Advice needed - conflicting feelings about my manager

[itsabee]

Hi,
I have found myself in a situation with my manager and I'm not sure if I'm imaging it or not. I have a three year old, I'm single, in my thirties and my flirting radar is way out of date! My closest friends are also work colleagues and I can't talk to them about this.

My manager and I started working together just over a year ago and hit it off immediately, we work really well together and have a laugh too. He's married with three kids ranging from 3 to 7 years old. He's ten years older than me but constantly jokes about him being old and me being very young. He praises my work and my abilities all the time and tells others that I am great. He openly says he would be lost without me and treats me more like an equal, discussing everything with me.

He used to text me after work about random stuff and phone when he was out of the office, even when he didn't have much to say just to "check in". We have a lot of meetings, just the two of us and work late a lot. I say work, but a lot of the time we just get caught up talking about stuff - work related, after 5pm and the time just flies. We have lunch together and take turns paying. Others used to joke about him having a crush on me and I always laughed it off. I recognised that we were friendlier than most others were with their managers but it still felt entirely platonic.

A month ago I met his wife. I had spoken to her on the phone once or twice before, she knew my name on the phone so he had clearly mentioned me to her. When we met I tried to be friendly but she was quite stiff. He wasn't there at the time but it was him who had asked her to drop something off with me. The following day we were in the same place again and he had an opportunity to introduce us but didn't. I'm not quite sure what to make of that.

Since then I have noticed a change in his behaviour. He doesn't text out of hours anymore or stop me to talk after 5pm. She doesn't call the office anymore.

I'm confused by his behaviour and more confused by how its made me feel. I miss how things were. Things suddenly feel strange, I don't understand why he wouldn't introduce me to his wife or why things have changed. Can anyone offer any advice on why his behaviour has changed?

Don't be ridiculous. You should be able to do your job in working hours with professional contact with your colleagues.

If he’s backing off it already has been. The advice is to not make it worse. And learn where the boundaries may be in the future (your flirting radar is not “off”, it’s not relevant- and if you have it on at work, it needs to be turned off.)

And agreed- if he needs to tell you stuff for your job, he can use these newfangled methods called emails and meetings. Like he does with other members of staff. He will absolutely not need to use his flirtyeyes, chitchat or eventually his penis to tell you work stuff. We can all guarantee you that.

I am not going into a long explanation of my job, but it requires being available out of hours. Being up to date and quick to respond to news is important.

My previous manager used to text and call out of hours too but my previous manager was a woman so that didn't attract any attention from colleagues.

He obvs thinks your comms aren’t that vital. Maybe that hurts your pride? How do you give a poster a jammy dodger biscuit?

Maybe you didnt flirt as obviously with her?

Wow. Talk about a bitch brigade!!

I'm guessing your other half fucked half the office before going home to you!!! Well, it doesn't mean every guy wants to do that or that everyone woman who gets on well with a guy at work is flirting with him!

Ha lol. No actually never been cheated on to my knowledge. Have just met people like you a thousand times before. And seen the disruption they cause good people with their needy territorial bullshit and diingenuous “who me” nonsense. Leave the married man alone. Get on bumble. Do your job and go home.

Put it this way- if you was describing this situation and I was reading it as the wife of your manager, I would ensure he wasn’t your manager anymore, that he recognised what he was doing was wrong and that it stopped immediately.

Nobody is stupid enough to be ‘confused’ as to why things have suddenly changed. It was inappropriate, unnecessary and never , ever going to end well.

One text here and there to discuss times/dates of a meeting or to ask if you could cover fair enough, not daily texts and phone calls to just ‘check in’, was he doing that with any of your colleagues?

Not to be harsh on Christmas Eve- but take your rose tinted glasses off and find a single man! Your working relationship may never be the same again- and unfortunately for you that’s due to him being ‘happily’ married.

Have a nice Christmas and don’t worry about a married man

Even “my closest friends are work colleagues” rings like a thousand alarm bells. Waaaay too invested in work.

You don't know me at all. But you sound like the type who always has issues with other women, single women, younger women... they're all out to get the Married Men aren't they?!

Some of us are single by choice and just want to get ahead and do the best for our family without getting caught up in other people's issues.

FFS this presumption that I want him - I DON'T!!

I want to have a good relationship with my manager, as I do with others at work. And yes, I am invested in my work. Between it and my three year old I'll be honest, I don't have time for much else. I certainly don't have time for affairs and all the crap that goes with them.

Then you’ll be alright then, won’t you? And its tough being a single working mum. And it is also tough if you feel your work situation has been made vulnerable outside your control. But- and I mean this more gently than I have said it before - you need to take a step back, you need to get some persepctive, and instead of questioning his wife and his retreat, accept it as a warning and go back to a professional relationship. Dont fan the smouldering Touchpaper and put your job at risk just because you are bored, liked a man who seemed a rescuer- authoritative and competent, and all you have is work. If your reasons seem flimsy to strangers they’ll sound just as bad to HR.

I suspect that he has been suffering from a strong case of mentionitis at home and it hasn't gone unnoticed.

this presumption that I want him - I DON'T!

His wife doesn't know that though, does she? Put yourself in her shoes and look at it from her point of view. Her husband has developed a close relationship with another woman, and he stays late at work so he can spend time with her instead of going home and throwing himself into family life. With his wife and kids.

How would it make you feel if your husband did that?

I'm just afraid that this could be the beginning of the end. Our department is tough, staff turnover is high and my previous manager was a hard ass who added to the high turnover!! I got along really well with her, and I was respected for being able to handle her, handle the fast pace and handle the pressure. She moved on and my new manage came and I helped him to settle in and get into the swing of things.

Before this no one saw me as The Single Mother Who Must Want a Man. I was just the person who got stuff done, the person that was always clued in. But suddenly because my new manager is a man there's this different attitude to everything we do. Suddenly if he praises me it's because he fancies me, not because I'm good at my job. If we're heard laughing together, we're obviously flirting. Not that we just have the same sense of humour and like a joke to ease the stress.

I ignored the jokes, laughed them off because I didn't feel any vibe from him that was inappropriate towards me. But now it looks like being friendly and efficient is only ok with female managers and with male managers, it's eventually going to lead to you being viewed as some sort of slapper trying to seduce the her boss!

I get that to his wife, if he has been mentioning me a lot, not knowing the full details might be cause for worry. But that is why him not introducing us confused me, if he knows she's uneasy about the amount of time we spend together then I think a way to put her mind at rest would have been to introduce us! Let her see us interacting and show her its nothing to worry about.

Then you should go to HR woth exactly the concern as voiced in your last post (NOT your first) and register with them early on, and ask for strategies to ignore the rumours so they arent career likiting. Write down what they say. And write things down that happen including comments from colleagues. shut those comments down when you hear them- and loudly. Because if it does go wrong (and it may, despite your good intentions) you may have a claim and you want your objections documented. But the girly “i dunno what the fuss is about lil ole me omg does he like me” ness of your first post - if that translates into an attitude at work- has to stop. Good luck.

I get that I didn't word my first post very well. I have tried talking about this with friends at work but they thought I was overreacting about the jokes and put the focus on his behaviour, insisting he fancies me and acting like I was being silly for not realising.

I'm afraid going to HR will make things worse.

Sounds like he "re-set" the relationship with you making it more professional and arm's length - probably at the insistence of his wife, who suspected her husband had developed an office crush. That's good for you ultimately. If people in your office were already speculating and his wife is pissed, your working relationship with your manager was overly friendly, overly close.

I bet you can make it work going forward. No more non-work talk. No more after hour chats. No more lunches.

You don't know their history. He may have form for overstepping boundaries.
However you should be able to talk about work in work hours. There is familiarity and then there's 'flirting'. It's obvious which is which. I've worked with men my whole working life and it's easy to keep it friendly and the right side of personal.

He used to text me after work about random stuff and phone when he was out of the office, even when he didn't have much to say just to "check in". We have a lot of meetings, just the two of us and work late a lot. I say work, but a lot of the time we just get caught up talking about stuff - work related, after 5pm and the time just flies. We have lunch together and take turns paying. Others used to joke about him having a crush on me and I always laughed it off. I recognised that we were friendlier than most others were with their managers but it still felt entirely platonic

This is your interpretation, but imagine you are the wife here - and he doesn't introduce you? Her imagination is thinking far far worse, and worryingly so - just read some threads on relationships.

Are you totally obtuse - so you need it spelt it out? Do you neeed us to feed your ego? Yes he fancied you / and had a connection with you and has dialled it down.

The lunches especially and the whole office gossiping, how naive are you? Yet you say I recognised that we were friendlier than most others were with their managers but it still felt entirely platonic. Then you have to think about the lunches and after work chats and wonder how it looks. Chemistry isn't just felt by those who have it, a whole room can see it, a cinema can feel it.

Grow up, get a grip, adjust or leave.

Maybe he thought he didn’t need to do a formal intro becsause he knew she’d met you when she dropped the stuff off?

Either way, as pp have said already, your best strategy is to take his lead on how close you are in work. If your job starts suffering then address that professionally - ask him how best you both manage your out of hours comms.

In a nutshell -

OP, as pp have said, he fancied you and his wife challenged him about it, and now he's dialling it back to professional levels.

Your work shouldn't suffer because contact will now be exactly how it should have been all along. If all of this is new then he's being on best behaviour but it will relax a little in the coming weeks. And if the whole office was talking about your relationship then it probably was inappropriate, and you were never going to get ahead at work with those rumours circulating; better for everyone that you're on a more professional footing.

I think you knew he fancied you. It fed your ego a little, and made you feel secure at work. But these new developments are really what's best for everyone, long term.

And his wife's frostiness will be because he's blamed you - like slime balls everywhere, he's told her you've got a crush on him, that the contact is led by you, that you message him first out of hours.