“Work husband/wife”

[SpaceXStarship]

AIBU to think that the use of this term is highly insulting to an individual’s actual relationship /partner?

That while you can go to work and have friendly relationships with the people there and have a laugh, that’s not really appropriate to say to someone who’s in a relationship.

DP is a manager and a woman who started only a few weeks ago had sent him WhatsApp messages with a screenshot of his number in her phone showing she had set it to ‘work husband’ and was laughing about it in the following message saying ‘oh look what I’ve set your contact as!’ DP had shut it down but I did question how she felt comfortable saying that in the first place. But I have given him the benefit of the doubt as there was clear evidence in his reply that he was not indulging it at all.

It has made me uncomfortable though. He’s not anyones husband, but he is my fiancé.

fair points

yeah.. sorry OP but your dp most likely has made her comfortable enough to say that,
she's not just going to say that randomly is she ..
they've probably be bantering and flirting in the office but he is acting disinterested to you

I would also be uncomfortable with that in that short a time. She’s clearly decided she wants your husband, or has grown up thinking older/more senior males expect this.

I got on with a male work colleague, we jokingly referred to each other as Work husband/wife. Completely innocent - he meet my husband, we both invited to his wedding and enjoyed meals as a group. The job we were doing was awful so without the banter I’m not sure either one of us would have got through it! Nothing was ever hidden or inappropriate - and NEVER crossed any lines.

We long since stopped working together so don’t call each other work husband etc we now just friends. (For 20 years now)

In your situation I think you are right to be irritated. But I also think it’s up to your fiancé to sort.

The ChatGPT replies are out in force today.🙄

Agree with you! But why? Who would bother getting chatGPT to do this?!

No idea, but I’ve seen the same bland, computer-generated type of answer, laid out identically to the one above that’s now been deleted by MNHQ (with an intro paragraph and individual points and a conclusion that says absolutely nothing etc) on about four completely different threads today.

It makes me wonder whether there’s an entire cohort of silently watching Mners, dying to reply to posts, but unable to compose their own without AI help…?

I think in this situation, it's inappropriate and she's coming off very "pick me". In my experience a work wife/husband is someone you have developed a close working relationship over time. It's entirely platonic, both sides know that and the term comes from how much time you spend together at work in forced proximity rather than some sort of intimacy.

Years ago, I was in a role where I was "work mum" and a colleague was "work dad" we were older than the rest of the team and we got on very well so would eat lunch together etc but there was literally nothing else to it. Were were entirely platonic friends, no flirting or anything remotely close to inappropriate. It was just a joke that evolved.

I know someone who has a colleague he refers to as his work wife and describes it as "she nags me all day long and we don't have sex".

It's grim. And unnecessary. And I've never hear it used a) between men that work closely together ie 'work husbands' or b) between people that didn't clearly fancy each other a little bit.

I've been called various colleagues' work wife by other people, not by the "work husbands" themselves. It was just a little joke, meaning we had close working relationships. But I know a couple, both married to other people, who've been calling themselves work wife & husband for the entire 30 years they've been having an affair. They say the jokey terms help them get away with it.

This woman who's been working with @SpaceXStarship's DH for all of two weeks is EXTREMELY presumptuous! I'm hoping she's just a dickhead who thinks over-familiarity will improve her position, but you & DH are right to be annoyed by it.

My other half's 'work wife' even has the same (uncommon) first name as me!

It doesn't bother me - they have worked together for more than a decade and we socialise frequently (with her similarly lovely husband of 20+ years), but that's me and it's not up to me to tell other people what their boundaries are: if you are uncomfortable with it, your feelings are valid.

It does sound a little bit odd coming from such a recent starter, tbh.

He did dislike it - did you miss the part where he immediately shut her down?

Men and women can have banter without it being flirting - it happens all the time.
Probably not seen very often with the typical jaded MN view of men, but I've had several entirely platonic relationships with co-workers of the opposite gender.

This has obviously crossed just being office friends, she hasn’t even been there a month and she’s already got his personal phone number on WhatsApp saved as work husband, safe to say they have been flirting

Back in the day we had regular crew mates working in the ambulance service as in we worked with the same person most of the time. Mine was a man a couple years younger than me and we called each other work husband / wife. We became great friends but I did also become great friends with his actual wife who is amazing, and she also called me his work wife, as did their parents 😂 . Just to add also, neither of us fancied each other. We actually became more like annoying brother and sister or cousins.

I think it's ridiculous and a bit cringe. I've only ever heard of it on MN though!