Struggling with something my husband did. Am I wrong?

My husband’s going through some things lately,. He has been diagnosed with depression. We are also not in a good place together. For a couple months now he’s been talking about an old female friend of his. They “dated” when they were in grade school and he maintained a friendship with her through high school. The last time he saw her was out shopping with me when we were newlyweds 25 years ago. He’s been talking the past couple months about some fond memories of her. He ended up finding that she works in the same town we live in. He called the place where she works and they connected via text. He told me that he did this but hasn’t talked about her since. I came home from work yesterday and he still wasn’t home when he usually is home before I am. I know he goes to lunch after work on Mondays and figured he’s just having a late lunch. They made the comment “did you have a late lunch “and he said “guess who I had lunch with?”. I asked him how long this was planned and he said it was just planned the morning of. I’m feeling upset that he didn’t mention it to me. He went to lunch at a place where we often go and I don’t believe anything happened. My concern is that he feels he did no wrong so why should I be upset. I am upset because he didn’t communicate with me about what he was doing until after the fact. I am afraid I will upset him or come off as pushy if I tell him how I feel.

Could it be that if your husband is struggling with depression talking with/texting this person is a way of him connecting with a tim ed in his life that holds happy memorie ssd's for him? I'm not saying he is attracted to this person. I'm thinking that when I was in the deepest, darkest depression memories of times when I enjoyed life helped.

I am totally fine with that. I want him to get helped. My concern is he didn’t tell me they were trying to find a time to get together nor did he tell me they were did until after the fact.

Ugh. This is a hard one for me. I've had two major relationships after graduate school. One, a 17-year marriage. The other, a 10-year partnership. Children in both. What I, myself, learned from those nearly thirty years is that people sometimes get a little bored or dissatisfied in these very long relationships. It is quite easy to take for granted someone who sort of seems to have been there next to you in the bed almost forever. And when, either by chance or design, another person shows the slightly bored or maybe dissatisfied party some newfound attention, well, that can be pretty darn intoxicating. I mean, literally, like a drug.

So, my concern for you, as you mention that things are not in a good place with him right now, is that she may begin to shower him with some attention that appeals to his sense of whatever he has decided is not exactly workin' with you at the moment, and that he concludes he really, really likes the way that feels. If and when that should happen, he could, based on my experiences, be off to the races.

So, my counsel to you is to nip this in the bud now. Address whatever your joint issues are head-on, including going for couples' therapy, if needed. Be wary of secret texting and messaging, and other online activity. I am not trying to catastrophize here. I saw all these things when I was going through this (both women I referred to cheated on me), but I never spoke up until it was so in my face that a 2 year-old could have seen it. Don't do that. Lay down the law now. What will you do should he ever cheat? Will you leave? If yes, tell him that now. If no, well, then, your day just got a lot more complicated.

Knowing what I know now, I would not forbid him, were I in your shoes, from interacting with her at this point. But I would closely monitor his behavior. Contrary to popular notion, people can def cheat without having sex. The hallmark of cheating is not sex, it's deception. So, if you start catching him in stupid lies and he's still seeing her, you are being cheated upon.

Sending you positive vibes and best wishes. Take care of yourself

Well “ maybe “ he just didn’t think about telling you. Being depressed can cause forgetfulness but....

Why don’t you offer that all 3 of you go out to lunch that you’d like to meet a friend of his from his early childhood through out school. If he immediately finds reasons not too then something could be going on.

If you do get together you could easily pick up that something is amiss or realize there’s nothing to worry about.

My husband has numerous female friends and I don’t worry about it at all.

Same as I have male friends and he’s not bothered at all.

Is your husband being treated for depression ??

He is being treated for depression.

I am not upset that he reached out to a friend and my concern is not that some is or could potentially be going on. My problem is that he did not tell me until after the fact. He is usually very communicative with me but since his depression started, he is not.

I have Bipolar and deal with a great deal of depression.. when depressed we mostly feel worthless and want to keep things to ourself regardless of how it may harm others. Because we think we are saving others from our distorted warped way of thinking.

Right now due to my chronic pain I am not only depressed but lots of sui thinking, will I tell my husband? Very unlikely, I’ll just get through to day and then the hours until it’s another dad. People with mental illness don’t like to share most of it with our loved ones. But I can be 100% honest with friends that struggle like I do. Maybe she struggles too?

Sure sometimes or maybe even often mental illness explains peoples behaviors. But I often see on this forum women excusing bizarre behaviors of their husband like cheating, doing drugs, physically and emotionally abusing their spouses supposedly because he is depressed. Ton of people are depressed yet they don’t go to secret meetups with their exes. This crap wouldn’t work for me

It's difficult. Yes it was unwise of him not to tell you about the lunch before but on the positive side he did tell you afterwards, so he hasn't kept it from you as such.

Maybe there is something to be concerned about or maybe not. If it were me I would try to keep an open mind - sometimes people reconnect with exes and it works out just fine. My husband reconnected with his ex wife and there is no threat to me, in fact I really like her. If it were me I'd ask to meet this lady with him - if he wasn't happy for you to do that then I would be concerned.

As for his depression do you try to talk to him about how it has affected your relationship? Because in my experience it does usually. As someone who has had depression I found it most helpful to have this addressed as 'the depression' causing problems rather than me personally.

Hugs to you and I hope you can find a way to work through this with him.