Husband texting female employee

[Karen653]

Hi,

Really need some advice, I'm very confused and don't know if I'm being totally irrational. I just feel my husband is too close with a girl he manages at work who is 10 years younger than him.

A while back they went on a team night out and he went out of his way to offer to walk her back to the station afterwards, the whole wider team was there but only he offered. Once he had dropped her off, gone midnight, he got in the cab and continued to text her. I saw her texts and they were innocent just saying how the night was good etc. and she said 'let me know you get home ok'. I found that a bit odd as he is a grown man and her boss so I'm not sure why she would ask him that.

After that I noticed that she quite often would text him late in the evenings not about work. They have a small group chat for his team of three, but she chooses to send him private messages and so I said to him I think this is a bit weird now and asked him not to respond to her out of work hours if it's not work related which he agreed to.

But this week I noticed that she has text him most nights with funny meme's etc. Two evenings he replied back to her and had watched a couple of videos that she had sent, which he must have done behind my back as I would have been with him at that time. He didn't tell me he was still texting so it was a bit of a shock and has upset me quite a bit. I had asked that he not do that but it doesn't look like he cares enough to stop.

I get that the texts are innocent but I feel like this is blurring the line between manager and employee. I feel something he is doing is encouraging this and he doesn't seem to take any of the responsibility. I think he just overly nice to her, texting her things like 'stay safe' which is just a bit odd and I'm worried she might be interpreting that wrong. I wouldn't text my boss in a private message every evening and I don't think I would ask him to text me he got home safe after a team event.

Sorry for ranting on but any help would be appreciated
Thanks in advance!

I agree that he probably sees it as being friendly and supportive,but he is stepping into dangerous territory, especially private messing ing.

Maybe you could voice your concerns as someone said earlier,to protect himself. Private messenging could be viewed as harassment or outside his professional remit.

Yeah I think one of the things that makes it worse is he is generally very bad at texting or getting back to anyone. He doesn’t reply to his male friends very often and they always complain about it and he never replies to his parents. He doesn’t sit there texting anyone really, unless it’s actual work stuff so for him to reply to her so quickly is a bit out of the ordinary for him.

She is 26 so very young, still lives with her parents so she probably has more time on her hands to text and may just text a lot of people in general. But yeah they have a small group chat of three, he manages her and another lady and they seem to only text privately.

Yeah the worst part is we have already had a chat about this and he just carried on. I don’t really believe he can change and maybe I shouldn’t expect him to but I can’t help be upset by his behaviour.

Sounds like the beginning of a flirtation/emotional affair and it's inappropriate.

It's inappropriate given he's married/not single and it's inappropriate from a professional (esp senior to her) angle too.

I bet he wouldn't like it if you were texting a young male colleague outside of work group chat and after nights out and in the evening.

(Especially if you were the type of person who could barely be bothered to text your friends or family back).

Yeah I think one of the things that makes it worse is he is generally very bad at texting or getting back to anyone. He doesn’t reply to his male friends very often and they always complain about it and he never replies to his parents. He doesn’t sit there texting anyone really, unless it’s actual work stuff so for him to reply to her so quickly is a bit out of the ordinary for him.

This is the key information that makes it inappropriate imho. Many people are saying colleagues friendly texting into the night is normal for them. Personally I hate that shit. Not that I don't have people I consider friends at work- because I do I just hate pointless chit chat via WhatsApp etc. It takes so much time and attention. I muted work WhatsApp yesterday (furloughed so no important information on there) because it just would not stop buzzing.

If I were to reply and keep this up it would only be out of social awkwardness or a real affection for them. See what happens in a few days, if he's still talking to her a lot I think you might have a problem.

Hi op . This has happened to me with my married boss . Male . He's married with two children. He started messaging me out of work times . It moved on from work to loads of memes . I'm overly friendly so was replying until one day a girl at our work said that the boss has a crush on me . Apparently everyone in the office knew and I was the only one who couldn't tell . Well until that moment . They were saying that he's never one for texting anyone back and with me he would numerous times a night . Every night if I carried on the conversation. Works do making sure I got home ok ect . His wife got suspicious of the texts . He even told me this .!they had also gone away for a weekend and when they were having a meal he was texting me ! I didn't know this until a month after . At 1st I thought she was just some Paranoid jelouse sod but after a while I realised what she must of been feeling and I ended it there and then . Didn't reply . I changed all my hours so I woundnt be alone or ever have to work with him again .and to be honest I did start to grow to like him more than a boss too . If it carried on 100 percent we would of met up . But I wasn't going to be the person to ruin his life and do that to his wife and kids . He's not done it before and never has since . He's not that kind of person me and him it was so odd because it rarely happens . We just click . And I still work for him so when we do have to talk or text about work it's still there . But I think he even knows now that thats the end of it for us . You need to nip this in the bud now op . There's definitely an attraction there for the both of them xxx

I am friends with a male manager where I work, he's married and I live with my DP - we are friends but definitely still have a line to not be inappropriate. We send funny things to each other now and then, often this is less than once a week, and will be related to something we both find funny... but if we were messaging everyday I wouldn't find it appropriate at all, and I'd feel the same if it was my DP. Wouldn't mind him messaging colleagues now and then funny things but if it was regularly every day I wouldn't be happy.