She calls him work dad - but getting weird??

[Anastasia2]

My partner started a new job 6 months ago..he is co partnering in his friend's business so technically management.

A girl who's a friend of partners friend (sorry if that's confusing!) Also works there..she's just literally turned 18.

She adopted the name work dad for DP. this seemed quite cute, innocent at first.
Our daughter is 16 so my partner can have this caring, dad nature. Which I get..he had always come across as caring and eager to help out.
However, recently he just non stop talks about her :( it's making me uncomfortable.. he is giving her frequent lifts as well..although no fault of her own.she does live quite far from.the office and recently failed her driving test so it appears she is desperate to drive and maybe DP is just doing it temporarily? I just don't know what to think? Is "working dad" an innocent name/gesture?
I can't make out if she likes him?! I know that sounds terrible but I feel like they've definitely become closer..he is planning for our 16 year old DD to work in the businesses cafe/office after her GCSEs alongside with this current "work daughter" so he has been encouraging their friendship and gone with dd to help her out once..I took this as a good sign that he purposely brought dd with him as it made it look quite innocent
I just don't know if I'm overreacting or is this him displaying a liking to her. Which in my eyes is pretty disgusting.
Also, she doesn't have a dad..her father died a few years ago which Dp Will mention to me if I try to say anything against the relationship.
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If that's a private conversation between the two of them then yes it's odd. If the whole team was joking about it then it's a bit different- also if she brought her boyfriend to work, to me then that's a clear indicator she's not interested in your DP.

I'm not saying your husband is cheating but when I was 19, there was an older man who was cheating with an 18 year old girl. She was young. naive and pretty silly to be honest.

The worst of it was it, I later got another jo and recognised the surname in a girl who was similar age to the aggair girl and it was his daughter. She later confirmed his name and where he worked! I said 'oh yeah I know your dad'. The parents were still together. He must have been in his 40's then! I often wonder if the wife and his family ever found out. Of course we didn't say a word.. His danger was the same age as the girl he was having an affair with.

He didn't even try and hide, and she was a loud mouth too. Not a nice girl to be honest. This was in the 90's.

Unless your DH has form for being sleazy and showing interest in young women I'd think it was innocent.

Your drip feed after posters told you they can’t see anything wrong made it sound really bad…and then you clarified by what you mean by sex talk.

It’s hard to understand the truth with these later posts.

I think you are right to be feeling the way you are, it is an unusual situation. But it could be innocent friendship ( some people do just hit it off) or she may have a crush on him, or he may have feelings for her. It is hard to know.

You mention this is a new job but he is a partner in the business? Is he an owner and has investment in the business or is he on a salary ( ‘partner ‘ implies he now owns the business). The reason I ask is, that if you have noticed, work colleagues and the ‘business partner/owner/friend will have too, this could be an issue going forward and worst case scenario he could lose his job if things go wrong/they fall out/it is seen as unprofessional.

I think YABU. It can be healthy / meaningful for younger people to have mentors/ friendships with older generations. This sounds like a young kid who’s lost her dad and is just starting out in the world.
It’s not fair to project your jealousy on to her and view her as a sexual rival. She’s still a teenager.

Doesn’t sound like anything at all innapropriate has taken place, and the one time he went to help her outside of working hours he brought your DD. also a daft conversation about the word “willy” is hardly “talking about sexual stuff.”

Do you trust your husband or do you suspect he is capable of grooming a teenager?

Ceasers wife must be beyond refute…. Your fella is putting himself in a position where he could be a accused of inappropriate behaviour , by anyone, not just this girl. He needs to cop himself on and behave in a much more appropriate way. Would he be happy if an older man in a senior position behaved this way toward your daughter?

The thing is sometimes they can come across completely professional. And not have form for it but get their heads turned by someone younger. That's why so many women are shocked to find out there husbands have been cheating.

How did 'willy' come up in conversation? Is that the boy friends name?😀

So I had a work dad when I was 18. I worked in a uni town and lots of my collegues were also young. There was a man there who had 5 kids and he took on a very fatherly role to us. Some of us were living away from our dads for the first time, others just had shitty dads, and he was just really dad like. He gave us advice and listened when we had problems. He made sure we worked shifts that meant we could visit our families and that we had enough money for rent and bills. He got us birthday presents etc. We would often called him dad and bought him a worlds best dad mug for the staff room! He wouldn’t talk about sexual things (altho would give advice in some situations that related to sex if that makes sense)? There was a sexual assault in the car park and after that, he would always arrange for the girls to get lifts home instead of walk (although always with the other girls not with him).

idk, I do think it’s potentially really innocent. I’m still so grateful I had that work dad in such a tough time in my life. I think about him still sometimes nearly 10 years later.

I don’t think that your DH is the nice man that you think he is and you’re absolutely right to be a bit concerned about this.

Would he have that same discussion with your DD? If not, what’s the reason for that?

I’ve worked with so many absolutely stunning young girls and women. And so many absolute sleazy middle aged men. If she’s given him the title of work dad, I wonder whether it’s because she really sees him as a father figure (possible but highly bloody unlikely after five minutes) or she’s picked up that his friendliness towards her is not entirely innocent, it is making her uncomfortable and she’s wanted to make it very clear to him that he’s too old for her and it needs to change into something innocent. She’s a young girl trying her best to manage the attentions of someone who is old enough to be her dad.

Depends whether the office sex talk is one to one, in which case that sounds a bit odd (but I'd also be surprised if he'd told you about it, if it was crossing a line). If it's a bunch of people working together having a collective banter that sometimes includes talk about their sex lives then I can't see how that's a sign that there's a problem with the particular relationship between your DH and this young woman. You seem to know a lot about their relationship which suggests your DH is being quite open with you that suggests he's not trying to hide anything (unless he has form for trying to make you jealous?)

The other things you've said about him giving her lifts etc don't sound dodgy to me, though you know your DH better than anyone on this thread and if this is making you uneasy it's ok to have a conversation about that. You could ask that he doesn't text her out of work except to arrange lifts etc.

So her bringing in her BF and mentioning she doesn't like the word "willy" is sex talk?

Er

Ok

I don’t think her saying she doesn’t like the word Willy, in the presence of her boyfriend (so not some creepy one to one) really constitutes office sex talk.

It seems innocent enough to me, he is introducing her to your DD even taking the DD when he helped her out. That sounds like he sees her as a peer to your DD, not step mum material!

I'd think much of it was innocent but then I consider what I think my dh would do and tbh I think he would steer very clear of anything more than 'hi, how are you, good weekend, we've got a lot on this week so noses to the grindstone, yes I saw that guy on Britain's Got Talent, how funny'.
This wouldn't be primarily out of concern for my feelings - he's experienced enough to know how things can be misconstrued in the workplace and how easily boundaries can become blurred, and careers and reputations destroyed. And young people's feelings hurt. So his motivation would be quite selfish. He'd see drama approaching and do his utmost to nip it in the bud. But he is very 'up' on such matters.

I would imagine it might be very uncomfortable for your dd to have to observe the (platonic) close relationship on a daily basis.

Its certainly not unusual for older colleagues to take on a mentoring role to younger colleagues.

She doesn't have a crush, she has a boyfriend and sees him as a father figure. I started work at 18 in construction. I certainly had older men look out for me, they'd be comparing me to their kids.

DH is similar had someone he referred to as Uncle, for his caring supportive nature.

I also have both been called "work mum" and called others "work mum"

We engage in banter across all employees which can be a little... blue at times

There are set ups where one person could leave earlier but waits to give another colleague a lift home

We will lunch with different colleagues depending who's working when

I'm not sure I see anything suspicious other than "he's a man". He even took your DD and spent hardly any time there.

I thought YWBU until you “sex talk”‘update - that’s not okay.

as a side - my friend’s DH had a work “kid” - she used to ask him for pocket money when she went to the bar on nights out - they ended up shagging 🤦‍♀️

Even if it is all innocent he needs to be careful and remember who he is. He's a work colleague. He should act like one or accusations could be made that will blow his life up. The fact that even you are thinking it's inappropriate and you should be the person who knows him best screems volumes.

It's not really unless she said she prefers throbbing appendage

That's disgusting! I hope your friend left him.

This is exactly my experience as well. Any man who doesn’t have the intention will make it indisputably clear. An older man who wants to make it clear where the boundaries are, will not engage in any out of hours texting or suggestive chat or anything else that could be misconstrued. And those who do blur the boundaries, don’t do so for innocent reasons.

Ugh. I’m having flashbacks to my first job. I didn’t register how sleazy the guy was - I definitely would have seen him as dad territory too. And somehow he managed to gaslight me into thinking I was childish or gauche if I was uncomfortable. Everything was banter, or a joke. I was trying to navigate the workplace, trying to be taken seriously, trying to be “mature” and professional. If I objected everyone said “oh that’s just how Tom is. Don’t mind him” and if I didn’t, I was seen as encouraging him. Now I can see how predatory it was. But I was completely out of depth.

Sorry, (and I might be massively projecting) but I think your dp might be a bit of a creep.

Is he your dd’s biological father ?

Yeah. Divorce after 30 years of marriage.

I generally don’t like NAMALT threads but sometimes i just think “yeah, they are!”

Fair enough if they want to have their banter in work time but to be texting her after work hours, helping her out after work or weekends etc isn’t on and I wouldn’t be happy with that even if she was 50 or 18, if he’s management he needs to keep it professional at all times. Supporting her during work hours about work stuff but leaving it at the door at 5pm when he leaves.