What to Do When Someone Flirts With Your Spouse

Key takeaways

• Tell your spouse. Adam and Ashley agree that honesty about flirting or an ex's message protects trust, and that hiding it does the damage.
• Know the person you married. A spouse's personality and the kind of person who stirs their insecurity are worth learning before anything happens.
• Security is built ahead of time. Communication, intimacy and time together do the work long before a stranger flirts.
• Kindness is not an invitation. Ashley and Adam say you should not feel guilty for a friendly smile that someone else read as more.
• Respond with grace and clear lines. Adam describes how he would handle a confession, and when counseling becomes the next step.
• Anchor your security in God. Ashley says her confidence comes from her faith, not from her husband.

A strange day on the road

The conversation began with a trip. Pastor Adam Mesa had been traveling alone through several cities, and in one day he was approached more than he normally is. At a stoplight, three women in a car with the windows down shouted for him to roll his window down and asked for his number. He looked straight ahead, and they drove off.

At the airport, another woman started asking his name and where he was from. He said he was from California and heading home, picked up his food and left. Adam says he rarely gets this kind of attention because he avoids eye contact and usually looks at his phone, and he normally travels with someone.

On the flight home he wondered whether his wife, Ashley, would want to know about it. He was sure she is not the jealous type, but he had never asked her.

What Ashley would want to know

When he raised it, the two did what they usually do and teased each other. Ashley asked how pretty the women were, and Adam found himself in a corner. Beneath the joking, she gave him a useful answer. If the person was of one particular type, the type that would make her feel insecure, she wanted to hear about it. Anyone else, even someone gorgeous, would not bother her.

Adam called that answer perfect. Ashley was not saying she was automatically jealous, and he now knew what she would want him to share. Ashley added that if he politely said he was married, she would be fine. If he were entertaining the flirting, she said, they would have a problem.

Adam also admitted he had assumed the reverse would be true, that Ashley gets hit on in her DMs. She had assumed the same of him. He said it has never happened to him there. Questions that come in are spiritual, and when one continues he points the person to his wife's Instagram.

Security is built before the moment

Adam says that if a stranger finds Ashley attractive and sees no ring, he would not be offended. Once she makes it clear she is married, the man should back down. As Adam put it, if someone sees his wife as pretty, what is he insecure about?

He says the answer lies in how strong the marriage is: how well the two communicate, how healthy their intimacy is, and how much time they spend together. In his counseling experience, insecurity often traces to past trauma or to a lack of intimacy in the marriage. He observed that the intimacy a woman needs tends to be more emotional and supportive, while a man's tends to be more physical.

Ashley remembered the season when Adam was losing weight and getting more compliments. She was rarely bothered, because she knew he was hers and he never flaunted the attention. She also noted that a spouse should be mindful of how the other feels.

Know the person you married

Adam says he and Ashley read each other through their personalities. He describes himself as an introvert who lives in his head, and says Ashley is not chatty with men. If either suddenly seemed warm and animated with someone of the opposite sex, the other would notice. But a naturally friendly person who talks to everyone, including a 90-year-old, should not be treated as a suspect for being friendly.

He shared a couple he and Ashley counseled. The husband was drawn to heavyset women, so a wife who might have felt threatened by a model-type woman was not bothered by her. Her worry was a different kind of woman at the grocery store. As Adam said, "you have to know your partner. You have to know your spouse."

He also draws a line. If a spouse's insecurity comes from the past, Adam says the person needs to get help. In his words, "it is your responsibility to go and work on that. It is not my responsibility now that I can never talk to a woman for the rest of my life." But if Ashley told him she could no longer tell the difference between his friendliness and flirting, he said he would pull back.

He told of a man he counseled who stopped hanging out with friends and couples because he could not tell his own behavior from theirs. Adam told him that was good on him. That man, he says, has since been leading many of those people to Christ.

Kindness is not an invitation

Ashley recalled a college coach who was like a father figure at the University of Florida. He told her to be mindful of how she smiled at the boys, because a smile paired with eye contact can read as an open door. She loved to smile, and it was part of how people knew her. She says she was raised not to flaunt herself, and she sees that as part of guarding what belongs to her husband.

Adam added a word of reassurance for women who have been in this spot. If you smile at someone, he turns it down and walks away, you were being kind. Adam said some men treat any eye contact as an invitation, and that is on them. He added that single people should still be approachable, and that married people should not be seeking eye contact in a bar.

If you flirt back, or an ex reaches out

Adam walked through what he would do if he flirted back and felt seen. He said, "It would be my responsibility as a Christian man to go home and say, Ashley, I was hit on today." He would admit it felt nice, say he is convicted, and ask what in the marriage he might be missing. He would not call it adultery. It would be wrong and foolish, he said, and the next step is to ask why it happened.

About a year into their marriage, Ashley got a DM from an ex. She did not reply and showed Adam right away, then deleted it. She believes the enemy wants to tear a marriage apart, and a hidden message can grow into a secret. She told listeners afraid of a spouse's reaction that "he's going to be more upset if you didn't tell him and he finds out."

Adam described how he would respond if she had answered the message and told him later. First he would ask whether she thinks it was wrong. If she says yes, he would thank her for telling him, say it still hurts, and let it be over. If she says no, he would ask her to block the ex and delete the messages. If she refuses, he would ask for couples counseling. He said an emotional or physical affair is different, and divorce would be a possibility. He pointed to Scripture's teaching that what is done in the dark will come to light, and said couples who sweep things under the rug end up in separate rooms in the same house.

Both described the habit of regular honest talk. Adam recalled a text he sent Ashley years ago saying he felt she did not find him attractive. She did not turn away. She called their accountability friends and asked for help. He said the transparency they had built for years meant that hard moment strengthened the marriage.

Where our security comes from

Ashley closed with what she sees as the root. She said, "my security doesn't come from Adam." It comes from her confidence in God and her own growth, which she says came after a marriage that began rocky with her insecurities. She believes Adam made his vows to God, so a failure would be a failure before God as well as before her. Then she said, "I'm confident that God sees my marriage."

What this means for you

Flirting by a stranger is not the real test. The test is whether you and your spouse can talk about it without fear. You might ask your spouse what kind of situation would make them uncomfortable, and what they would want you to tell them. You might ask yourself whether an old message or a friendship is something you would show them today.

If insecurity is heavy for you or your spouse, counseling is a sound place to start, as Adam and Ashley say they would encourage. Honest talk, clear lines and a marriage held before God give you something to stand on before anyone flirts.