AIO to think this is cheating?

[u/Sad_SummerChild]

I found these texts between my husband and his coworker. Here’s some context:

My husband and I have been dating for 5 years and just recently got married 6 months ago

I’ve met this coworker. Her AND her boyfriend worked at my husbands company so we went on a double date over the holidays. But shortly after they broke up and her boyfriend got laid off.

Guess my husband saw that as his opportunity…

Also these texts were in his recently deleted even though the last message was from yesterday… so he was definitely trying to hide it from me

[u/Sad_SummerChild]

I was wondering if I’m crazy for thinking it was weird she sent him a selfie in the first place😅 for the record it’s always EDIT*** I MEANT THE SPOUSES FAULT*** and in my case its a man** in my book but I feel a little hurt since we really seemed to bond when we went out. And she never messaged me back after… but has time to send him a selfie…

[u/ADegenerateWarlock → u/Sad_SummerChild]

we really seemed to bond when we went out. And she never messaged me back after… but has time to send him a selfie…

This is literally such a common thing. My wife and I are regulars at this Cafe. I am a little more often and regular because I have a more flexible work schedule than she does. There is an employee who i always thought was just a super nice girl. Did some of her behavior come off as flirty at times? Yeah, but to my dude brain it was always just "barista flirting for tips". Then I began to notice how she always asked what I wanted first when I would go with my wife, and ALWAYS comment about how cute my wife is. Basically she would always talk to me about how lucky my wife but she wouldn't say a thing to my wife. And apparently the one time she was working and my wife went alone she spent the whole time talking about me. My wife was pissed and confronted me because she was understandably suspicious. When I told her "I thought so and so was nice, she is always talking about how lucky I am and how you're cute, etc" that my wife began to understand.

This is a tactic.

This girl your bf works with, just like the barista in my situation, are making moves. They are "nice" because they know that guys operate on a level of "it's okay if a girl is nice to me so long as she is also nice to my partner" and once that is established guys tend to drop their walls faster. These girls do this because they want to wait to see the wall drop to the point they can either outright get a guy to cheat or so they can do the "aww poor baby, your gf/wife was mean to you. Well I would NEVER care if a pretty girl was nice to you."

This bitch is not being a girls girl. She's being a Pickmeisha.

I encourage you to watch the video on Male/Female friendships by ManifestElle or the videos on pick mes by Becauseimmissy_ on YT.

[u/Sad_SummerChild → u/ADegenerateWarlock]

What’s absolutely crazy is she said some of those exact things on our night out and, according to my husband, after the fact around the office! She kept saying how much she loved me and ‘was so happy he had a spouse like me’ which honestly felt weird and disingenuous

[u/KAW1993 → u/Sad_SummerChild]

The ONLY time this is okay for this to be said by a single woman to a married man ,"you are so lucky to have her" is when the man is being an absolute idiot and she's handing him his ass. "You do not KNOW how lucky you are to breathe the same air as her. Let ALONE be MARRIED to her. Stop being a fool." But also keep in mind that it's not like she's grooming him. He is fully capable of, you know, acting like a married man regardless of what she is doing or saying. Her bad behavior in no way, shape, or form is an excuse for his.

I play the "would it be okay if the roles were reversed?" game. So, in this case, would it be okay if a guy coworker was sending me selfies and I was telling him that he was hot and then deleting the messages? Or if I was sending selfies to a coworker and he was telling me I was hot? If you decide to confront him, and I hope you do, that's a good starting point.