Hi Reddit.
So I am coming here because I am afraid to bring this up yet to anyone IRL.
One of best friends (of 12 years) got married a year ago and I’ve seen some behavior from her husband that is concerning to me. I am an overthinker and at this point don’t know if it’s “in my head” or there are really things here to be worried about.
Background: So my friend “Jessica” (37/F) was married for 10 years to the man she planned to spend her life with. They had two children (ages 8 and 5). One day her husband came home and dropped a bomb on her. He was having an affair, and the other woman was pregnant with his child. Obviously this was extremely traumatizing and they ended up divorcing.
Almost a year after her divorce Jessica decided to start dating again. She tried some dating apps, went on some dates and then met her current husband “Jason” (40/M). I met him once while dating at he seemed nice. The first crazy thing happened was that they got engaged after less than a month of dating. And then married a month after that. I was shocked and concerned but thought “they’re adults and maybe they just knew”.
Now they have been married a year and red flags keep popping up. Shortly after they got married, Jessica no longer attended our monthly “girls night” at my house. Which I wrote off as honeymoon phase at first. But it’s been a year and she’s all together stopped coming except a couple times when she brought Jason with her. I’m not opposed to hanging out with Jason, but he has to come everywhere she does and sometimes I just need to vent to my girlfriends without someone else there.
The next red flag was that he constantly tracks her location on his phone. She came dress shopping with me for my upcoming wedding. We went to a city about an hour away and went to dinner afterwards. She mentioned he kept messaging her saying “you guys are walking in the wrong direction of the restaurant” and “it says you are at a bar”. The bar was beside the restaurant but for some reason showed we were there on Snapchat.
The final straw was last week. We have been planning a bachelorette trip for me for a while now and plan to go this summer. My mom and aunt will also be going and we don’t plan on it being a wild time. We are doing a vineyard tour on a “wine trail” and renting a lake house. She messaged me privately to ask if Jason could come with us. I was dumbfounded she would ask considering it isn’t co-ed and no other partners are coming. I told her exactly that “I like Jason, but since no one else is bringing a partner I don’t want them to feel awkward. We also don’t really have more room in the house.” She answered “ok” and then we dropped it.
The next day she messages me to say she can’t make it to my bachelorette trip. I asked why and she said “I just don’t think it will be a good time for me.” And mentioned work as an issue. She is the one who on initially planned the trip.
There have been other little things but these are the main ones. It all seems “off” to me and I’m unsure what to do about it.
I don’t want to jump straight to thinking this is heading towards abusive, but I also don’t want to just do nothing if it is.
I am open to all suggestions, Reddit.
TLDR: My friend’s husband is exhibiting signs of being controlling. I’m not sure if I should bring it up or not. Where should I go from here?
Comments
It does sound like it could head into abuse territory. I would bring it up with your friend, but be prepared that she may go away for a while. Her new husband may convince her that you’re not a good friend because of this and isolate her from you. I’ve seen it happen before. It happened to me when my girlfriend was abusing me. She was very manipulative.
Not much you can do other than to let her know you care for her, and miss her. 100% her text messages are getting read so I’d probably bring it up on a voice call or in person. Let her know you’re there for her if she needs a place to be out a safe place to escape to.
She’s already pretty much withdrawn from your friendship, I think you would probably regret not saying anything about your concerns with his behavior but I think most importantly you should focus on the changes in HER behavior and YOUR relationship with her and how it’s suffered. As long as you understand that this likely will be the final nail in the coffin in your friendship, at least until and unless she decides to set boundaries with her husband and/or leave him.
It’s really hard in these situations because all you have is a few examples of his behavior being a bit overbearing, but at the end of the day your friend is choosing to not show up and be there for you. I would focus on that and then see what she has to say and then go from there.