I have a friend with whom we have been friends for over 20 years. There has always been mutual understanding, in terms of communication she is a very interesting person, I have always enjoyed spending time with her, invited her as a witness to a wedding, took her as godmother to my children, brought her closer to my family. For the last year I started noticing that her presence in our house makes me nervous, making my husband jealous of her. Since the youngest child is very young, I have no opportunity to meet her in a cafe or somewhere neutral (usually she and her other friend and her husband come to our house).
At first I put it down to postpartum depression and low self-esteem, because I have been sitting at home for more than three years (now on maternity leave with my second child), life goes on around here, and my life has stopped. Only household chores and taking care of the kids. And then I analyzed the last meetings and realized that if it seems that she was flirting with her husband, most likely it does not seem.
There was an episode when she wore a dress without a bra and walked around with her breasts sticking out under a thin fabric, I see that at the table she includes her charm, tries as if to attract attention (with an eye to eye, she did not behave that way, a person I know 20 years ago after all). When she comes to visit us, if I go to breastfeed the baby, she will not go into the room with me to talk, but rather stay with her husband in the kitchen.
And recently before the New Year she wrote that she wanted to drop off presents for the kids in the evening after work to put them under the Christmas tree. I wrote that she did not want to be distracted, she could give them to the children when they met after the New Year, but it was important for her to come just before the New Year, saying that she should let her husband come down and I would have no need to be distracted. I replied that I do not mind to go down, my husband will sit with the kids, especially since we do not see each other often. But before arriving at our house, she again wrote that she can go down and take her husband, and I can not be distracted, and we can talk after the New Year.
My friend is not married, personal life is not very worked out, most likely due to her character, and maybe her exaggerated requirements for men. She had episodes of meetings with married men, and when she was young she took a guy from his sister. But it always seemed to me that she valued our friendship, so that she could plot such a thing against me. Especially since we have been together with her husband for almost 10 years and she has known him all these years, she has never noticed anything like this before. And for me it is out of line to try to take the man out of the family of a friend with whom you have been friends for 20 years, with two children in the family.
My husband did not react to her, I trust him, I know that he is a decent man, he will not do such things behind his back, and I see that she is not his type. But what’s in her head is the question for me. The fact that I will protect their communication and meet with her only separately from her husband, it’s already clear. The other thing is, do I even need such a person in my surroundings? Or maybe I got myself wound up and she flirting not intentionally, but it’s just her natural behavior with men that I hadn’t noticed before. If I express my suspicions, and they are really unfounded, she will be offended, it’s a shame about a 20-year friendship. And if she is really flirting with her husband, it is nothing short of a betrayal, disrespect to me and a violation of my personal boundaries.
I don’t know what to do. Stop communicating at all or talk to her? But when you talk to her and her answer is so clear that I thought it all seemed, and how could I even think such a thing. Well, to meet with her apart from her husband and pretend that nothing happens, and the offense I have no, probably will not work.
