Just had a WhatsApp from my colleagues wife

[BlueMoone]

I work in a freelance creative industry (TV production) where I will be contracted on a project for a finite amount of time. My current role is 16 weeks and I'm 6 weeks in. I'm self employed and very very pleased to have the contract as sometimes I go a couple of months between contracts and have to budget to make the money stretch the whole year. Being self employed I don't get holiday pay or anything like that (just demonstrating how precious the work is to me.)

My role involves being paired with another freelance professional and the two of us work together in an edit suite reporting to senior members of staff but essentially it's just the two of us for the vast majority of the day.

This job was the first time I had met this guy, usually you work with people on the circuit but I hadn't come across him before. We get in great, he's 15 years older than me but seems young in his outlook and we have enjoyed chatting and having a laugh at work.

He told me about how he met his wife online and got her pregnant on their second date and now they're married and their child is about six months old. FWIW I live with my long term partner. He would sometimes tell me how his wife and he would argue but always in a jokey tone, he probably did share too much but not just about his relationship about loads of stuff - mostly just idle chat as we worked.

This evening I have received a WhatsApp from his wife (must have taken my number from his phone) telling me to stop calling him, he's a married man and he has a child and I need to back off and stay away from her husband. I had a missed call from him yesterday evening, called back assuming a work thing and he didn't pick up. Wasn't mentioned at work today I didn't think anything of it.

What do I reply? I don't want things to be awkward at work and don't want to put my job in jeopardy by giving the impression at work we are not being professional. We are doing a good job with good feedback. Should I message my colleague and tell him?

Hope it all gets sorted OP.

Hope it all gets sorted OP.

Urgh! What a minefield. You’ve got more than enough evidence to show that this is nothing to do with you and it’s HIS personal life that is encroaching into the workplace. I didn’t get a good vibe about him telling you he got his partner pregnant very quickly. That is way too much info! And if he’s the type to wind up his partner then it’s completely backfired.

OP the fact she got pregnant by a stranger shows how desperate and unhinged both these people are.
Next time be more aware of information like that, it indicates character and future behaviour.

PM is a woman, too. She might be getting the same treatment.

I was also just thinking that myself.

OP returned a missed call from him. If the wife was monitoring his phone anyway because she’s the paranoid type, she would’ve seen OP’s name as a missed call on his screen.

Hope it goes ok tomorrow OP. I can imagine it’s been a long weekend.

@IVFPrayingForBioChild exactly, that chain of events says a lot about her. It’s not fair you’re being dragged into their batshittery. Good luck with it all. I for the record can never imagine doing this to my fiancé’s with colleague 🙄

Just remember you’ve done nothing wrong. Hopefully your manager will be able to work out what’s happening tomorrow and back you.

horrible situation for you to find yourself in.

I'd be very angry she was accusing me of what's basically unprofessional behaviour. It sounds to me like she has a probelm. Don't let it become yours.
It sounds from what you say like your production manager has either been told about it by the man, his paranoid wife (who has no business whatsoever contacting his work colleagues, and even less business accusing them of such behaviour) or your manager has come across/heard about this pair's nuisance behaviour before with another victim. Hopefully your manager will see to it that you are not disadvantaged by their idiocy.

Oooh, good point. I hope that isn't the case though. That said, it might help the OP's case because the batshittery is being spread around their work team. 😬

Wouldn’t surprise me if that friend request came from her though. Trying to snoop on “the competition”

I would reply “Sorry, you got the wrong person. I am just a colleague and I am in a happy relationship. I was just returning a missed call as it was work related”. I would also talk to him and make it clear that you don’t want troubles at work and to ask him to please talk to his wife.
I was in this situation once. I was getting my drivers license and needed to call my instructor directly to book appointments. It was strictly professional, a short hello, day, time and place. Once I got a call and it was his ID but when I replied it was woman’s voice yelling at me “No, it’s not him, I am his wife so please stop calling him”. I went to the driving school and reported the incident directly, basically a formal conplaint against her. Of course, the instructor spoke to her immediately and she never called again. If your conscience is clean, report her for harrassment or better: tell him you will report her.

@BlueMoone You have handled this well.

Although I suggested that you block them both & bolt down your social media e.g. FB, by trying to ‘Friend’ you, he has played out his next move.

Rightly, you contacted line management.
If it seems that the response to your message is ‘knowing’, it may be that his missus has contacted other people as well.
Have no contact with him outside of work, & then only about the subject of work.

Keep your actions & words neutral & professional.

If I had EXH’s phone or he had mine, we could easily see who has hired the other (who we had negotiated rates and conformed contracts with) and the key people we are working with on the current job (from WhatsApp group chats) even if we hadn’t remembered names from general chit chat.

Best of luck tomorrow op. Hope all gets sorted 💐

Giving the guy the benefit of the doubt - hopefully the PM is already aware because he has warned them about his partner who might be a bit unhinged at the moment. Hopefully he is extremely embarrassed and tried to contact OP on Facebook to apologise because he couldn’t contact her via his phone.

That is really judgemental. We don't know the details here, maybe the condom broke. Maybe she'd wanted a baby for years and was ecstatic to finally be pregnant, maybe he pressured her out of having an abortion.
It doesn't make her desperate or unhinged.

This is very possible.
Whatever happens, you must just relax and feel entirely confident. You have done nothing wrong, and messages etc can show this.
And yes, you are now into the territory of harassment on his/their part. Her complaining to your manager is extreme. I'd love to hear what his 'complaint' about you may be.
Look forward to the meeting tomorrow. And totally me too them if there's even a hint of your position being compromised, because that would be entirely justified. You shared a room and a project with a guy who may have fancied you and/or be having an affair with someone else. His wife then attacks you. This is crazy stuff.

He's having an affair, it's just not you.

Unbelievably judgemental and horrible comment! Are you from the 1950s?

I dunno the behaviour all put together rather paints a picture though doesn’t it…

Good luck today, OP. Hold your head high, you've done nothing wrong.

Absolutely! Best of luck today.