To ask them to stop messaging?

[ThemAndMe123]

Partner and I have been together 18 years.

Partner has a friend, a little bit of flirt between them. I dislike this person and not happy with some of the comments to partner. Flattery is nice and to be fancied. But I don’t like their chat, we have spoken about this in the past but they still chat (phone and text). Am I wrong to ask partner to stop the chat and to just keep it work related?

(Trying to keep it gender neutral as I’ve seen in the past that definitely sways peoples comments and advice) TIA

That depends on a lot of things.

Friendships have so many different faces. What do they do together, and how often? Are you involved?

Why do you think they fancy your partner as anything other than a friend?

They work together but in separate offices but with overlapping work. As far as I know they only see each other in weekly meetings. Partner only attends the office for the meetings (Not WFH) No other meet ups that I know of and nothing involving me, only text and phone calls.
They have told partner they like them and asked them out on a date (obviously partner said no and was about 8-9 months ago).

Your partner has already made it clear he is not interested, then.

What is the content of the messages?

Partner is clearly not being clear enough that they aren’t interested if the other party felt asking someone in an 18 year relationship for a date!

We are not being given enough context to say that, Downtown.

We don't know how long they have been working together, how much the other party actually knew about the OP's partner's life; it could have been a simple "fancy a date" - "sorry, I have a partner" thing.

If it was 8 months ago, what has changed between then and now that brought it all forward?

I think if you've said you don't like it and they carry on, then carrying on is more important to them than you feeling happy.

If you don't trust your partner to chat, you don't trust your partner. Would that be accurate? Because if that is the case, then chatting/texting is a symptom of the problem, rather than the problem itself, and unless you watch every move your partner makes, you won't trust that they've stopped contact anyway.

Your partner needs to stop chatting. There is no good reason to keep chatting, only unjustifiable ones:

a) it's only an ego boost for them so it's for utterly selfish reasons they are continuing to chat.
b) it's leading on some daft idiot who's got feelings for them and being cruel.
c) it's disrespectful to you, the partner to continue chatting to the person, knowing that they have feelings for your partner.

Cue generic MN advice:

If your partner is a woman, I'm sure it's just friendly banter and many people do it to get colleague to help them etc.
If your partner is a man, they're cheating, red flag, LTB.

Seriously though, I'd gauge this on the vibe you're getting. Chances are they won't stop if you ask, they'll just hide it better. The question is, do YOU think it's more than flirty banter?

Either way its disrespectful.

Sounds like your partner has led them on a bit.