things. He said it is normal to discuss sexual issues because that’s what she also does with him.

It is to my benefit to have a female friend provide some perspective. As for this friend sleeping with a particular married man in our friendship group, he said, well even though she knew he was about to tie the knot, she was not close to this man’s wife so what’s the problem? “She had been through trauma and so much that it’s ok for her to sleep with him.”

He then said, “Do you enjoy trying to find reasons to not be happy in your marriage? You’re exactly like your mother, making your father’s life a misery.” He knows nothing about my parents. They died long ago and never met them.

He continued, “You create issues that do not exist. You try to go through my phone and try to piece parts of messages together to fit your narrative and to make me look like the bad person. Besides how would you know what was written since it’s all in French?”

He then said, “Both she and I have had many opportunities to cheat even before you came along and not once have either of us acted on it. I do send her messages that I love her because I do love her. She is my best friend and is like my sister. Yes, we spoke about how I don’t get any but it’s now just a running joke between us.”

I then used the ultimatum, me or her. Choose. He said, “I can’t give you what you want, I can avoid talking about several private matters but I don’t send selfies to her regularly. I might have a new thing I’m excited about and send her a photo of myself on occasion."

His demeanor was to not take me seriously and many times laugh because this situation is “ridiculous” with every point I made, he would try to give a counter argument. Where is the love, comfort and reassurance? So now I’m looking into divorce options. The painting has been abandoned.