ethics question - former client’s husband reaching out

I had a client who terminated abruptly because of intense family conflict and she couldn’t keep up with the sessions. She said she would return when she was ready (it was a very soft “I’ll come back we all know what clients mean by that sometimes, but I digress). We had a very good therapeutic relationship as I was her therapist for a year and change. She was very open with her husband about her journey in therapy because they had similar traumas, however not sure if she ever mentioned me by name or just said “my therapist said this today”. She rarely spoke about her husband in therapy other than “we have the same trauma” and he’s very supportive of her.

I say all of this to say, her husband just reached out to me start therapy. I am a therapist in the area who specializes in a particular trauma that they both happen to share, so him reaching out could have been coincidental. The only reason I know it’s the husband because I recognize the name and number from my former client’s emergency contact form. Nothing in the email mentioned his wife recommended me.

I know to NOT disclose the identity of current or former clients without consent so I’m not going to say back and say “hey can’t because I know your wife” in an email no less — I know that much —But I feel like I missing a very obvious ethics thing here.

Is there a dual relationship/clinical inappropriateness/ethical gray area? If so how to address it?

And Let’s say it’s not, if the wife wanted to return to therapy and I am seeing the husband (both individually), does that cross ethical boundaries? I remember my ethics professor saying “it’s not an ethical dilemma, until there’s a dilemma”. The reason this is a dilemma is because I recognized the name from an intake for from 2022. If I didn’t, I’d probably take him on as a client so generally, where is the line for this?