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?

Honestly no, I don't regularly message male married colleagues outside of work. I wouldn’t want to give them the wrong impression.

Yes, there is..the Op understands why the wife has reason to be upset.

Pursuing contact when you know it's upsetting someone else is just selfishness, self focus and entitlement. The ops need for banter with a work colleague does not override anyones else feelings. She should respect his wife, even if you doesn't know her.

Yep - and lapping up the attention and the fact its worrying his wife.

Agree. It’s an ego boost thread where the OP plays the wide eyed faux innocent when she’s knows they’re both playing with fire.

Yes. Goodness. Haven’t you seen the myriad of posts on here from a wife’s point of view.

Invite them both to dinner or an evening out with you and your DH.

No just leave him alone out of work. You’re being cruel to her.

Flip it for a minute: if your husband was messaging with a colleague and, having seen some of the more playful ones, the interaction made you uncomfortable, would you want your husband and other party to stop?

I don't see how the answer could be ‘no’.

This isn’t about men and woman being friends. It’s about a friendship that is crossing boundaries and hurting others - you ask if you’re playing with fire.. You know you must be to have asked the question here.

edited to ask - what does your husband say about the situation?

It may be completely platonic on your side but his wife probably suspects it isn’t on his side.
The regularity and nature of the messages are important though- if you are texting most days and it’s quite personal/deep chat, that’s definitely iffy territory.

Its his job to back off but you should also ask yourself why he is willing to risk his wife’s happiness for a mere platonic friendship.

So,the knew your friendship bothered his wife, but instead of talking to you about his wife's concerns or giving you a heads up that she was upset, he just gave her your phone number to let you 'fight' over him while he sat by and watched? I wouldn't want to be his friend or his wife.

Respect is lacking by all it seems, thirsty women and idiot men are a growing trend.

Please don’t do this.

You see him at work for hours and hours. You can chat, text your cingey banter, meet in the canteen/ sit on a bench for lunch. When he goes home he belongs to the woman he made marriage vows to and any children of that marriage. You have no place there . If you cannot see that invading his family time , and ignoring your own husband, is inappropriate then shame on you. If you 'need' to text him every evening ,when you are at home with the man you share a bed and a life with, then there is more to it then a work friendship .

I wouldn’t say you were being naive as such, clearly you and this man are similar characters who chat, perhaps share a joke and work well together.
Not everyone is like that, some people are insecure and I suspect that his wife is so and cannot see a healthy friendship from a potential affair.
We used to have to work with both men and women, no choice, if you were rotat’d then you just got on with it. It didn’t mean we were starting affairs, it didn’t mean there was any mistrust, we were there to do the job .
Many of my best friends are male and to be honest there’s a couple who I would trust with my life, but I’m not shagging them, I’m no threat to their marriages.

Often said on here that it’s strange that these men don’t form new, ‘close’ friendships with male colleagues.

😂 Bizarre assumption to make. Most men have male friends and if a new male colleague hit it off with them, they’d be more likely to be friends as there is none of this nasty gossip about oooh are they going to fuck?

From this, you’re immediately in the wrong.
You’re messaging outside of work and you can understand why his wife isn’t happy with the contents of the messages?
Stop messaging this colleague of yours. He isn’t your friend, he’s a colleague, and you’ve pissed his wife off so leave them alone.
What does your husband make of this friendship and these messages?
And if your first thought is “he doesn’t know/notice/care” then it sounds like you’re enjoying the attention from another man who does notice you.

I never said a partner should meet all your needs. However, OP has said she's the one who is instigating these text chats outside work and that she could natter to this man for hours. She admits the texts can be construed as flirty rather than simply playful. If she's spending her evenings going back and forth with this colleague, it's not an unreasonable question to ask what's going on at home with her marriage.

I have plenty of male friends that I love catching up with and who are dear to me, but I don't spend every evening sitting on the sofa next to my partner texting them flirty messages.

I have a male work friend. We sometimes have lunch together (often with others), and we travel together when we have overseas trips (better sitting next to someone you know than a stranger for 9 hours on a plane).

BUT

I am always deeply aware of his wife, just as I'm always aware of DH.

We chat, and have in-jokes about work, we discuss non-work things, but I send every message with the thought "would I be happy with DH seeing this?".

That's the boundary.

I dont fancy him, and I am pretty sure he doesn't fancy me either. But it's worth being aware of how things would look from the outside without context.

I'm most concerned about how your friend told you about his wife's fear about your friendship, that's sharing private matrimonial information, and it's not something he should do. What goes on inside his marriage is their business.

If he is your friend and you want to keep him as one stop the messages and enjoy his company at work.

The banter is damaging his relationship and and real friend wouldn’t want that. I’m getting that this is a nice ego boost for you OP you should be careful of that blind spot .

But he’s more a friend than a just a colleague.
I haven’t shown him the messages because why would I? But I think my husband would be fine with it.

Come on, OP, unless you zip up the back, you know that some of these 'playful' messages have crossed the line. Does your husband know what sort of messages you send one another, and their frequency?

You get treated to Mr Fabulous & Kind because that's the side he wants you to see. You have no idea what his wife gets at home, maybe she gets ignored while witnessing his shit-eating grin when your name pops up, whatever it is, it has driven her to try and contact you directly.

I don't think you've done anything wrong up to this point, but it would be a mistake, now you know it's causing marital issues, not to reassess the boundaries of your friendship. You should move away from the banter and texting out of work about non-work things.

It's a red flag that it got to the stage of his wife calling you - it doesn't sound as though he has stepped in when he should have to put his own boundaries in place. It might be that his wife has solid grounds not to trust him, but this is not something you want to get involved in.

Remain friendly and professional, but distance yourself.

If a wife of one of my male friends pulled this I’d think she was a controlling bitter and feel sorry for my friend.

this is between them.

Suggestion is then, tell your husband about your current dilemma, show him the messages, and ask his opinion.

Why not tell him that your colleague's wife has called you out of the blue and show him the messages to see what he thinks? If it's really not going to be a problem for him.