Colleague’s wife upset about our friendship, am I being naive?

[Bingowashisnameoh1]

I have a fabulous, kind colleague at work, he’s great fun to be with and I feel very lucky that we are friends. We share lots in common and could honestly natter for hours. There are many other lovely people in the department who are good friends too. It’s not exclusive.
Out of the blue his wife called me late one evening, I didn’t answer and there was no message. I assumed from his wife as the caller profile photo was of the two of them. We have never met so it was odd that she would even have my number. I spoke with him about this and he explained she’s been upset about our friendship for a while and had seen some of our messages.
I’m happily married and have no intention of leaving my family. I understand how she must feel and I’m sorry, but it really it is just friendship. There is no physical attraction there. Friends have always been very important to me and I think in life when you find such a friend, it’s a rare thing and their gender shouldn’t matter.
I have confided in a friend and she thinks I am playing with fire. Am I being naive?

That is not true at all. But clearly there is more to this than friendship. As proper friends tend to have met their friends husbands or wives, and socialise together every now and again

Think it depends on the frequency and content of the messages.

He says his wife is upset as she's seen the messages between you. Are your messages quite flirty. His wife's uncomfortable with his friendship with you and there must be a reason. That could be that he's cheated with female friends or that you two are possibly unintentionally flirting

If he is a friend then why not have him and his wife over for dinner? And if you get why his wife would be unhappy then you know full well that the messages are flirtatious. Show your husband and see what he thinks.

Yeah this doesn’t fly op and you know it, I work in a male environment, am friendly with a couple of men, we text etc but it is very obvious it is just friends if you read the texts, the fact you admit the texts could be upsetting means you’re flirting with this man and you know it.

so just own it and don’t put it on the wife as being her problem,

You know exactly what you’re doing OP

It's impossible to make a judgement about whether the messages are the wrong thing to do without knowing the contents of the messages.

It is, though, imo, wrong to continue to message a work colleague when you know that his wife is upset by your messages.

And he's a bit of a shit for hinting to a female colleague that his marriage isn't good.

And yes, you are being either extremely naive or a bit of an uncaring woman, the kind we all hope our husbands aren't going to strike up a friendship with..

"But I think it’s unfair because I know he had other female friends that the wife seems fine with."

OP be honest.

What does that tell you?

Think about yourself in relation to these other female friends. If you are younger/ore attractive than these other friends/messaging more/taking potentially more of his time away from wife and work, might that be it?

I do not think you are the villain. I do think you are naive. I think he is the villain and you are playing with fire.

Absolute bollocks. Most of us have friends of the opposite sex and maintain those friendships for decades without crossing boundaries and upsetting partners.

I think it’s clear as day what’s going on here and it’s not a respectful friendship with boundaries in place.

Exactly, my DH has a couple of female friends and you can tell by a county mile there's nothing in it, one of them is Godparent to my DS.

Why didnt you answer the call?

If the OP looks at the message exchanges and acknowledges that she can see why his wife might be upset by them, then the messages have crossed whatever arbitrary line that could be drawn. Implicitly sexual is only one type of flirting, and it’s insulting to the wife’s intelligence to defend something that even OP can see a problem with.

It’s either a wind up or the OP is seeking validation on having an emotional affair with a male colleague

How on earth do you know this?

And why has he got so many female friends? That's odd in itself.

His jealous wife is not your problem. If she contacts you again, tell her to grow up. People are allowed to have friends of either sex.

OP has said the wife is fine with his other friendships with women. It's just this particular one she is concerned about. You have no way of knowing the wife's instincts about his feelings for OP are wrong.

It would hurt him at work, wouldn't it?
I work with people who used to be friends outside work and then fall out. It makes it very difficult for everyone, not just those two people because they can't go and ask each other questions when needed.

It's really not so odd. Plenty of people have opposite sex friends. Depends whether you had brothers/sisters growing up, what your hobbies are, what kind of sector you work in, and so on.

Regardless of your feelings or intentions, her spidey senses are tingling. She sees something in your relationship with her husband that makes her uncomfortable/jealous/worried and I think you need to respect that, ESPECIALLY if she's happy with other friendships he has with women. I think you're being naive (or possibly willfully ignorant) to suggest you don't understand where she's coming from.

I absolutely think women and men can be friends (I love having male friends) BUT there needs to sensitivity in what these friendships look like. There's a man I really like (as a friend!) and we get on incredibly well but I'm also great friends with his wife so I wouldn't message him as it feels inappropriate, even though I know there's absolutely nothing for her to worry about.

It's not exactly unknown for a man who's unhappy in his marriage to be setting his sights elsewhere. The wife doesn't think it's with his other female friends. She thinks it's with you. She might be right

“FairyBatman · Today 11:54
It’s fine for men and women to have platonic friendships provided that it fits within the boundaries of their romantic relationships.
The fact that you haven’t shown your own husband your messages but you “think he would be fine with them. “ The fact that his wife is uncomfortable and has gone to the point of calling you. The fact that he’s giving you the impression that he’s unhappy at home and most importantly the fact that you didn’t answer his wife’s phone call because you know deep down that it would be an uncomfortable conversation and that she has reason to be unhappy with your friendship all mean that boundaries have been crossed and it’s time to pull back.”

This with bells on. @Bingowashisnameoh1 - you have said that he has other female friendships which shows that she considers her husband’s interaction with you to be the problem, not his opposite sex friendships generally. Your own friend said some of the messages looked problematic. You’ve got your own relationship - how would you feel if another woman started playing this game with your husband? Unless you’re actually after this guy and looking to blow up two marriages, why would you not just back off?

You're not doing anything wrong. If she's unhappy, it's for him to manage the situation.

His wife sounds controlling. Going through his phone and policing who he can be friends with is usually stage one.

Just be there for him and encourage him to talk to you when he needs support.

Can’t you just keep it to work times? How would you feel if it was the other way round ? Would you be ok with the amount of communication outside work from your dp female friend ?

So how come the wife is absolutely fine with the other female friends but not the OP? I'll think you'll find it's the "playful and flirty" messages they've been sending each other, the wife isn't the jeaous old hag you're trying to make out, it sounds like she's got the situation bang on the money if you ask me....