I am a 23 year old single mother with a 4 year old DS. I worked for a small company while studying and I became friends with my 40 year old colleague, let's call him Billy. This all happened last year around springtime but it's kind of just sinking in now.
Billy was in a long term relationship and has 2 children and 2 stepchildren. His children live around 90mins away with his ex wife but stay with him every weekend. We got along well and were both big film buffs so would often chat about things like this as well as the kids. His stepdaughter was 14 so he often asked for advice regarding her.
His partner worked on Saturdays and he said him and his children were extremely bored. He asked if me and DS wanted to go to the park. Our children all played together, perfectly happily. His youngest is a year older than mine and they got along great. Not much had opened due to lockdown so we would sit and chat at the park and bitch about people at work. Due to lockdown and being a young mum I didn't have a huge social circle and I felt like DS missed out as well.
For the record I never, ever felt any kind of 'spark' or romantic interest between us at all. He never made any kind of move and all conversation about his partner was positive apart from him being bored while she was working.
After a few weekends at the park, he asked if we wanted to go for food on the way to taking his children home. He asked infront of DS who desperately wanted to go with his new friends. I agreed and we drove to a restaurant near where his children live and he dropped me and DS off on the way home.
The next day I wake up to a tirade of Facebook messages from his partner. She asks if I have ever met him outside of work. I explained that yes, our children had played together and we went out for food the day before. It never crossed my mind for a second she didn't know. She starts calling me every name under the sun and contacts my employer through Facebook to say I'm having an affair with her partner. She then contacted everyone else in the small department to tell them I'm a homewrecker and have 'ruined four childrens lives'. I was signed off with stress and then found another job.
Billy blocked me the day his partner messaged me but from what I could gather, she saw him send me a random Facebook message and started asking questions weeks before. He obviously lied to her and continued to ask to meet us at the weekend. She ended the relationship and I've heard through third parties she's basically had a complete nervous breakdown as she had mental health issues to begin with.
I'm just sort of coming round to dealing with this now as things were so heated at the time. She messaged my friends and family to 'let them know what sort of person I am' and I ended up deleting Facebook. I've had no contact with Billy since and have never tried to.
Was I completely and utterly naive to assume his partner knew about this (what I thought was) a very innocent platonic friendship?