Work related friendship or on the road to something more

[Mister V]

OK...my question is this...

 

Question: Is my wife in the beginning stages of an "emotional affair" or his her husband (me) making a mountain out of a molehill?

 

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My wife is a licensed proffessional and so am I. We have kids and have been happily married for 14 yrs.

 

She is one of 2 individuals that manage the office. Her profession is one that requires frequent day trips to other cities to inspect on progress.

 

Her colleague is a male a few yrs older than her and spends more time at the office than she does. I will call him Josh.

 

She often will work at home on her computer.

 

Recently, while searching for pics of our children, I stumbled accross her instant message (IM) conversation history that made me feel uneasy. Now, I am fully aware of their work relationship and how they share work info on a daily basis. But she has always told me that work related reasons is their only reason for IM use.

 

Apparently, she and Josh have been using IM for more than just work. I was surprised to see a level of camaraderie that went beyond work. For instance, becuase they handle the HR aspects of the office I find them (through IM) discussing each problem employee and commiserating each other about that particular employee's faults and how to deal with them. In other words they both conclude that the problem employee is wrong and they are both right. In addition, when it seems that IM is too slow, it is not uncommon for one of them to state "store?" in their IM conversation. I have since found out that this means they can take their converstion outside the office to a corner store which will take about 10-15 minutes.

 

Also, their office is into fantasy football. So, my wife has been in several IM conversations with Josh about fantasy football particulars. She has even gone as far as telling Josh that she is going to kick his butt and that she is concerned about Josh kicking her ass (for your information my wife never talks like this to me or her friends when I am around her) and when I confronted her about it she did not believe me at first and when I told her about her conversation history she said she did not want to look at it and that it must have been a wierd day.

 

In the conversations they each have asked each other to go to lunch and one in particular bothered me. Apparently, according to the IM archive, Josh asked my wife to go to lunch. My wife stated that she had no plans but if she did go she would probably need to buy a card for an employee of the office. After Josh read this he said that he, too, needed to buy a card for the office employee and would she like to go with him. She agreed and as it turned out we got into a fight about it because I had asked her to go to lunch with her that morning and, for some reason, she forgot and instead went to lunch with Josh.

 

Now...thier jobs require travel to local cities within a 100 mile radius. This means that it is not uncommon for my wife and Josh to be in the car to and from thier destination including lunches along the way. I am not crazy about this because I know that one cannot talk only about work in a two hour car ride and at some point feelings can get shared and commiserating will happen. In other words it is easy to nurture a friendship through frequent conversations which, through time, could lead to sharing of matters that are probably inappropriate between friends of the opposite sex.

 

So...am I overreacting or did I discover an emotional affair in its beginning stages.

[michaelk]

Well, I don't know how you 'stumble' across a conversation in someone's IM history while searching for pictures. It sounds to me as if you were looking for it, so maybe her chat log isn't what got you feeling suspicious. Was there something else before that?

 

Based on what you've said, it sounds like there's the potential for an affair here, but no evidence to show anything other than a close office friendship. The majority of the things you cite are not something I would worry about if I were in your shoes, but then again my wife and I are fine with opposite-sex friends. I've had many female co-worker/friends, and the friendly chats, going to lunch, going to the corner store together were all part of that. As was close personal conversation. If you can't be open with your friends, then they're not really friends are they?

 

So in my opinion, you have to decide first of all whether you're okay with your wife having male friends at all. Based on your comment about "...sharing of matters that are probably inappropriate between friends of the opposite sex", it sounds to me as if you're drawing a distinction between what would be appropriate to talk about with a male friend vs. a female one. So in your mind, apparently there is a line somewhere short of actual infidelity that you don't want her to cross.

 

If you don't want her having close male friends, are the two of you on the same page about this? If not, you need to talk and figure out what you're both comfortable with. If so, you need to point out that this relationship has already crossed a line.

 

If you are okay with her having close male friends, then the litmus test should be whether or not Josh is included in "friend" activities that you and your wife do with other people. Have you ever met him at a party? Gone out to dinner or a movie? Hung out together? If not, I would be concerned. You should be able to know and interact with her friends (and vice versa) should you wish to.

 

The bottom line is that you two need to talk. If you're this uncomfortable, you should air your feelings so that either 1) you can feel more comfortable with the situation, or 2) she can understand that your not comfortable with it, and you can discuss how to resolve it. The longer you delay dealing with this head on, the more this emotional affair will grow (if that's what it is), and the more opportunity you will have to store up jealousy and resentment.

[Mrs.C.]

sounds like your wife needs a good time

sorry dude