Boss loudly and excessively telling me about his ‘DARLING WIFE’

[ZiggyStarburst]

Bit of a weird WFH one. I think my boss’s wife is listening to our calls.

I work closely with Boss, in a tiny team in big institution. We get on very well and chat etc in office hours but not outside it, and have never met up socially etc. We’ve WFH almost exclusively in last 7 months.

In the last couple of weeks he has started getting quite weird, loudly telling me last Friday that we wouldn’t be speaking over the weekend (neither of us has ever called each other over the weekend) and excessively and loudly talking about his ‘darling wife’ - literally crowbarred in to conversation as much as possible.

Background to this is that two weeks ago I told boss a male client had mentioned wanking (twice) and the same client had then been difficult in a meeting. Boss said nothing about the wanking thing but said I had misread the meeting. It has been weird since then, especially these calls. I have seen him once in RL which was normal but went back to weird as soon as WFH again.

So my question is, should I do something about this? I feel hugely uncomfortable being told excessively about his ‘DARLING WIFE’. (I very rarely mention my DH btw).

Until recently we had a great working relationship and I don’t want to disrupt that. However, I think the thing of me discussing wanking may (?) have caused him/his wife boundary issues? He is also good friends with this client.

YABU - leave this to blow over
YANBU - deal with it

how is talking about your wife relevant to the work place ?

Do you think he thinks you want him?

Talking about his wife isn’t relevant to the workplace. It just gets crowbarred in. Yesterday he told me she’d come and watched a Teams talk with him. I didn’t ask he’s bringing it up, excessively and only recently.

I don’t think Boss is concerned about me - though he is not fluent in emotional chat and discussing this client will definitely have not been his comfort zone. I had to say the word ‘wank’ because that was the word the client used.

I don’t know what the problem is. Is there a problem?

Is he giving you the heads up that his crazy wife is listening in, so pleeeeease don’t talk about wanking again or she will lose it...?

Firstly a client talking of waking . He should adress this.

Secondly, the only way I see you can counteract this weird wife-namedropping, is to loudly and often mention you dh. Atleast as soon as he mention the wife 🤷‍♀️.

Not waking... wanking and why do my autocorrect remove all my r from you(r) 🤦‍♀️.

Does he believe you? I think he's making it clear that he is happy in his marriage and covering his back. Has the client been spoken to by him?

What was the reason for mentioning the client's conduct to your boss? Was it to complain and for your boss to deal with the client?

I think that's the issue at hand, especially if he's friends with this client. I don't think offhand behaviour is because he is mentioning his wife.

@nibdedibble that hadn’t occurred to me. Maybe, he is very different.

’Is there a problem?’
I guess that is my AIBU . It feels like there is a problem as a pretty good working relationship has turned into me dreading him adding boundaries and DWs to each conversation.

I rarely drink (he knows this) but yesterday implied that I was trying to get him to afternoon drink with me on the pretext of a (different) client ‘maybe pre-kids!’ WTF - no! I cancelled going to the meet up and the call to cancel was agony of weird long congratulating me on coming to that conclusion, oh and something about his DW.

Could he have ticked off the client/friend, who in turn said that you were some kind of sex-crazed strumpet (autocorrect REALLY wants that to say trumpet). So now he's scared of you, and using his wife as a shield?

Does he believe me about the client? Yes, it was six months between the ‘wank’ talk and the weird behaviour in the meeting. I only said about the wanking because of the clients subsequent weird behaviour in the meeting. I didn’t mention it at the time cos Boss is just not brilliant at people.

god forbid he thinks you've got the hots for him, and he's trying to 'put you off gently'

We left it that he wouldn’t talk to the client. The client is head of a key organisation I do work for and I didn’t want that jeopardised. I did want to tell my boss.

He has slightly treated the whole client thing like it is about my mental health. Like the client wasn’t wrong, I am being sensitive. Well, that’s what it felt like at the time - Boss has not mentioned since.

What was the context of the “wanking” comments? I can’t ever imagine telling my boss “x client kept going on about wanking” if that was the situation then I’d say “XYZ was seriously sexually inappropriate and I ended the call/escalated to his HR”

Maybe his wife heard you telling him about “wanking” and thought it was inappropriate?

Is he recording you and trying to get you to say something inappropriate? Maybe the client you mentioned made a complaint about you?

In any event, cover your arse.

@romeolovedjulliet why would he think I have the hots for him because I reported the client?

This chat about his wife is new. She was barely mentioned before, he occasionally mentioned his D.C and her but not much at all. Like I say, we are colleagues.

The strumpet thing is not outside the realms of possibility. What do I do to shut this down?

Could it be that because he thinks you misread the situation with the client, you could misread him too? So he's trying extra hard to let you know he's not available for any shenanigans?

I mean, not sure how you can misread someone talking about wanking in the workplace, but.... Men.

Context of wanking - client talking about hobbies. Mentioned it in front of Boss but I am sure Boss didn’t hear. Client then mentioned it again when giving me a lift home.

Awkward! Maybe he's had an affair/been inappropriate with someone else/wife has accused him of cheating? Does he do this on group calls too?

I mean, not sure how you can misread someone talking about wanking in the workplace, but.... Men.

Yes, maybe. But - the thing is Boss was completely, utterly normal when I saw him IRL for short meeting 1:1 in office. It’s on the phone.

Many men get so weird about these issues when they are being "manager". And who knows what he told his wife, who then probably twisted it because her ears pricked up. It's sad, you didn't ask for this. I've been there too. Next thing you'll be blamed for the client being so 'jokey'. Perhaps try and put this client at mental arms length (if you can).

I think the same as Flossies - he's either a bit sexist and is concerned you'll be 'hard work' about 'blokes being blokes' (there really aren't enough v sarcastic inverted commas in the world for this), or he's suddenly remembered that he should watch what he says around people and workplace harassment is taken seriously.