You're not jumping the gun, per se, TFC. NC means NC, absolutely. However, it has to come from a conviction your husband holds within himself also. The difficulty is that changing peoples' minds is a lengthy process.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and that's awfully risky because I do NOT know your husband, though I'm beginning to see glimpses of him in your posts. Keep that in mind, okay?

With that caveat, I think is your husband agrees with your best friend. He was honest about the contact and he hasn't responded to the attempted contact. (He may well rationalize this issue by thinking he can't control what the OW does.) So long as he doesn't reply (he thinks), there really isn't any contact. He feels it takes two to communicate, to make contact, right? This problem is on a back burner in your husband's mind because the logic hangs together throughout his "argument" with himself.

However, your friend (and your husband, though they aren’t acting in concert) are only partially right. The fact is, if there is any contact from her (no matter if it’s unsolicited or not), there's a chance he might be tempted in the right set of circumstances and no one wants that. (I’m not sure you can ever say that to him, btw.)

Anyway, instead of "waiting to see if it happens again," you actively watch for openings to reinforce the idea of full NC by seeking out opportunities to get that phone number changed and getting the symbolic commitment of an NC “letter” sent.

It doesn’t have to be another attempted contact from her. In fact, it should not be.

What are the times you can hit this issue again? Well, if an opportunity presents to give him a phone as a present, bring the issue up as I suggested. Other thoughts: if he gets a call and he complains the connection is lousy, bring up the idea of changing carriers and numbers. If the thing gets a smudge on the screen…etc. See how it goes?

Those are just things I came up with sitting here at the keyboard, typing without stopping to think. Again, I don’t know your husband. You can FIND ways to pull this issue to the foreground in your husband’s mind.

Do you even have to wait for some issue about the phone to come up? I suggested earlier you could address your daughter’s welfare in the midst of working another issue. Where, and how, can you bring this up tangentially while doing something else? Strategy and tactics, TFC. Work at it, okay?

“By the book?” Well, you’re doing it by the book, TFC, by attempting to address the issue in the first place. What isn’t evident in many of the threads out here is that after NC is established, and the wayward spouse begins to show signs of recommitting, advances on some issues come slowly.

On occasion, the progress is glacially slow on the NC letter itself. I've seen threads where it's about the last thing to come in the recovery. I’ve seen posts out here where the NC letter still has not come, though the poster and the formerly wayward spouse are many months into recovery. I have a memory of one poster in whose recovery her FWH never did write an NC letter, though I can’t think of who it was.

I think your husband feels he is complying with the spirit of NC, while admitting in his mind that some of the details are left wanting. He’s not entirely wrong and in fact, when you think about it, that he’s bought into the spirit of NC at all is extraordinarily important, in and of itself. That’s ¾ of the way up the staircase with only a few low steps remaining, isn’t it? However, he errs in thinking the details aren’t important.

Your mission is to bring the details more clearly into focus for him so he unilaterally takes steps, or neutralize his opposition to changing phone numbers and formalizing the NC, right?

So, I challenge you. How do you do one or the other…or both? You know that guy you’re married to. When you’re ready, you tell your friend there with you, and your MB support group, what you can do, okay?

I like hearing about things you bounce off your best friend. She has a good head on her shoulders. I’d also like to hear of (appropriate) things you can relay from your IC after you bounce issues off her/him.

Hang in there, lady.