agonyaunt | (no subject)

DEAR ABBY: My husband has a female friend he grew up with. They have exchanged "happy birthday" texts for many years. However, they have recently begun texting more often. An example: One night he was mixing a drink and texted her about whether to use Pepsi or Coke.

On his birthday, I watched for her text and saw it had two heart emojis on either side of her message. This bothered me a great deal, and I told him his flirting via texting needed to stop. He says I'm being unreasonable and he is doing nothing wrong. This has caused a rift between us.

Abby, AM I unreasonable? I did see a therapist who said my husband has an emotional relationship with this woman and I had every right to be upset. The therapist also said he should stop because I am his wife and he sees how much this upsets me. My husband's response? "Well, you told the therapist YOUR side of the story." We have been married 18 years and together for 24. He is a good partner, and I do love him. What is your advice? -- SUSPICIOUS IN IOWA

DEAR SUSPICIOUS: Your husband had a point when he said your therapist has heard only one side of the story. You have been married to a "good partner" for 18 years and together for 24. If your husband hasn't shown signs of straying before, it's unlikely he's doing anything more than communicating with an old friend. Hearts included in a text message may seem effusive, but they aren't necessarily declarations of romantic love. Some joint sessions with an unbiased marriage and family therapist may help to calm your fears. I heartily recommend it.

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I have no idea if LW's husband is flirting with this woman or not. I gotta say, though, the evidence she presents doesn't seem very compelling. And in this case, I think that if the best you can come up with is this then that's probably because there isn't any stronger argument.

Even the hearts... I don't know, it's just weak. People are allowed to have friends.

If you've been married a long time and he's suddenly getting close with someone you don't know well and you don't know why, it might be a sign that something is changing in the way he feels about the marriage.

You don't fix this by banning him from talking to them, though. You fix this by talking honestly to him and sharing feelings and trusting him to be honest about what's going on, and maybe reaching out to the new friend yourself, too, because it sounds like you could also use a friend. If you can't do any of that, banning him from talking to her isn't going to fix anything.

I wonder how old this LW and her husband are. While i know that i personally would be unlikely to use heart emojis in a text with a platonic male friend, i also wouldn't consider
❤️HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!❤️
to be all that different from messages like
🥳HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!🥳
🎉HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!🎉
🎂HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!🎂

I feel like LW is making a mountain out of a molehill here

They've been married 18 years, so they've gotta be in their mid-30s or older.

Yes, but I also feel like there's a difference between how a 35-year-old and a 55-year-old might perceive those messages. Plus so much of it also depends on how the letter writer herself uses certain emojis since that would also influence her perception of the emojis

I’m 49, and I misuse ❤️s all the time with platonic friends, especially for things like “congratulations“ or “happy birthday.”

I'm 39, I will occasionally use ❤️/🩷/💖 with my female friends. With male friends, I am much less likely to use a heart with the exception of using 💙 and 🖤 when I replied to condolence messages after my father died a few years ago

I'm 51, and not only my male friends and I, but also my male coworkers and I, send hearts to each other all the time. On work slack it often just means 'thank you'.

Personally, I wouldn't read it as romantic but it is ambiguous. It's not a birthday cake but also not an eggplant.

It's not a birthday cake but also not an eggplant.

A sentence that still reads as profoundly weird to me, even though I know what it means.

The thing is, if someone's feeling jealous or uncomfortable, that in and of itself isn't A Wrong Thing. You have a right to your discomfort.

But! The LW's therapist is just one person, and doesn't have the right to unilaterally decide things for both partners.

So if LW feels it's cheating emotionally, and isn't being heard, then she needs to decide what she wants to do about it. *Is* it worth cutting him off? Is it worth ending the marriage over? Is he still a good partner other than this issue? If so, does it outweigh everything else? I wouldn't say so, but I'm not jealous in this way, and I'm not feeling shut out in this way.

Right. I exchange texts with platonic friends that say things like, "Love you, buddy" and "you're amazing" and nobody thinks I'm secretly carrying on torrid affairs with them, but I will also put your water glass in the dishwasher if you leave it unattended and empty for too long, I do all sorts of things that might make me the wrong partner for a particular hypothetical person. This is for actually sorting out between them, not for submitting to impartial arbitration.

One thing I would be curious about is how the couple text each other. I can imagine a situation where they are less demonstrative over text bc, you know, they see each other all the time.

But then, a text or written message has a kind of longevity that speech does not.

So that could exacerbate the jealousy.

Then again, if there is truly a sudden change in their closeness, that is intriguing, even though there are plenty of possible explanations...

I think that the approach with the greatest chance of success would be something like “It seems like something has changed in your friendship with X, you’re talking a lot more often than your usual yearly birthday greeting. What’s up with that?”

And then actually listen, as opposed to just being jealous.

It may be “we started sharing a hobby,” it may be that the friend had some kind of tragic life occurrence that they turned to the husband for consolation, it may be an ongoing conversation about cocktail mixing, or it may be that they’re flirting.

But if the wife approaches it with the idea that any communication is too much, she’s probably not going to get very far.

I think the real question is why husband's communications with female friend have grown more frequent recently. I agree, LW needs to hear husband's side of the story and not jump to conclusions.

I'm curious though, how is LW seeing these texts? Is she going through husband's phone?
I think LW needs to look into her own feelings of insecurity. Marriage counselling is definitely in order, especially if husband has strayed in the past.

I am on a Blake's 7 discord, and regularly use

deep red <3 emoji icons both in my messages and my reactions

as

"I liked your fanfic"

or "yay, you got that job that you wanted!"

It does not connotate any romantic or sexual interest in any of the people who I am talking to.

Obviously, norms vary from place to place - this is the norm for this particular community, and is also the behaviour of everyone else on the discord.

I have also been known to regularly use <3 in my comments on Archive Of Our Own to mean "I really liked your fanfic" or "I really liked this particular element of your fanfic". Again, zero romantic or sexual connotations.

sings Monogamy, doot doot doo doo doot...

A 24 year marriage relationship where the parties never discussed what counts as flirting or what they’d do if one of them started feeling uncomfortable about a friendship?

His FRIEND texts with heart emojis and LW tells him that HIS flirting has to stop? Tells him that the FLIRTING has to stop? Heart emojis are basically punctuation these days. When I want to express to someone on bluesky that I like their post, I click a heart icon. I’m not telling them I want to have their baby.

A therapist who says it’s not OK for a married man to feel fond of a friend he’s grown up with?

Snooping on your partner’s texts?

Omg. Relationship counseling pronto!