If H didn't hang around and chat when he had a friend waiting for him outside in the car or outside some restaurant to have lunch, my guess is that would not seem weird to you, rather simply polite to the person waiting. So, his actions may have nothing to do with OW being controlling of him.
I say this because H's XW seems to think I am controlling of him. H avoids pretty much all communication with her whenever possible. This is because H wants to avoid communication with her because she is pretty toxic. But, she thinks this is all about me. She has said on a number of occassions, something like, "What is your problem? Why doesn't Oldtimer allow you to talk to me?" This is really just crazy. It is fine with me if H talks to XW. XW would like H's avoiding her to be about me, but it really isn't. It is about the R between XW and H. H would probably have zero contact with her if (grown) kids weren't involved.
My point is that H's XW seems to explain his distance from her to herself as a function of me being controlling. However, it is a function of H wanting nothing to do with her.
Was I an OW? I would say not. H and I had both been separated and living apart from our spouses for about a year when we met, I was working on filing for D, he had filed for D already a year before and moved several states away from his W. We were both comletely emotionally D and close to legally D.
But I have no idea how H's XW perceives me. LBSs tend to call an X's GF or STBX's GF an OW until the LBS feels emotionally D. I don't know that H's XW is at that point even yet. So, she may count me as an OW, who knows.
H was not a WAH, btw, he tried for probably 15 years to get the abusive XW to go to MC, and made clear to her that he wanted out of the M for several years. I'm not sure if this would affect her perceptions of me or not.
