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’m not sure either, but I appreciate you saying that. We have a similar mindset when it comes to work frustrations and such, so that’s what our “relationship” has become. Nothing more or less. I do plan on backing off even further, and at this point, it will make me seem very unfriendly. I guess I’m a little worried about working with him while seeming short or standoffish.

He says “my” occasionally, but typically refers to her as “the wife” or “the missus”. Is that unusual??

thanks for your feedback.

Tbh I think it is a pride thing. I don’t need constant reminders from him because I don’t want him anymore. I have plenty of options. I’ve been trying to figure out why it annoys me and it must be the blow to the ego type of thing. Thank you for mentioning that! Everyone seems to think I’m obsessed with him liking me and I truly don’t care if he does or not, but I don’t want to be in casual conversation and have him “reminding” me of his wife every 30 seconds.

No, I don’t want that, please stop assuming things for absolutely no reason. I just want to know why she’s mentioned out of context so often. If we were talking about our weekends and he spoke about her, I wouldn’t bat an eye. If we’re having a convo regarding our daily inventory, I don’t necessarily need to know that her car tire is flat. It’s like he’s bringing her up just to do so and I don’t care??

I don’t bring her up, but when he mentions her, I’ve asked questions related to her and it seems like he just wants to drop her as the topic at that point.

This is the best and most helpful comment I’ve seen so far. You are so right! TBH when I call us “buddies”, it’s not really even that. It’s him bitching about his day (somehow flirtatiously??) while I listen. I’m gonna cut this off as politely as possible. Thanks a bunch. 🤍

An interesting experiment would be to mention a man you are interested in or a meet up with a male friend and gauge his reaction. You will be able to tell
instantly if he likes you with how he reacts. It doesn’t have to be true but he will either noticeably tense up and look annoyed or uncomfortable, or will show little interest/ not react at all and continue the conversation with you.

Disclaimer: some men will act awkwardly when ppl ‘overshare’ information in their eyes bc they are uncomfortable with what they are expected to say in reply, so be aware of that also.

I don’t understand why the OP needs to find out if her colleague fancies her! There was clearly mutual attraction that’s now been made weird & uncomfortable since he mentioned he’s married. That’s kind it it! OP says he keeps instigating contact despite her backing off - but presumably he’s not going to just ignore you if he sees you at the car park or at the entrance of your workplace. Equally you’re not ignoring him bcos as you work together that wld be equally weird too. For whatever reason whether it’s his conscience catching up on him every time he talks to you or otherwise - he can’t stop mentioning his wife & OP finds that awkward. Trying to analyse why is kind of pointless. What are you trying to achieve OP? He equates talking to you with some kind of betrayal & every time he does his wife’s name comes out of his mouth. So obvs he fancied you. What more do you need to know? But it’s now awkward as a result & you can’t go bank to the flanter you both used to have.

I agree with this.

He didn’t realised that a year ago but recently someone pointed out to him that your behaviour (a year ago) meant that. So he is reinforcing boundaries now just in case.
It could be that he had marriage troubles, did counselling, they discussed past and it came out,
Ot it could be a colleague said something about your past behaviour to him and he had that moment of realisation. We often understand the actions of others towards us only later. There is no need for him to change jobs or whatever as you are just colleagues atm but he is making sure that it stays like this.

Stop talking to him then if it bothers you so much. Plenty of people randomly mention their partners when casually discussing work, irrelevant or not. Work is stressful, a happy anecdote about his wife is nice.

Doesn't sound like he fancies you at all, does sound like you still think he does.

I find it very hard to believe that it took you six months to discover that he was married. All in all though, I’d give him a wide berth. Married men who flirt with colleagues are gross. Next time he mentions his wife, say, poor her, having to live with you! That’ll soon shut him up.

I could try that. If I did, I feel like I’d be doing the same thing he does, bringing up irrelevant things out of context haha. I will say that I started seeing another coworker from a different department awhile back. He did see us walking together one morning and looked kind of pissed off/confused. He’s also come in my work area where I’ll be talking to/joking around with other male coworkers and his expression has changed from blank to visibly irritated, I’m just not sure if that’s coincidental.

A few other times we’ve been walking in/out of work together talking, a few male coworkers will simply say hi or bye to me or both of us and he seems annoyed by that, as if they’re interrupting our conversation. A male coworker even asked me a question once and before I could respond, he answered for me. So I’ve noticed little things like that over time, but again, I don’t want to assume and don’t see why he’d be jealous if he’s clearly so happily married.

I don’t necessarily need to know if he likes me or not, I just want to know how we can continue our working relationship without him feeling like he’s betraying his wife. We have to work together after all, so I’d like to find a way to take the discomfort out of the situation for both of us. I don’t expect him to ignore me, but if he feels like he’s betraying his wife by talking to me, he shouldn’t be seeking me out for conversation. If that’s the case, saying hi/bye should be the max of our interactions.

Personally I wouldn’t start a rumour you are seeing someone else at work. You’ll be considered crazy!!

Yeah, well I don’t act like I like him at this point because I don’t, so I don’t need to be reminded constantly. Back then, my “behavior” was based on his as he’s been somewhat flirtatious with me, even if it was unintentional. It was mutual though. It’s why I started liking him the first place before I knew of his status. The only difference in this situation is that we’ve become work friends and now he brings her up out of the blue.

I want to remain colleagues too, I’m not pursing him and don’t want to be treated like I am. That’s the only reason I’m questioning the purpose.

I was seeing someone at work. I wouldn’t start a rumor about myself either.

You can believe what you like, but we talked about all sorts of things during that time and he NEVER uttered the word “wife”, he also doesn’t wear a wedding ring, so I didn’t know. I agree that it’s gross.

I definitely plan to try and distance myself as much as I can.

Perhaps mention a date you have been on etc.

let him know he can chill out as it sounds very annoying what he is doing!

I think the fact you are only picking out posts that agree he must fancy you says it all, really. You clearly have a thumping crush and you’re freaking him out.

I’m just sick of baseless judgement is all. I don’t reply to people that say shit like you because it’s completely unhelpful to the question I’ve asked. I’ve replied to a lot of people who say he doesn’t fancy me too, but you all have the same thing in common, you’re rude and giving useless feedback. No point in replying to that, duh?

It’s extremely annoying because I don’t care. I don’t want to stoop to that level bc I’m just trying to talk to him about relevant work details, but I may do this if he keeps it up.

Anyone who says ‘the missus’ is a proper knob anyway

And I’d pull back on this friendship he sounds very odd either he thinks you fancy him and he’s making sure you know he has a wife or he’s trying to put his own boundaries in place by keeping mentioning her.

But that isn’t random if it made him recall hanging up a poster with his wife. Maybe she’s just on his mind a lot and he therefore talks about her.

I’m certainly guilty of saying unrelated things at times, particularly if I haven’t honestly been paying attention to what the other person was saying.

This reminds me of a scenario at work from a few years ago. One of my work friends Jan was seemingly in some kind of work friendship with a married man. His wife also worked in our area.

Jan would seek him out to talk to him, seek his help with work, message him, and they always were friendly, even had the odd coffee together. When the man holidayed overseas with he wife, he bought Jan a little present.

One day, the guy asked her out for a drink on the business chat. I saw his message and it was fairly casual and she took it so aggressively. It was as though she had ‘got him.’ I have never seen her move so fast to report him for sexual harassment to the manager. He wasn’t found guilty of anything but obviously that ruined the buzz.

Maybe this guy in this scenario is trying to avoid this sort of reaction/outcome. He was happy to be friendly and then realised maybe he was interested but actively is pulling back even though it is very awkward (bringing up his wife all the time).

I would really leave him alone and step back. If he is waiting at the door, pretend you get a call on the phone and wave him away. If he is not integral to completing work, then don’t talk to him. A hi and bye is all that is needed.