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?

So if your partner came to you and said that the friendship made them uncomfortable, you'd dismiss your partner's concerns and carry on? Even if they had never had an issue with other friends?

Rather than getting into the male/female relationship debates … @Bingowashisnameoh1 what kind of advice do you want?
Are you asking what to do next?
Or are you just asking whether you are “naive”?

If the latter it’s rather difficult to answer truthfully because you haven’t specified what you would be naive ABOUT.

From what you’ve said he’s a friend, you aren’t sexually attracted to him but his wife seems to have an issue with you but not other women friends of his…so what is there to be naive about? No-one here can tell you about him or his intentions, if that’s what you mean.

If you mean were you being naive to text him while knowing his wife was unhappy with it…I don’t think naive is the right word. Overly casual maybe? I don’t want to describe it as attention seeking or cruel or whatever because you really haven’t said much at all about what or why you are posting.

The posts you have made certainly give the impression of gloating about the situation- which is the opposite of being naive. But maybe you can say more about what it is you are looking for from posting here?

I think you are crossing a boundary, I wouldn’t be happy if a female colleague was texting my husband and I know he’d feel the same if it was the other way around, when it makes one of the parties involved uncomfortable then it’s time to cool it off, especially if your own friend feels the messages could be misconstrued as flirty. It sounds like you are enjoying the attention.

It’s not weird about colleagues being friends or men and women being friends. It’s ‘weird’ about messaging having reached the level where a spouse is unhappy with its content (which even the OP can see the reasons why) and unhappy that friend receives more of his good side than they do.

It’s beyond bizarre that these threads always descend into over-simplifying it into a ‘men and women can be friends’ debate. That is NEVER what it’s actually about, and that a bunch of adults can’t or refuse to see that is tiresome.

It’s always, always excessive messaging, content of messages, spouse unhappy at home yet cheerful with friend, spouse oversharing marriage details with friend. Always.

I don’t conduct my friendships like that and anyone who does has a problem.

I would have a discussion about why they felt uncomfortable but ultimately no I would not acquiesce to any demands to drop or scale back the friendship. If it continued to be a problem I would always choose my autonomy to live my life and conduct my friendships how I wish over a partner. I’ve had previous partners try and pull that and I’ve also been that person when I was very mentally ill and consumed with irrational jealousy so in my opinion it is always without exception toxic and unhealthy to try and police a partner’s friendships and that is my boundary. Others are welcome to feel differently but I’m not the right partner for them.

To be clear I am talking about genuine friendships, not situations where people are declaring romantic feelings for each other behind partners’ backs while claiming to be friends. But there are many things MN finds unacceptable that I think are completely normal in friendships, like messaging outside of work, going for dinner or drinks or to the cinema. If a partner asked me to stop doing any of this then yes I would dismiss it and probably dump them because it would be a fundamental incompatibility.

Either you’ve jumped the shark and this is a wind up, or you know exactly what you’re doing, bloody hell.

Regardless of it being unfair you surely realise the right thing to do here. Withdraw from the friendship for now. It’s clearly an issue for his wife, and you have no idea of the dynamic of his relationship, or indeed what kind of husband he is. The fact he’s not backing off himself doesn’t say much about him. You can’t be this naive surely?

Look, the wife is absoluetly fine is with the other female friends, no problem, it's VERY telling that she has a problem with the OP's and husbands "playful" messages to each other, so posters trying to paint the wife as a crazy old jealous hag won't wash, something has been said that has crossed the line in those messages I bet you.

To answer your question OP, no you are not naive. You are however taking the piss, whether that's to this man's wife, or to the posters on here, who knows?

If you thought this friendship was fine and completely above board, why would you not answer her call?

Maybe other friends don't send flirty messages. You know what you are doing, so why post on here?

No not with our partners, my friends form outside of work I also see without my partner, why would he come to see my friends? Different if it's joint friends

Agree. I’ve always had friends of opposite sex and no problem with a partners who has female friends but we get an instinct for the one who gets the spidey senses tingling. The one who pushes the boundaries and is overly familiar

Unfortunately there’s women (and men) out there who enjoy stirring the pot and playing the innocent and tbh it seems the OP is one of those and the wife has her number

@Bingowashisnameoh1 "He hasn’t told me but I get the impression he’s not very happy at home."

Oh yeah? Poor bloke, my heart bleeds for him. So why don't you just crack on and make his life better then, even though his actual wife is upset. Then just sit back and wait for the shit to hit the fan, and you. Because you're obviously determined to get your own way over this.

I don’t agree with the “men and women can’t be friends” guff, mainly because I’m bisexual so by that logic I can’t be friends with anyone? However, you’ve said firstly that he had other female friends that his wife is fine with, and secondly that some of your messages are “playful”. Even if it’s not your intention, it does sound like the way you’re messaging each other could be construed as more than friendly. I would be inclined to dial it down a notch- it’s not necessarily fair but you don’t want rumours going round at work and you don’t want to get muddled up in someone else’s marriage.

I’ve been the wife in this situation (many years ago) and it sucks. You might feel
nothing for him, but she is picking up on something he feels for you.

Once his wife let him know that she wasnt comfortable with your friendship, He should have taken a step back. If he has other opposite sex friends that the wife is fine with, it means something about the way he talks with you or about you gives her bad vibes. At its core it is a marital issue. But in your shoes, i would stop texting after hours and let them sort this out.

Sounds like an emotional affair in the making. Back off and keep your work friendship at work.

Show the messages to your husband. If he is fine with them then you know she’s being unreasonable. If he’s not then you have your answer

Just because it’s platonic for you, doesn’t mean it is for him. If he’s confiding his feelings to you whilst not talking to his partner then he’s having an emotional affair. Step away.

The fact you can see why she'd be upset at a few of them shows that some of this "playfulness" and "silly banter" can look like flirtyness and yeah I'd be pretty fuming if my husband was sending flirty messages to/receiving flirty messages to another woman he was friends with, might not have been your intention OP but the impact is the same and damage is already done.

I think she should leave him to be honest, he's known how upset she is for a while and he has failed to even attempt to reassure her by 1. Putting boundaries in with you regarding what is appropriate and what's not 2. Introducing you to her. Hes clearly shown her that he prioritises a friendship with you over a marriage with her. She clearly has felt she's getting nowhere with him so wanted to approach you woman to woman to ask you to back off and I think you should.

Is it normally you who initiates these conversations and he then replies?
If so, I can see his wife might have concerns about you — she doesn’t know you at all and to her it might look like you're chasing after him
And of course, at his end he should address things like always replying, it’s not necessary and it’s making his wife unhappy.

I know I’ll get flayed for this but If I’m being honest, I think he wants to talk with me because we are good friends and he could really do with a laugh right now. He’s had a difficult year (I won’t go into details as it would be outing)
All our chats are generally jokey banter sometime at the weekends or the evenings. If he didn’t want it to continue then he would stop replying. I do think it’s up to him.

Also he may have other female friends but it’s thought 85% of affairs start in the work place. I don’t blame her for being unhappy about the situation if she’s picking up on something.

You might think it's just friendly, playful banter but do you know how he feels about it? If she's searching his phone, perhaps he's already emotionally withdrawn from the relationship and maybe thats because he's emotionally more invested in this than you realise. This is how emotional affairs start. Obviously that's a lot of maybes, but this idea that its because she is controlling is not necessarily the case.

Fine to be friendly in work but outside of it I think you need to tread very carefully.
Would you consider meeting up with them both with your DH? If the answer is no, why is that?