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?

Hey OP, I think he's respecting your signals to back off a bit. Maybe he fancies you, maybe he doesn't, but if neither of you is actually doing anything wrong does it matter? Don't throw away a friendship because other people have made you paranoid. Just pick up contact again and see what happens.

You are allowed to be friends with someone who is a man and has an age gap. Don't let people stereotype 'straight men do xyz'. He is an individual and is more than just a straight man. Maybe these judgements are one of the ways men end up lonely?

Read your emails and ask yourself if you would send them to a straight female friend. If not, then yes maybe have a think about what you're up to, but if it's a yay, stop being paranoid and talk to your friend.

I disagree.
I've had many male friends over the years and not all of them has wanted to bed me.... And they're not gay.....

Or it's almost kinda like someone's entertaining themself with a surefire windup topic.

Agree, I have a couple of ex colleagues I text perhaps monthly and catch up with face to face occasionally and we all talk about kids and spouses . I think the key is occasionally though as once the bond/common interest of work has gone , if the contact doesn’t naturally wind down a bit that’s when I’d wonder.

I think some nuance is being lost here and maybe my age (50s) is playing into this but i am the same generation as this guy.

It’s absolutely possible for men and women to be just friends. I have some good male friends and DH has some good female friends. If the general potential for sexual attraction were a bar to friendship, then gay people could only have opposite sex friends and bisexual/pansexual people wouldn’t be able to have any friends. I also think it’s completely possible to have platonic friendships with someone whilst being aware that they are objectively physically attractive.

The issue here is the frequency of the contact. Experience has taught me to be cynical about a 50+ guy who gets into very regular extended messaging to a woman 20 years his junior. I’m guessing he’s not so regularly in contact with anyone else. He may not be looking for an affair but it’s at the very least massaging his ego. I would be unhappy with my husband putting that much energy into another woman, particularly if this involved never talking about me. OP’s husband was relaxed because he could be sure OP wasn’t interested - after all she’s 20 years younger. I doubt his wife would have been so relaxed if she was fully aware of what was going on.

Of course he fancied you. Have you watched “When Harry Met Sally?” 😀

I agree. Long emails so frequently you’d mention even in passing something about your other half , you’d say Dave and I went to x and I liked it, he didn’t for example.

No he’s straight and has a gf, who I actually set him up with.

He also set me up with my ex.

He is just not attracted to me in that way and sees me as a friend/sister rather than anything sexual and vice versa.

I have many male friends, I always have.
Men and women can be platonic friends.

I keep in touch with ex colleagues, and yes, with the male ones I make sure to mention my DH and ensure their DW is included in life updates. I think this gives out a subtle sign that these are platonic relationships from my perespective.

If they started to do the whole 'my wife dosnt understand me' I'd see right through it and likey drop contact.

So there never been anything inappropriate,you’ve never picked up on flirty vibes , and never suggested to meet

you’ve sent back off signal and he’s backed off

Shane really as it sounds like you both enjoy the exchanges

no idea why you felt the need to do it in the first place

Maybe he just got bored with trying to think up long, warm, engaging emails after a while?

It’s a bit bonkers if you can’t mention your husband to a friend! If he did see it purely as a friendship he wouldn’t feel the need to back off, would he?!

Yeah, sorry, that is naive.

PS - have just asked DH (also a Gen X) - he has confirmed (even before i finished my question) that middle-aged men do not put that much energy into friendship full stop, regardless of gender. So this guy wanted this exchange to lead somewhere.

We can only guess what his intentions were, and why he's reacted the way he has. Maybe he thought you were telling him to back off, maybe his wife found out. What seems pretty clear to me is that you were much more invested than you are willing to admit. It doesn't sound like it was "just friendship" on your part.

But OP was putting in the same amount of effort - so if he wanted it to lead somewhere, then so did she.

Sorry OP your friend was spot on! Im talking from my own experience whos husband was in constant contact with a female colleague, he later admitted he had feelings for her.

@Tacohill - OP is female. My experience is that women routinely do more to nurture friendships than men do. That’s not just from observing myself but from observing my DH and his friends and noting that, from what i can see, where my good male friends are coupled up, it’s the female partner who chiefly maintains the social relationships. We’re mostly Gen X which may have a bearing but this man is also Gen X. This man has backed off now OP has mentioned her husband. If his intentions were entirely unromantic, OP mentioning her husband wouldn’t be an issue.

Yes.

⬆️ this

I'm also wondering about the DH working away comment and whether it could have been seen as a covert invitation which he backed away from in the end, although he probably would have been interested in principle. Taking it out of his daydreams and making it a reality might have seemed like a step too far.

Yet OP told her friend about this man in detail, is hurt that he hasn’t replied yet (even though for most of us would have assumed this was a hint to get the other person to back off) and now she’s made a thread about it.

I definitely think whatever feelings were involved were reciprocated by OP.

In these situations, if it was a genuine friendship the next step would be meeting as two couples. I doubt a real friend would ignore your spouse even before you started to mention him - when I'm friends with people I always ask about their families, including their other halves.

I work in the industry where there are more guys than women, and I do make friends - but I always get to know their wives at the earliest opportunity and never let it become "just the two of us" thing. I'm in touch with a lot of present and past male colleagues, but I never message them continuously. You need to have boundaries. If you want to have a person to chat to every day (and it really should be your partner, but hey) get yourself a girlfriend or two. Or a gay friend.

The guy clearly had a crush on you, or at least used you as a sort of romantic outlet. Your friend was right.

Like some people use videos some people use photos he was using your letters to fantasise about other stuff happening between you. Your subtle and natural mountain of your husband has thrown him. He can’t use the letters for that purpose anymore.

Well I guess it’s possible that he’s seen it as you warning him to back off and he’s mortified that you think he’s interested in you - but surely if that was the case the obvious thing to do would be to reply and say I’m glad you and husband had a good Christmas. That screams I know you have a husband and I’m cool with that I’m not a risk here. Maybe even throw his wife into the conversation too to back up it’s just friends here. Then maybe reduce the frequency as well because he doesn’t want to continue giving the wrong idea. The fact that he didn’t reply at all suggests to me that he was interested and thought you might be as well. Let’s be honest every other day for a longish communication is quite a lot. Most of my close friends either do a once a week longish catch up, or if it’s daily it’s more just a quick sentence or two max. And that’s female friends. Men tend to be less chatty unless it’s in person or they’re interested (not all men I know there’s exceptions). Unfortunately I think your friend was correct about this one. Yes men and women can just be friends but men dont tend to communicate to this level unless there’s more to it - in my experience anyway.