Work spouse

[MonClareDevole]

I seem to have acquired what others might call a ‘work husband’. We spend our breaks together, sometimes alone if he’s come to my office for a chat. We have a lot in common both inside and outside of work. We have been confiding in each other more lately, about work and non-work matters but never about our marriages.

My question is, are these types relationships unhealthy? Can men and women actually just have a purely platonic relationship? At what point does it become inappropriate?

BibbityBobbityBellend

Thanks for clarifying. I'm wondering if I'm looking for signs that aren't there or reading too much into things iykwim. Before first lockdown I did feel that eye contact was sometimes longer than it should have been, felt his eyes on me a few times (might have been my imagination!), I felt "something" - even though I can't articulate what that "something" was.

Since March there has been long phone calls (95% work), some Skype messages etc. All above board. He is v senior to me and I sometimes feel I have more attention than my peers of his time.

I'm struggling to work it out. Both of us have been married for years. Him far more. Both have children.

Either way, whether there is something there or not, I shouldn't be exploring it. Not that I ever would. It may just be an ego boost!

Well it looks like I don’t need to worry - he’s cooled right off. Haven’t really seen him since Monday. We work Saturdays, and he’s not in today. He would usually have told me but I didn’t know. Definite sense of avoidance, even when we’ve been in public areas of the office he’s made excuses and left. Saves me a job I guess.

Could he have read this?

How strange!

Well he may have been told something about "work husband"? Maybe by someone in the office?
A friendship like this is not unhealthy in the meantime it does not spill into your time with your husband and your family. So no never ending testing or so.
If you are happy to talk to your husband about this guy and your day, conversations with him, and your husband does not get wary.
Then it is just that you have things in common and get each other. He just happens to be a male.
But the work husband or wife term, I do not like it at all. It gets me in a negative dark area straight away, with affair written on it.

Eh? I thought work wife/ husband was a jokey thing? My husband has one. She arranges his work life for him.

@BibbityBobbityBellend

Could he have read this?

How strange!

I have no idea. Bizarre.

@wizzywig if you are ok with the term itself, that is fine.
It has a negative meaning to me because I work with my manager's work wife (said by herself) and I quite did not like that. There was something else with those two (they were very very personnal with each other), and it spilled to the rest of us and the work we do. At the end he was kicked out, and she left not long after.
I would never use it.

I would call it being work friends rather than colleagues. You talk about work and non work stuff, but you’re drawing the line at discussing your marriages. Sounds like a decent line to draw.
For me inappropriate, would be starting to meet out of work keeping it a secret.

Sounds like heard that you're calling him your work husband and now he realises you're delusional.

In future, when you meet a man that you get along with as a friend, recognise he's a friend and treat him as such.

Don't project surrogate marriage status on him. It's genuinely crazy and the women who are cheering it on telling you they do it too, are crazy, their "work husbands" would be running a mile too if they knew how they were being described!

@ReneeRol I agree this would make sense. But I’ve never called him my work husband.

As you e heard this expression from your work colleagues I suspect he has too and has backed of from the friendship. It's pretty sad really that people can't have good friends of the opposite sex without all this nonsense. No one would have noticed if it had been another woman.

FWIW I would speak to him and explain how embarrassing for both of you this comment is doing the rounds, but you still regard him as a good friend who you work with, but nothing more than that.

Not nice to lose a friend because of some bitchy comments.