My Husband Flirted With Another Woman in Front of Me

What would you do, if you saw your spouse flirting with someone else?

I saw the woman before he did.

She was young, pretty, with long silky blonde hair. She was sitting on the park bench behind my tall husband, legs crossed, mascara eyes perhaps watching his back, perhaps gazing past him at children on the slide.

No, she was looking at him I realized, as I caught her eyes flicking to him when he put up a hand to shade his eyes. The posture showed off his strong arms. I took stock of my husband, looking to see what it was she saw in this man I’d been with for eight years. Though we were happy, lust wasn’t the word I could use to describe what I usually felt when I looked at him anymore. You can’t lust over things you already have.

My husband probably felt the same about me, I thought with sadness. We had driven the kids to the park this morning in tepid silence, drinking our to-go coffees, each in our own tired daze as we made lists in our heads about the weekend chores.

I wondered what it was about him that had caught her eye. Was it his tall figure, or broad shoulders stretching his shirt, or the late summer sun hitting his pleasantly masculine profile, all jaw line and hard angles. Was it that, complemented with something softer like how he picked up our two year old and spoke soothingly to her when she fell from the slide?

Something now made my husband turn, and their eyes met. She cocked her head and I saw her lips move. He laughed, and I watched as a conversation blossomed. Then continued. And continued. He stepped closer to her. She kept engaging him, flicking her hair back, captivated by his words.

Okay, quick scene break.

For readers who don’t usually follow me, now is the time to tell you I’ve buried the lead: my husband and I have an open marriage.

But this scene with the woman was unusual, even for our situation.

Never before had I seen his first flirtatious moves in action. Lately all his relationships start under the cloak of online dating.

This was new — him flirting with a woman in public, and in front of me.

Watching the two of them flirt, I jiggled our baby, strapped to my chest. An angry indignation flashed within me, making my heart beat fast and sweat prick at my armpits. His animation now compared to our quiet morning felt unfair.

While staring at the scene, I nervously touched my own hair done up in a messy mom bun and pulled it free, feeling my thick waves brush my shoulders. A tickle went up my spine as a small breeze kissed my skin and blew my hair across my neck. I watched as her elegant locks also waved gently across her face. She tucked them prettily behind an ear, not breaking eye contact with my husband.

Some wives would charge into this situation, introducing themselves to the other woman. Even if no offense had technically been made–flirting was so grey–the territory had to be staked.

But I turned my back, took our daughter’s hand and encouraged her toward the swings on the far side of the playground. Out of the corner of my eye I kept watching. Would he make a move? Get her number using some excuse about getting our kids together?

She was so pretty, I couldn’t stop staring. I wanted to feel what she felt: to be seen as pretty, to be flirting with a stranger. The universe flipped momentarily and I could see my husband as a stranger, cut from me, wild.

Then a friend of ours walked into the scene and started chatting with both of them, kids running round the bench and breaking the reverie. I felt irritated. I had wanted to see the full plot, the narrative arc of where this flirtation might go, or which one of them would end it.

My daughter ran up to me, tugging on my hand and whining for an applesauce pouch.

When I looked back up, my husband was walking back towards me, smiling and pushing our stroller with one strong arm. The park bench was empty, the woman gone. I had missed seeing who was first to walk away.

“Time to go?” he said cheerily, scooping up our toddler and I nodded. Of course he would be jovial. He was just flattered by a pretty woman, I thought, reluctantly impressed.

As we walked the kids back to the car, my husband looked at me conspiratorily and half whispered, “That was so weird. She was extremely flirty! She started by saying I had great eyes…”

I broke into a grin. He knew I had seen it all, and I now felt included in the game.

“Well, you do have great eyes, babe.”

He guffawed, took my hand and squeezed it, before piling our kids into the car.

“Will we see her again you think? What’s her story?” I was hungry for the details.

“Oh god, I don’t know. I’m not looking to get murdered by her husband so hopefully not.”

It was my turn to laugh, relieved. I understood better now why my husband preferred online dating in our open marriage, where you can clarify your relationship situation even before flirtation started.

I was a bit disappointed though that the intriguing event was over. That all his relationships would likely start through the screen, not in person.

The danger of in-person flirting was a more erotic scene for me, the voyeur.

“I would have gotten her number,” I teased on the car ride home, not wanting the thrill of the event to end. We had driven to the park in bored silence. Now my husband and I had something to playfully banter about.

“Your hair looks nice,” he said.