My friend is having some problems in her marriage, but it’s a pretty big problem. She wants to hang out with her husband more and more, and she now not only meets him for lunch on weekdays, but also goes out at night and has sleepovers late into the night. In theory I’m also invited to go on these outings, but unless I can find a sitter, I have to stay home with the kids most of the time.
She also rides the Ozempic train, and thanks to her weight loss, she seems to really feel herself and is usually completely fine when she goes out with her husband. To me it feels like she’s dressing up for the hubs and it makes me uncomfortable.
To be honest, I don’t even know what my question is, but I feel threatened and jealous even though I trust my husband. A friend of hers previously told Hubbs that she had a “perfect” marriage, but by spending time alone with her husband, she was able to take some of that marriage into her own hands. It seems to me that you are about to experience it. I literally feel like a babysitter.
I mentioned my concerns to my husband and he said of course nothing would happen and that he would be happy to send me off with a friend. But that doesn’t mean I feel left out. It’s that my friend and my husband are playing a happy couple. She treats me all the time and does a lot of expensive things that Hubs and I wouldn’t do together.
Do I think I should let it go because I trust the Hubs? Am I a big baby?
jealous: Jealousy gets a bad rap.
There’s a good reason for that. It quickly turns into a fear-based platform for possessiveness, control, and other very scary ideas. But in its purest original form, it’s an alarm. In that sense, jealousy is no different from fear or anger. Living with it every day or acting carelessly is not healthy. It’s always our own problem and no one else’s, but the occasional worsening of symptoms is meant to wake us up that something is wrong.
But many of us, through our valid efforts to not be possessive and controlling, and our not-so-valid efforts to not seem “crazy,” become very cool when we are jealous. I have conditioned myself to behave like this. We just get away with it, declare that we’re not that “type” and purposefully don’t react. Or worse, “No, honey, I’m thrilled that you go out with another woman on a regular basis and enjoy all the different fun things you don’t have the luxury of spending together. So why don’t you stay out late? Please. I’ll take care of the childcare and housework.”
That’s wrong. If you regularly have young children at home while your husband is away, even if it’s not malicious, you’re serving as a trusted sidekick for an old friend trying to make a fresh start. If so, that alone is enough to justify putting your foot down. Even if he lived with his grandfather.
The fact that he’s emotionally awakened and out with his newly hot female best friend and it doesn’t feel good in your belly at all is not a reason to doubt yourself, it’s an alarm. Just giving you two more reasons to pay attention.
Anti-jealousy campaigns are so effective that you’ll probably need to explain jealousy when you talk to your husband. Your letters already prove this: you both frame the problem as “nothing will happen!!!” A condition where something completely legitimate and undesirable has already happened. Being at home will make you feel as if they are a couple and you are the sitter. It’s normal that you don’t want that.
So let’s get back on topic with him. Because you trust him, support his friendship, and support this friend in dealing with an unhappy marriage, you openly admit that you’re struggling to find the “right” way to talk about this. Please tell me. But you also don’t like that the social center of gravity in your marriage has shifted outside of you.
You can also say that you don’t like feeling like you’re the only one who notices this and speaks up. Because that’s part of the problem, right? You haven’t specifically stated how frequent those “dates” have become, so all I can do is extrapolate emotionally from your mention of “increasingly.” nevertheless. Since he’s getting along well with you, it can’t be helped that he doesn’t actively say no to his friend’s “masu”. If not his heart, then at least his brain is the organ most likely to provide a clue as to what is good and what is not good for a marriage.
This is an awakening for you to wake him up. If he agrees to back off just to appease you, he won’t understand. It’s not just about one overly friendly friend, it’s about your marriage in general.