M/49 F/50 – 22 years of Marriage.
The other day I checked my wife’s phone – generally I have not done this in many years (I’ll admit because I don’t want to know as bad as that sounds too). Just a lot of work texts, but I came across one with a male co-worker where there was some general work context followed by a random text sent on a separate day “can I get the sexy Italian sandwich.”
Some background. My wife cheated on me about 17 years ago (two year affair where they met 20 or so times at work conferences). I found out about it through a text on her phone (in deleted items) – it was also not a smoking gun “did you want to meet up”. We reconciled years back although I’ll admit our relationship hasn’t been great lately – a lot of bickering over fairly trivial stuff.
Now this particular individual is actually her subordinate. And in this regard I have a hard time believing she would risk her position or create an inappropriate situation. But, I know he has been traveling with her to industry conferences, which historically involve a lot of drinking and where the original cheating happened.
I also don’t think it’s an innocent case of him wanting to put in his lunch order or something – she’s the boss and has staff for this, although she could have reached out on his behalf as a good boss. Perhaps he just meant spicy Italian sandwich?? Or perhaps it is an inside joke where one of them inadvertently ordered a sexy Italian sandwich and he was poking fun. Perhaps it could also just be a random joke shared at a conference after drinks.
What is also strange is that there is no context around that particular text – no response from my wife. Granted she is bad about getting back to texts, she doesn’t seem to ignore her staff. Perhaps some context was deleted.
TL;DR Am I paranoid, have I just gone off the deep end?