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?

You hadn’t mentioned your husband in six months and when you were working on the project? You were clearly interested in him

She called it correctly.

But in his defense, he responded absolutely correctly. You started to mention your DH a lot more frequently, he understood the sign it was, and backed right off.

Quite long, warm and engaging emails every other day? That's sounds pretty heavy to me. How many other friends do you share long emails with every 2 days?

I think he was probably unhappy in his marriage and a bit lonely - emails every other day is a bit much for friends, let alone a random colleague! I had something similar with a distant colleague, we would email every couple of weeks. He was a bit flirty, suggested we meet up when he was on a stag do in my city. Never mentioned anyone else in his life. Then I looked at his Facebook out of curiosity and it turned out he was recently engaged. I never replied to his last message because who frequently emails random women/colleagues and never mentions their partner unless they have a motive or fantasy that it might lead to more. Surely he has friends that he actually sees in real life to keep up with

Sorry this has happened to you. You are not being naive, I would have assumed he was being friendly. Strange to stop responding like that, is he ok? Or maybe he thought you got the wrong end of the stick if you mentioned DH...

Warm and long emails every other day?

And you thought this was normal for 2 busy married people?

Yes, older married men will try it on with younger coworkers. Now you know.

Genuinely nice guys also like shagging women half their age.

@gamerchick "The weird thing ive noticed with older men now I'm old myself, is even if they're married a lot of them would take the opportunity for a meaningless shag and not think twice about it."

I'm old too and I think most men (of any age) wouldn't say no to a meaningless shag if they thought they could get away with it.

Someone can be genuinely nice and also be hitting on you.... I think it's probably the case that he got on well with you, missed your presence and reached out because he was hoping there was something there. When you mentioned dh he realised you weren't interested/had a happy marriage and backed off. I don't necessarily think it means he is a bad person, I think he was testing the waters as you never know who might be on the way out of a marriage/separated, he backed off as soon as he realised you and dh had a happy, committed marriage. Alternatively, he could just be a sleaze or he could just be being friendly and has got busy. I dont think its impossible that he was being friendly, i do think emailing every other day consistently is probably slightly more than a friendship for most people though, i only speak to my best friends that often, an old work colleague that i get on with, maybe every month or so. I wouldn't worry too much either way, you've done nothing wrong.

Yes, you've called it (I suspect)!

Thank you all for your responses, there’s a real mix of reactions!

I did mention DH before so he knew I was married but I didn’t talk about him often. We didn’t really talk about our home lives much so it didn’t naturally come up in conversation before. I didn’t force my DH into the last email lots to give off a ‘back off’ signal as I already stated a few times. He asked how Christmas was so I literally said yeah it was good, spent it with DH and his family, sort of thing… It wasn’t the sort of thing I’d imagine would prevent a friend from responding! It was a totally normal thing to say.

I also did not say DH was working away in the hope he would come over!! He lives a fair distance away anyway but no, I didn’t give that energy! We were discussing the fact neither of us enjoy watching TV but I dropped in that because DH is away, I’ve been watching x series. That was as far as the mentions of him went, the rest of the email was responding to everything else he’d asked.

Anyway, I guess I’ll never know. I thought about sending a follow up because it’s been a couple of months but then thought that might be weird. I don’t know why he started emailing me every other day but he did for a few weeks and I just copied the frequency. I don’t have feelings for him, I just greatly enjoyed the exchange.

Maybe his wife found out and was unhappy (as with the other thread which I have seen- we didn’t have ‘playful banter’ though and we never emailed outside of work hours!).

I thought the same, I’ve definitely read this exact post before recently.

I think women find it eadier to be friends with men than vice vetsa. Watch When Harry Met Sally - 'Nah, you pretty much wanna nail them too!'j

Agree with this.

@Whathappenedici She said straight men don’t spend so much time engaging with women if they’re not attracted to them.

Not sure about this. We also don't engage with women that are attractive, because we don't want to be weird.

I've also noted that I find it very easy, natural and relaxing to engage with married women that I don't find attractive, as I know neither of us are going to try to move things in a non-platonic direction.

Yeah me too, BUT I wouldn't stop emailing completely without even replying to OP after months of regular contact. I'd just give more of a bland reply. The fact he went from sending lengthy emails every other day to zero at the mention of a husband does indicate he wanted more than just a penpal.

No reason to assume he was hitting on you. It seems you both enjoyed the chats. You signalled him to back off by mentioning your husband. He obediently did. Your loss.

Which means he likely was hoping for more. Otherwise he'd have asked about her husband, mentioned his wife, or kept the conversation less emotional rather than not replying at all which is weird as hell.

If I'm being friendly to a male colleague and laughing, I have had male colleagues mention their wife (not that I was interested in them but you know what men are like they take a smile as flirtation and panic). I tone down any laughing or joking, and ask about their wife, but I certainly don't cut all contact just because they've mentioned a wife!

Why don’t you suggest going out on a double date and see what his reaction is.

Or maybe ask him if he’d like to meet for lunch and if he says yes say it would be nice if the spouses joined.

then gauge his reaction

Or maybe you're not, maybe something has just happened and he'll be in touch again? People are quick to decide he was after more, but I have plenty of male friendships and spouses on both sides are aware and not threatened. Mind you they have met the other person though so maybe that changes things. However, as some people have said he might have seen it as you telling him to back off. To be honest if it were me I would email him and tell him what my friend said and ask him straight "I'm not misreading our friendship am I?" He will either decide he doesn't want to talk to you anymore or be horrified and reassure you.

I once had a male friend of 10 years completely ghost and block me when I decided to get married. He never saw me as a friend, I was just too blind to see it.

so yes. Absolutely.

Yes

Yes I had a really good male friend all through Uni, I had a boyfriend who suspected the male friend liked me as more, then as soon as they met someone else I got totally ghosted. It took me a while to realise he never saw me as a friend and it really hurt.

Some people - men AND women - think friendly interest means sexual attraction. I've had family, colleagues and (rarely, fortunately my friends are all pretty savvy 😂) the odd friend who've thought people fancied them who clearly didn't.

Years ago a man I worked with, and had an entirely platonic good laugh with, told my husband's Mum (before we were married, and upon hearing we had got engaged) that I'd actually liked him, and if he hadn't been married we'd have got together! He actually told my MIL that (they were neighbours)! We all laughed our arses off when she told us - honestly, he looked like fucking cyclops 🤮😂

Cockwombles pmsl that’s class!