Wife kissed her boss after a harvest festival tradition, am I overthinking it?

[Williemm]

My wife and I are both in our mid 40s and have been married for 17 years. We have three children. My wife is quite senior in her company, and her boss is in his late 40s and also fairly senior. So this isn't a case of her being a junior employee and her boss being some much older man.

Last Friday, she was in France with her boss and a few other junior colleagues because the company has an important business relationship with a French vineyard. They were there during the grape harvest as part of the partnership.......and the vineyard invited them to participate in the traditional vendange rather than just having meetings and dinners.

Apparently there was a proper harvest ceremony as well. The vineyard has someone who leads the ceremony, and the junior visitors were involved in harvesting the first ceremonial basket of grapes. My wife and her boss ended up being the two people paired together for that part.

At the end, the harvest master was talking about the old harvest customs and good luck for the coming vintage. He then smiled and jokingly suggested that, since my wife and her boss had harvested the ceremonial grapes together, perhaps they should seal it with a traditional "harvest kiss" for good luck.

It was clearly said in a playful way rather than as an instruction, and everyone laughed.
My wife said she hesitated because, obviously kissing your boss is quite a strange thing to be asked to do...... But after a moment she decided to go along with it and kissed him on the lips.

There were colleagues and vineyard people around, so it wasn't secretive or anything like that. She told me about it herself afterwards, and as far as I know there is absolutely nothing going on between them. I'm not accusing her of cheating.

But I can't decide how I feel about it. On one hand, I can see that it was a cultural/harvest ceremony and she was caught up in the occasion. On the other hand, she could have declined once she realised what was being suggested, particularly because this was her boss.

Would you find this completely harmless and just part of an unusual work trip, or would you also think it crossed a line,

My wife and her boss are good friends and have known each other for the last 20 years. Also, for context, I'm Brit

Id feel quite sad about this if this was my other half but that’s my own insecurities at play. You might be overthinking it a bit but only you know your wife , her relationship with the boss etc. Are you a bit insecure about how close they are perhaps?

Be grateful she told you and you didn't have to find out on the grapevine.

I initially thought quick peck but after your update of a lingering 3-4 second lip kiss I would not be happy. Sounds like v poor decision making in the moment when they were put on the spot rather than they fancy each other. Plus she told you. Talk it through some more and try to move on. Unless it’s worth blowing up your marriage for, only you will know. Best of luck OP.

A ‘harvest kiss’ is not part of the tradition.

Why do I never get invited to these type of fun work functions 😆 Clearly I'm in the wrong job.

Seriously though your wife's reaction is key here. Did she hide evidence of 'Kissgate'? No, she openly shared this with you, therefore you ought to trust her on this one - she was probably mortified and extremely embarrassed about it all.

Do share details of the vineyard though - that kiss must make all the difference and expecting a high end AOC vintage as a result!

Because it's your DW its harmless.

If it was your DW writing this then she would be advised to LTB.

She crossed the line. A stupid tradition isn't more important than preserving your wedding vowes. Highly inappropriate and could've easily been avoided without making it into a big deal.

If you hadn't revealed the genders you would be getting very different responses.

I would also add DW only told you because all her work colleagues witnessed it, so it would've found it's way back to you regardless. Clearly she's told you to get in there first.

Williemm, Williemm...it was really nothing

Sounds like a reverse at the least. Knows too much information about who smiled when etc. you don’t give those details in a usual conversation.

I was actually thinking this post IS the wife trying to get perspectives to decide whether or not to come clean 😂😂

The irony is the posters brushing this off as nothing would be asbolutely seething if their DH/bf had went along with something like this. Like they'd be full on fuming for weeks, and wouldn't let slip a chance to berate their partner and keep them up into the small hours talking about how betrayed they felt.

I also don't think they get to choose whether it's cheating. She kissed another man on the lips. That's intimate. She cheated and OP is understandably upset about it. Peer pressure isn't an excuse to willfully cast aside your marriage vowes.

What are you worried about exactly? You know this incident wasn’t a sign of infidelity on her part, and it’s very unlikely that a brief kiss in front of an audience has awakened some deep yearning in her for her boss. So your concern can’t be for what the kiss signifies, but simply that it happened at all. Which sounds a bit overly possessive, OP, or as if you feel she’s been sullied by another man. Let it go.

the French kiss everyone and everything,

but its usually the performative peck on each cheek, sounds like the playful suggestion got lost in translation, even so, if there was something going on, she would hardly announce it after presumably feeling guilty about feeling socially pressured into kissing her boss

I honestly wouldn't care if my OH did this. But two things - I trust him is the first thing. Second thing is that my seething, worrying or overthinking wouldn't change him if he did actually want to have an affair with his boss.

And she didn't cheat.

I thought it was a script from Emily in Paris!

You couldn’t get worked up about your husband kissing his female boss on the lips?

haha, that's niche!

so niche, I only just discovered it actually exists

but definitely not a search for a work computer

She did cheat. Cheating is a breach of trust that happens when someone breaks the agreed rules, boundaries or expectations of exclusivity set with their partner.

Clearly kissing another man on the lips exceeds the boundaries OP has with DW. We know that because OP is upset and because OP DW hestitated before going ahead. If she was sure OP would be ok with it she wouldn't have hesitated.

She has clearly told him as she has no option, it was witnessed by lots of colleagues.

Not surprised so many dc have single parents if pp count this as cheating.
I daresay much red wine had been drunk, there was a large audience, the people involved were playing along.
Unless there is a history we dont know about then op needs to have a frank discussion with his dw about what their mutual boundaries are and if op is upset, he seems to be, then his dw needs to apologise. Hurt has been caused but not intentionally.
Op's dw had no intention of cheating and /or intimacy. She was honest with her dh, he may have never known otherwise.

What would your response be if you were the Op @MoonLight321 ?

@Williemm If you'd reversed the genders in this story and added that it was a 3/4 second kiss in your opening post I'm sure you'd be getting different responses.

I find it really odd that the OP is getting the third degree on here about what kind of kiss it was. I mean how would he know?? He wasn't even there??!

I think the whole thing sounds totally inappropriate for a work do to be honest. In my workplace any event where anyone was asked to kiss another person would be cancelled within seconds! Maybe I'm in the wrong kind of job!

As for the wife being socially awkward and giving in to the kiss request "to save embarrassment" is total bo**ks as well. If anyone (of any nationality) asked me to kiss my boss I'd swiftly put them right!

Yep. She crossed a line. They both did. I expect one or both of them have been tempted before and this time they had the ok to go ahead

People are so weird 😕

Surely the intention is what is the most important here? So no, she didn't cheat.

Perhaps the OP knows her husband would overreact.

It was an embarrassing position you kiss and it's over or you say no and look like there is something off and maybe upset the host. They could have done the French cheek kissing bit but that's easy to say with hindsight, I assume they both decided to do it and the boss wasn't offended. Had much wine been drunk at this point in the ceremony?

What an utter fuss about nothing.