Legitimate opposite sex work relationship.....could be more

[mm18]

I have a situation that's wearing me down. My husband is a superstar in his profession. He's very successful, and in addition, he's respected and quite the jokester/prankster. People love that. I was attracted to this almost 20 years ago as well.

After I mostly gave up my career to work only part time when our children were born, his demeanor toward me changed a bit and he began to have anger management issues that showed up more at home, with some verbally abusive behavior. I went to counseling to try and cope, I finally convinced him to go to counseling, which he hated because the counselor told him he was being abusive. So he quit, and after two years I stopped going as well because my counselor was advising me to leave the marriage and I wasn't ready to take that step. The only reason I give this information is that the issue isn't totally resolved and I feel it impacts on my ability to "confront" my husband sometimes. OK, oftentimes! He is a good father, in spite of a short temper at times.

My husband has to work closely with members of the opposite sex. He's in sales and if those are the partners he's paired with then that's how it is and always has been. At a recent multi-company function I was made to feel a little awkward by almost all the women in his company coming up to me to tell me how much they LOVE my husband and how hilarious he is, and what a *saint* I must be to put up with him (I still don't get that one). But there was one person in particular that I got a vibe from. She was from a partner company and she went on and on. Even said she wished *her* husband was as funny as mine. How lucky I am. To the point where I looked at her and said I bet the people her husband works with think he's pretty funny since they haven't heard his jokes a million times like she has. She conceded this might actually be true.

Anyway I got this vibe and remembered her name and found her numbers in my husband's database and started watching his calls to her. They've gone from a few a month mid last year, to multiple times per day now. Some calls are 25 minutes, calls to me average 1 or 2! Yes, they became a partner company mid last year. Yes, he's selling a lot of their product. Yes she's the rep he has to deal with. It could be argued that this is all legitimate. Very hard to say anything in the face of that. Of course these are only the calls I see coming and going from his cell phone. I have no idea how many more happen from his office land line. Nor do I know how much time they spend in person.

I rarely have a chance to look at his work email but I did recently and most appear to be very businesslike. Again, I don't know what's been deleted. There were references to many lunches and meetings at "our" Starbucks. There were a flurry of text messages sent and received when he was out of town last month. A few here and there when he's worked very late.

He never talks about her. I've never heard him mention her name other than when he introduced us at the company event. References to a meeting at Starbucks or lunch meeting are just such - a meeting, or lunch with some guys. He eats lunch out most of the time with bunches of people so I would never know anyway.

Sorry this is so long. All this has left me kind of....in knots. I don't feel I have the right to say anything. Everything about this could be a legitimate work relationship. May in fact be. I don't really have any way of getting any more information on which to go by, so I'm stuck with speculation. If I were to ask him, he would not be happy, would deny, then wonder why I didn't trust him. He has sworn to me he would never have an affair and would ask for a divorce before ever doing that. But I have to admit to feeling a twinge when I can see from phone records that he spoke with her for 10 minutes driving home before pulling into our driveway.

I'm sure it doesn't help that he receives accolades all the time at work and of course comes home to the usual kids/house stuff. Our sex life hasn't suffered, he still wants as much as ever and I'm pretty accommodating in that area. It also doesn't help *me* that I gave up my career at its height, to be here when the kids are off school, because we decided it was important for our kids. He was adamant about this before we even married. Now it's the career moms that he's interacting with the most, while I gave up the 10 most lucrative years of my career building potential. I feel that's a bit of irony for me. And I don't receive the accolades from him that I used to get at work, that's for sure! (I do, however, receive them from my children!)

Thank you for reading this. Insights and feedback would be most welcomed!

[ThunderHorse]

How do you boost your husband's ego? Search Chairs. Most women have no idea hos to boost a man's ego. If he is talking to her, for minutes at a time, then she knows how to boost his ego.

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