Hi, Carolyn: I have a concern about my husband’s female friend. They’ve been good friends for years, and even pre-pandemic both worked from home, so they’ve had similar flexibility in their schedules to hang out or talk or whatever. Totally great with this; I like Friend, and I’m glad Hubs has someone to talk to.
Friend has been having some troubles in her marriage, pretty big ones. She’s started wanting to hang out with my husband more and more, and now it’s going out at night and staying out late, and not just meeting for a workday lunch. I’m theoretically invited to these outings, but I have to stay home with the kids most of the time unless we can find a sitter.
She’s also been on the Ozempic train, and with the weight loss, she seems to be really feeling herself, generally getting really done up when she and my husband go out. To me, it feels like she’s dressing up FOR Hubs, which gives me the icks.
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I’m not even sure what my question is, to be honest, but I’m feeling threatened and jealous, even though I do trust my husband. Friend has mentioned before to Hubs that he has a “perfect” marriage, and it seems to me that she’s trying to experience her own piece of that by spending solo time with my husband. I literally feel like the babysitter.
I’ve mentioned my concerns to my husband, and of course he says nothing will ever happen and he’d be happy to send me out with Friend. But it’s not that I’m feeling left out; it’s that Friend is playing happy couple with my husband. She always treats, so they do a lot of expensive stuff that Hubs and I wouldn’t do together.
What do you think, do I just need to let it go since I trust Hubs? Am I being a big baby?
— Jealous
Jealous: Jealousy gets a bad rap.
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There are good reasons for that — it quickly turns into a fear-based platform for possessiveness and control and other deeply terrible ideas — but in its purest original form, it is an alarm. Jealousy is no different from fear or anger in that sense; it’s not healthy to live with daily or act upon rashly, and it’s always our problem, not anyone else’s, but occasional flare-ups are intended to wake us up to something that isn’t right.
Yet in valid efforts not to be possessive or controlling — and some less-valid efforts not to seem “crazy” — a lot of us have conditioned ourselves to play it super extra cool when we’re jealous. We knuckle through it, declare ourselves not to be that “type” and purposely don’t respond. Or worse: “No, honey, I’m thrilled you’re going out regularly with another woman and having all kinds of fun we can’t afford to have together, so stay out late; I’ll cover the kids and the housework.”
That is a mistake. When you’re routinely home with small kids while your husband goes out to play, even harmlessly as a trusted wingman to an old friend wanting a fresh start, that’s enough to justify the putting down of feet. Even if he were out living it up with his grandfather.
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End of carouselThat he’s out with his emotionally awakened and newly hottened female BFF, and it doesn’t feel good to you at all in your gut, just gives you two more reasons to heed the alarm, not reasons to question yourself.
The campaign against jealousy has been so effective that you will have to account for it when you talk to your husband. Your letter already proves this: You’re both framing the issue in “nothing will ever happen!!!” terms when a perfectly legitimate unwanted thing has already happened. You’re at home feeling like they’re the couple and you’re the sitter! It’s normal not to want that.
So reopen the topic with him. Say upfront you’ve had a hard time figuring out the “right” way to talk about this, because you do trust him, do support his friendship, do support this friend in addressing her unhappy marriage. But you also don’t like that the center of social gravity in your marriage has shifted outside the two of you.
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You can also say you don’t like feeling as if you’re the only one noticing and speaking up about this — because that’s part of it, right? You don’t specify how frequent these, um, “dates” have become, so all I can do is emotionally extrapolate from your reference to “more and more.” But still. It can’t help that he’s not proactively saying no to “more and more” of the friend because his heart is at home with you. If not his heart, then at least his brain, as the organ most likely to serve up a clue about what is and isn’t good for a marriage.
This is your wake-up to wake him up. If he agrees to back off only to appease you, then he doesn’t understand — which would make all this about your marriage in general, not just the one over-friendly friend.
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