Text Messaging

My two year old was playing with my husband's phone while my husband was asleep. Typically he'll pull up YouTube and watch his favorite cartoon but I noticed he had pulled up something and was just hitting the keyboard. I took the phone and saw a pulled up message and the words "thank you baby Girl" caught my eye. I then read the message and scrolled up to read the rest. It was a message between my husband and a female co worker. There were a few messages between the two...mainly during work hours. There was nothing explicit but the fact that she refers to him as chocolate thunder and he as baby girl which struck a chord. Their texts are mainly work related, but still feel unsure what to make out of it. She gave him a new clip phone (his had recently broke) and when I subtly questioned which store he get it from, at first he acted as if he hadn't heard me and when I asked again he said a girl at work (same girl from texts). Should this be reason enough to feel uneasy and bring it up or am I looking too much into this?

Struck a chord? BB02, it signifies MORE than just a chord being struck! You do NOT call a mere colleague chocolate thunder or baby girl. Never mind the work content - those are LOVERS terms of address and that's that. Neither do mere colleagues buy each other's phones. They're having an emotional affair, clear as the nose on your face. Whether or not they've sealed it physically yet is another matter entirely. But within the context of an emotional affair, the whether and when is academic. He's having an affair. You know it, I know it, the natives in deepest, darkest Borneo know it. So what now?

The names could be called in jest. In my work place we used to call each other by various names. Was part of harmless fun. But in this case you talk about gifting a phone. Thats to be viewed with suspicion. Why would she gift him a phone unless she was the reason for it to have broken? Like SusieDQ says speak to him. He needs to know that you are aware of this message.

(I can work out why she'd have bought him a phone.) I'm not sure how he could claim to be all that surprised about your now being aware of those messages considering your 2-year-old "typically" plays with his phone as just as typically would necessitate your intervention at some point (*as* we've just witnessed was indeed the case). Why wouldn't he delete the questionable content? Sourvenir?...Couldn't bring himself to? Also, why TELL you a *female* colleague bought that clip phone when he could so easily have claimed he bought it himself or his boss gave it to him (- how would YOU know any different)? Actions! He allowed a wish to be found out to influence his decisions. Leverage Affair. Somebody wants a situation where you sit up more to attention yet lack enough really distinctive and damning evidence to do anything as drastic as call the marriage quits, BB02. Does somebody feel too ignored and neglected (awww, dere-dere) since the baby came along, where even briefly negative attention is an improvement on the situation? Or does he feel you've grown too much in confidence from becoming a mum and resentfully wants to pull you back down a peg or two? Or had you up until the birth spoiled him and made him feel like to you he's some sort of celebrity diva who can do whatever he damn well pleases and likely get away with it scott-free because you wouldn't dare risk doing anything to lose him and/or lose your baby's happy family set-up to another woman, let alone complain or ultimatum him too heavily? Or a mixture of all three, perhaps? The mistress is his tool for manipulating you with. Picture the scene: It turns out the mistress wants more than he and his original marital-leverage agenda intended. She's getting "heavy". He tries to cool it a bit, through either losing his bottle or seeing he already has enough upsetting yet vague-ish evidence for you to stumble across, and/or having gained enough of a reminder for confidence-raising purposes (other women think I'm sexy, mleugh) and no longer having such achy b*lls... Cue "Whoops, sorry, Mistress, my, er, phone broke, that's why I didn't return your call the other night, and it'll probably take me a good week or so to get it fixed or get a new one because I'm soooo busy lately,..er, I'll (cough!) try to let you know when it's ready and what its new number is". Mistress Control-Freak isn't having that, OH, NO! She's 'not just going to let him IG-NOOORE her, Dan'!! So she gifts him a new one - "There you go, aren't I nice (and no excuses, now, for not still calling and texting me, you b*gger!)". What's he going to do? Call her a meddling, controlling b*tch or even just ungraciously decline when (cough!) all she did was oh-so-thoughtfully buy him a present? Can't do that - he might need her services again at a moment's notice thus needs her to stay warm and waiting on the side... in case the evidence you inevitably stumble upon isn't quite enough to reinstate him as king of your world again. Plus the fact of a female colleague buying him a phone in the first place is very handy as something by which to rouse your suspicions in itself. So he finds other excuses to create just a bit of distance from her, including being busy-busy-busy with this work, meaning he can't sit there at his desk texting back and forth or secretly flirting with her at her desk all through the day like he would before. So desperate does she become at sensing him back off a bit that she uses work as an excuse to text him ('you can't complain about my initiating contact when they're work texts, mleugh'), despite a few of said business conversations could wholly likely wait until the next morning in the office. She's after some form of reassurance that he still wants and fancies her. So in them she calls him by his lover's name despite the *mainly* business nature of the message, to see if he reciprocates in kind and bothers to address her other non-work-related comments. He does, but, unbeknown to her, only because he obviously doesn't want her, his leverage tool, to realise he's just using her (and won't *actually* be leaving his wife for her like she'd hoped) and go and react to it by unavailing herself permanently. ('Thanks for the extra wife-upsetting fodder, mistress! I'll leave these ones in my phone for her to - whoops, how did that happen! - stumble across.') If you confront him now you'll hear him come up with the sorts of excuses that sound similar to the above benefit-of-the-doubt-giving attempts, e.g., "Ohhh, it's nothing, just an office in joke... An affair?.. Who me???... How could you even ACCUSE me of such a thing!!?"... Blah, blah, blah, self-righteous rant, rant, rant... Not being sure one way or the other yet certainly having ample data where concerns you starting to worry and dance around on hot coals and eggshells, you now have reason to switch focus firmly back onto HIM...Aim, Fire, BULLSEYE! Leverage Affair. If I'm right? - who wants a so-called soulmate who'd play unconscionably dirty like that rather than come to you honestly, openly, with a show of humble vulnerability in admitting he feels neglected?...particularly when he's supposed to be a real man, who, as such, is supposed to be big enough to understand thus ACCEPT that all husbands have to take a back seat for a while because small babies have to be put first (and emotionally drain you so much you understandably don't want sex as much)? Who, him? Be perfectly okay about not being the centre of your world for a while? Fat chance. Takes a REAL man to be capable of that! In other words, he knows he doesn't have a reasonable leg to stand on so has reverted to nasty little manipulative games that could shake you to the core (hopefully permanently). TWO kids you've got, is it? :-p He's supposed to be yours and your baby's protector from the monster under the bed, the not the damn monster himself! Confront him by all means. But if his so-called reasons aren't stellar, if they leave *any* room for continued doubt, insist on marriage counselling. With a bit of luck you'll get a no-nonsense type who'll take it upon his or herself to however subtly or non-subtly tell him to damn well GROW UP AND BE A MAN!