Male colleague stopped emailing after I mentioned my husband more

[Whathappenedici]

I worked closely with a colleague on a year long project. He is about 20 years older than me and married, I’m also married. I viewed this as purely platonic, we really got along just as I would any friend. I found him easy to chat to, he was warm and friendly and he had a good reputation with other colleagues for generally being a nice guy (not a sleaze or anything).

After it ended we naturally stayed in touch via email for about 6 months. I don’t know who instigated, we both just stayed in regular contact. The emails were quite long, warm and engaging and he ramped up the frequency to every other day just before Christmas so we were in touch a lot. I enjoyed the contact and looked forward to hearing from him. We mostly just discussed current affairs, work, books we were reading, politics etc. Nothing I’d hide from my DH and in fact I didn’t hide it, he knew I was in touch with him and didn’t feel remotely threatened.

I mentioned it to a friend a few months ago and she thought it was hilarious. In her mind, he 100% had a crush on me and she thought I was being ridiculously naive if I didn’t realise this. She said straight men don’t spend so much time engaging with women if they’re not attracted to them. I thought that was a little bit too overly simplistic and I’d never once picked up on flirtatious energy from him… She advised I start mentioning my DH more in the emails and see what happens.

Anyway he last emailed me at the start of the year and I took my friend’s advice and mentioned my DH more in my response. It was natural, didn’t look like I was forcing him into the conversation to set boundaries or whatever. Well, he never replied! To my friend this is evidence she was right and I was just horribly naive to think he was a genuinely nice guy, is she right?

I get why op cares. It’s not often you meet people with whom you click completely.

It’s disappointing that blokes tend to only put an effort in when they want something back.

Maybe… I just enjoyed the exchange of ideas, it was nice. We didn’t mention meeting up but then we live quite far apart so would have to majorly go out of our way to accommodate that.

Perhaps he did see it as a signal to back off but I thought it fit into natural conversation really. How was Christmas/New Year? Oh great, I spent it with DH and ILs, it was ok aside from -insert jokey anecdote-, DH now working away so I’m watching a lot of X programme. That was it as far as DH mentions went then I answered his other questions.

Dont forget your friend knows you well and from what you described I think she was able to see the situation with more objectivity than you could.

Emailing so frequently isn’t just a friendship. How on earth did you have enough to talk about ? 😂 I think you have been naive here too.

Oh definitely. I didn’t find him threatening in that sort of way, perhaps because he’s technically old enough to be my father! I just assumed it was a good little friendship and didn’t pick up on any charged energy but perhaps that’s because of the age gap and me just thinking he was a genuinely nice guy.

Yes, this. Your friend is wrong to assume that his backing off is a sign that his motives were something other than friendliness. It could equally be that he is mortified that you are suddenly treating him as if he had trespassed beyond the friend zone and needed to be pushed back. I would be horrified if someone flagged their boundaries in a similar way.

Perhaps he was pushing things inappropriately, but perhaps not. It might have been better to trust your own instincts on this rather than a friend's. But hopefully you can still continue the email exchanges, less frequently/intensely.

That’s definitely a ‘back off’ email, especially if (as it sounds) it’s a change from before.

If they were talking about Christmas and OP mentioned she spent it with her DH thats not weird though. If you know someone is married then I would expect for their spouse to come up in conversation at times, that would be completely natural.

It would be weirder to never mention them actually, as if they didnt exist. So, unless OP was saying "my Dh and I" excessively in every sentence, it would be normal to drop in your spouse in conversations with friends.

I’d understand this more if I randomly dropped DH in lots and it didn’t fit the flow of conversation in any way but I didn’t do that. He was asking how Christmas was so I saw it as a way to casually mention DH.

Had you never mentioned DH before, then? Does that make you question your own feelings about the exchange?

I agree with this. I know you say it wasn’t a lot OP, but clearly it was still more than before, since you were making a conscious effort to do it. I have male friends who I have no desire to sleep with, and if they suddenly started referring to their wives more in message, I’d assume there was some issue, maybe I’d inadvertently done something they had thought was flirty and wanted to push back a bit, maybe their wife wasn’t happy with the friendship, whatever it might be. I’d back off.

Or of course, he wanted to sleep with you. But I’d still say that your friend is incorrect to say that no man is friends with a woman unless they want to sleep with them. One of my best friends is a man, we’ve been single together, drunken nights out while both single, meals together etc - if he wanted to sleep with me, I think it would probably have come up at some point by now.

Not much but then it wasn’t natural to do so, we didn’t really talk about our home lives much. We sort of just exchanged general ideas on things like books, politics, current affairs, philosophy, sometimes anecdotes. I didn’t think that was particularly weird, but perhaps it was!

I’m sure I have read this exact same thread before?

Anyway, yes, you sound quite gullible.

From reading lots of posts about emotional affairs here, whilst do didn’t think you were in one, he probably did. Did he ever mention his wife or family, if not, then I definitely think it was an EA for him and doubt his wife would have been as happy as your DH. But you’ve done nothing wrong, a bit naive maybe.

When does an every other day email exchange become an emotional affair. Out of interest. Did you tell your husband you were emailing a bloke every other day and the length of those exchanges?

Occasionally but mainly his DC rather than wife. If he mentioned them at all it was usually to do with his motivations in staying in the job or something along those lines, he wouldn’t often open up about his home life.

And yes, my DH knew about the exchange and wasn’t threatened.

Your friend was totally right and i agree with @Lennonjingles that his wife might have been quite unhappy with the attention he was giving you if she knew about it. I think your intentions were purely platonic but you have been a bit naive in assuming his were. Men just don’t expend that level of time and interest on a woman if they’re not attracted to her. I have some close male friends. We are not in touch many times a week. My husband has some close female friends - they are not in touch many times a week. It’s just not an appropriate level of contact with someone else’s partner.

I agree and prior to Christmas he was emailing "every other day".

Thats very full on for a platonic friendship. I have close male friends but it would feel inappropriate to be contacting them for chats that often and frankly, I wouldn't be happy if a woman was emailing my husband that frequently either

He upped the frequency so I matched it. Prior to that it was every 1-2 weeks at best but he suddenly started emailing every other day so we fell into that pattern for a few weeks. Had a break over Xmas then he emailed me as soon as he returned to work and I replied a few days later, haven’t heard back since.

He maybe decided at the New year to call
it a day. It’s a time when people reevaluate situations. Maybe mentioning dh was a factor.

(Have you posted about this before? Getting long, essay length emails which you enjoyed sending and receiving? Plus the taking a break seemed familiar. Purely platonic (on your part)).

I think it’s strange to have sent long emails every single day but not to have mentioned your husband at all until then? Do you think this means subconsciously that you knew that you knew it was turning into something more?

I think it was inappropriate for both of you to be doing that. Just because there's no explicit romantic talk, doesn't make it OK. As many people have said, most men just don't invest this amount of time and effort into someone they don't want to sleep with. Even the attention from you answering his emails would have done something for him at that point.

Maybe he is worried he's overstepped but I think that's unlikely. I think it's more that he's realised it's not going anywhere and moved his attentions elsewhere.

Not sure your logic stands up here. You think the mention of your DH (that he already knew existed) was enough to be noticed by him so he backed off because he wanted to sleep with you. While simultaneously being such a normal mention that it couldn’t have been read by him as a you signalling that he should back off.

There’s a few things that could have happened. You mentioning your DH put him back in check. You can’t use a genuine friendship if you can’t mention your DH without him getting spooked.

His wife could have found out and not been happy about it. Whilst your DH didn’t see it as a threat that is probably because you were still invested in your marriage. He hasn’t ever mentioned his marriage and mentioned his reasons for staying in his job are his kids. That’s a usual intro for the affair warm up (she’s a different person since the kids, we don’t have sex anymore, can’t afford to leave). His wife can sense he’s putting more energy into this friendship than other areas of his life. When were these long emails sent from his side? If out of work hours, his attention on you has definitely intruded on his family life, even if that wasn’t your attention.

It hurts now but your friend has probably done you a favour because this could continue and you’d be more hurt that he was trying to build a romantic relationship. Or, even though it is platonic, it could have started to build into something else on your side.

He upped the frequency so I matched it

So, he never mentioned his wife and barely mentioned his home life and he was the one who initiated emailing more and more frequently.

Maybe he is worried he's overstepped but I think that's unlikely. I think it's more that he's realised it's not going anywhere and moved his attentions elsewhere

Completely agree.