Why does my married coworker keep talking to me about his wife?

[JollyMintSnake]

I’m just trying to gather some insight on why my male coworker keeps mentioning his wife when it’s completely irrelevant. It’s to the point where bringing her up feels unnatural and forced. Like, we could be talking about a new piece of equipment at work, for example, and he’ll mention how “the missus/the wife” loves tulips. It’s gotten to THAT level of irrelevance.

For some context, this is a coworker that’s seems to be fairly attracted to me. I don’t flirt with him or try to pursue him in that way whatsoever. It’s worth mentioning that we talked almost daily in the same way for several months and he never mentioned her, or that he was married. Most of our conversations are casual small talk, and 95% of the time, we’re talking about something work-related. On the rare occasion, we’ll vent to each other about things, but those are also work-related.

I’m just wondering what could be the cause of him mentioning her in this way? It wouldn’t strike me as odd if the wife mentions had some relevance to the conversation, but it’s always something completely unrelated to the topic.

Some things to mention:

1. He usually starts conversations with me, and they are very, very platonic, so I wouldn’t think he’d feel the need to mention her. If I was being flirtatious with him, I’d completely understand.

1. He just started doing this about 6 months ago, the entire year prior, he’s never once mentioned anything about her, now it’s usually at least once or twice a day.

1. In the last two months, we’ve gone from loose acquaintances to buddies, mostly because we get to work/leave at the same time.

I vote for mentionitis at home that has sparked a conversation with 'my wife'. Now he's paranoid and doing mentionitis to you. Seems the most obvious answer to me

I can’t see what the problem is. Your examples are a bit odd.

Because it’s obvious you’re desperately angling for sex in the photocopier room?

Does he ever talk about her in a derogatory way?

ie -

she goes out all of the time. I hardly ever see her.

she was doing my head in at the weekend

we are like ships that pass in the night.

talking about her as “his missus” or “the wife” is almost creating distance between them to find a way in to you.

Perhaps it took him a while to catch on to the fact that you were attracted to him, or someone else has mentioned to him and he’s clumsily making it clear to you he isn’t available and is not interested in you romantically?

I suspect he has feelings for you, and by mentioning his wife, in his head it makes him feel less guilty and it masks his feelings. Unfortunately, mentioning his wife at random moments, that aren't really in context, has drawn attention to himself instead. No you don't flirt, but it's possible he did pick up on the fact you liked him previously, before he let slip he is married. I think it's a coping mechanism to help him deal with feeling guilty for having a crush on you!

It’s possible he was oblivious that you fancied him / were pursuing him and was just being friendly.

Someone - possibly his wife - pointed out you fancied him, and he’s now back peddling and ensuring you know he’s not available. He’s deliberately mentioning her, to reinforce this. Previously, when he was oblivious to your feelings, he didn’t realise he needed to do this. He doesn’t know you ‘don’t go for married men’ and you’ve done nothing to actively stop pursuing him TBH. Your behaviour is exactly the same apart from you now sound annoyed he mentions HIS WIFE!

You would do well to back off, before you’re accused of harassing him (the flirty banter falls under the definition of sexual harassment, especially as he’s forced to constantly remind you and mention that he’s married).

It's a classic way of signalling unavailability. I'm surprised you have to ask.

What message do you think he’s trying to send you OP?

Personally I’d be backing away from this friendships Either he fancies you or he thinks you fancy him, or both. No good can come of it, detach yourself.

People are giving you an unnecessarily hard time on here. You fancied him - nothing wrong with that. You found out he was married and you backed off - that’s the right thing. Not sure why people are attacking you as if you’re throwing yourself at him. Personally I would back off even further. Who knows why he’s doing it - we’ll never know. Just try to slowly retreat until you’re just saying hi and bye. That way you protect yourself. You’ll find other friends.

This is quite a reach. As most other PP have said it's the opposite, it's drawing a boundary (directed at the OP or himself or both) to prevent an affair.

The other reason men mention their wives constantly is when they're all starry-eyed and obviously very proud of them/to be with them, that's quite sweet. I have a friend who still does this 10 years in! Doesn't seem like that's what's happening here though.

Kill the casual conversation with him completely.
He thinks you are seriously into him and he is desperately trying to get across that he is taken.

Put him out of his misery and leave him alone😁

Because it’s clear the OP has posted in order to have people tell her he’s desperately in love with her and fighting it by mentioning his wife so he doesn’t fall upon her and rip her clothes off on the canteen?

I honestly, I think that he fancies you and feels guilty about it, so is overcompensating by bringing her up at any opportunity to remind himself to behave.

I don't think it's nice or complimentary at all to her to keep referring to her as 'the wife' and 'the missus'. Does he never say her actual name, or even 'my wife' or 'my missus'?

Sorry I just RTHFT and he does say 'my'.

Even so, to me, it's like he's constantly slapping his own hand to keep it out of the cookie jar.

He fancies you, he feels guilty about it so he talks about his wife to convince himself that he’s a good guy who is committed to his marriage.

He probably avoided talking about her for the first six months because he fancied you and enjoyed feeling like something might come of it. As time went on and he got to know you better he felt he couldn’t get away with that any longer and that he should start talking about her as much as possible, for the reasons above.

I also think, as he no doubt knows you fancy him, he's probably also getting a bit of a kick trying to make you jealous.

Why? Because you were, in your own words, pursuing him and fancied him before you knew he was married. He is just making it clear he isn't interested I think

Or possibly someone else has noticed you fancied him and pointed it out. I knew someone at work who thought ever man, married or otherwise, was flirting with her. She was really pretty and I'm sure some of them were flirting. One very senior manager got wind of her saying "Mike fancies me I think" and he had to be quite cold with her after that.

Looking for a relationship in the workplace is a minefield. I just avoid it completely

It seems simple to me. Either he knows you fancy him, the feeling is mutual, but he’s reminding you both he’s married so it can’t happen, or the feeling isn’t mutual and he’s just reminding you. Either way, if you mean what you say about pursuing married men, it doesn’t matter whether he mentions her or not, because you don’t need reminding.

Is this a pride thing? Is it about putting the record straight somehow - “You know I don’t fancy you, right?” In your shoes I’d ask myself whether it really matters what he thinks. You know you’re not interested in being his bit on the side, so even if he’s got it into his head that YOU want that, it doesn’t really matter.

Tell him you've started going out with someone you met online/at a meetup/sport whatever.

He'll stop doing it.

Better still, go on as many dates as you can and stop thinking about this married man.

Could it be that he realised you fancied him, felt uncomfortable and wants you to know that he is married. So he keeps bringing her up to let you know he’s not interested?

I work work a man who does this. I have no idea why he does it.

Probably this

I agree with this: OP you clearly want us to tell you he fancies you madly and he has to invoke his wife to stop himself from acting his desires.

The truth is: for wathever reason, the man mentions his wife and you are very annoyed with this. So you have two options: respect the boundary he is (consciously or unconsciously) trying to put in place and keep the friendship nice and clean; or back off and detach from the relationship if it's unbearable to you.

Do you ever ask about his wife? If you don't fancy him anymore and are interested in a healthy friendship, talking about spouses and family is completely normal and expected.

Sounds like he thinks you fancy him and he's trying to make his wife's presence felt.