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?

I showed my DH, and my brother this thread last night. We had a get together with two other couples friends and there was a really interesting discussion around these issues.

One thing stood out for me, and that was that the men were unanimously of the opinion that OP’s friend doesn’t just consider her a friend. The consensus was that no man puts this amount of effort and intensity into a friendship with a woman unless he wants or hopes it will develop into something else, and either OP is naive for thinking otherwise, or she knows exactly what’s going on and is enjoying the drama it’s causing.

From a personal point of view the posters who think there’s nothing wrong with this situation need to raise their bar.

If you don't back off a little now, I think it's really disrespectful.

where the messages about wearing no underwear in the cinema?! There’s another thread where the wife posted about her husband’s inappropriate messages with a colleague- and everyone supported her. YABU

It’s not that people are presuming that the female friend will drop her panties. It’s the naive assumption that the male friend only wants friendship thats the problem.

Yes, especially when OP said his marriage is unhappy.

Yes. Which just shows it's not "weird mumsnetter opinions about male/female friendships" It's what men think too

Great advice. Would you say the same if a man asked his wife to do the same, or would this be controlling behaviour?

You have destroyed the friendship part of their marriage, well done.
I doubt whether you are friends with your own husband, but any remnants of friendship you have will be gone if he finds out you have been chasing after this man.

Some people are never satified with the very real options they have in life, they like to create scenarios whereby they believe they have numerous options, very often they don't and eventually become very dissolutioned by their lack of choices.
The outcome will probably be you understanding your limitations and another family obliterated by disloyalty and pain, whether you will believe it was worth it will depend on your concience, which I don't be don't believe you have, so your post is pointless.

Yep, I also get the CW accusations aimed at me.

I have friendships with married men, at work and outside of work. I am not interested in them sexually, and I am not cheating. If they're being inappropriate with our friendship, I'm not dumb and I will notice. If they're unhappily married and secretly crushing on me, it's not on me to play both detective and peacemaker.

Someone's wife, whom I have never met, is not my baby to soothe. She's a total stranger. Her feelings are hers to deal with without my involvement. I am under no obligation to make changes to my life and friendships when I have done nothing improper.

The thing is, why would the wife of a very close friend be a stranger? I'm always keen to get to know the partner of a friend, male or female.

It's an issue when someone is calling and texting someone every night but doesn't feel the need to meet the person who is literally sat next to them. Why not suggest a double date? I think it's rude to act like the spouse is invisible.

When you get married, you typically become a social unit. And yes, you don't have to care about the other person in that equation, but expressing indifference and disdain is odd. At the very least, my friend valued them enough to marry them.

I don't agree that marriage = becoming a social unit in all contexts. DH and I have some shared and some different interests. I wouldn't expect him to want to socialise with my (mixed gender) group of gym buddies as he isn't into the gym. I know most of DH's climbing buddies and have met their spouses because nearly all their kids climb at the same place as DS2 and we've met at competitions etc, but I don't necessarily want to socialise with them.

I have very occasionally socialised with the partners/spouses of my friends, but others I've only met in passing. "Double dates" only really work when there's a shared activity all 4 of you would be into, so it depends really if there's anything to connect you outside of two halves of each couple being mates. Sometimes there is, sometimes there isn't. I don't feel obligated to get to know a wife just because the husband is a friend, or vice versa. I'll be friendly and polite if they're around, or turn up to socials, but I'm also not going to go out of my way to appease the wives of my male gym friends to show I'm not a threat. That's for the husbands to manage if it's an issue in their marriage.

That said, I'm boundaried with the straight, married male friendships I do have. There's no late night messaging or flirty banter or that type of thing and I wouldn't say they are close friends - they're shared activity friends. Which probably helps explain why I haven't had any issues with any of them like OP has with her "friend"!

I only have female friends and would never say anything like that about their husbands. It sounds very passive aggressive and like you do see your "friends' " spouses as competition. If for whatever reason a female friend's husband had an issue with our friendship (not just because he was a controlling bully, but for example if it crossed some boundaries for him or affected their family life) I would absolutely care. I want my friends and their families to be happy.

I think it's pretty standard to have a good friend over for dinner or drinks. You don't have to share a hobby necessarily. And I don't think you have to become BFFs, but I wouldn't want to act like they didn't exist either. You can throw in a "how's so and so" or acknowledge them in some way. It sounds like the OP ignores his wife completely.

I agree that it's the intrusion on family life that is upsetting not so much just sharing an activity.

I don’t get that. I’ve always had couple friends and individual friends.

I was with my DH 25 years and he had friends I’ve never met and vice versa. I never met most of his work friends and he only ever met a handful of mine

I don’t agree that being a couple means you be one a social unit unless that’s what you want. I think couples should have separate lives as well as joint ones.

However I wouldn’t be sitting messaging work mates day and night regardless of their sec or marital status

You lost me at "I only have female friends".

Respectfully, you do not have the life experience necessary to tell me I'm behaving wrong.

Well if I had male friends (like I used to in my 20s) and I treated them and their spouses any different to female friends, it would only confirm there was more to it than friendship. Just saying.

My husband has a few friends who are women and it doesn't bother me in the least. There is nothing inappropriate in his behaviour with and towards them. But if I was uncomfortable about any of them and felt that there was something inappropriate in the relationship between them, the absolute second I told him so that would be it - he would stop messaging out of respect for me and our relationship.

The fact that your colleague knows his wife is uncomfortable about your friendship and he has discussed this with you and yet made no attempt to get back on to a purely professional setting is a huge red flag. Whether or not you see it that way, he's choosing to prioritise you over his wife.

And then there's the other stuff you mention - the "playful" banter, buying him presents, lunching together, messaging weekends and evenings. These are all classic hallmarks of an emotional affair really.

It's for him to be respectful of his wife, more than you, but do you really think he's a good person and want to continue the friendship when you know he's using you in a way that's harmful to his marriage? And how will you feel when if he finally confesses to you that he's miserable at home, his wife doesn't understand him, he has such a connection with you...

I doubt the OP will return, but if she does I’d genuinely like an explanation of something that’s always puzzled me since the breakdown of my own marriage, which started from a similar set of circumstances with exH’s colleague.

Why is banter with a married colleague (also with kids) so compelling compared to investing time in all the other people in your life you have rapport with such as old friends, neighbours, school-gate friends etc?

If it’s sexual attraction and the frisson of something exciting and new, do some people forget that adapts fairly quickly into something more caring and familiar.

I have genuinely never understood why people threaten or implode marriages and family life, with all the pain and fallout for something that, statistically at best ends up similar to the relationship you already had, just with complex juggling of other people’s children added on.

Is it just the excitement of recapturing what you had with your current partner, or forgetting that you previously had that with them, or a delusion that the initial frisson will be longer lived this time. I’ve always wanted to fully understand the logic and never get a decent explanation other than a belief that the grass will be greener!

The woman who was involved in the break up of my marriage didn't want him as soon as he was single. I think a) some women like the ego boost of getting attention from a married man and b) a man who has been validated as good by another woman is appealing.

I think men just like to feel they've still got it. In most cases they never leave their wives and never intended to.

So if it’s because women like the ego boost and men still like to feel they’ve still got it, then in both cases it’s really about ego? Perhaps there’s a dopamine hit as well?
It seems a lot of hassle, pain and expense for a short term temporary validation of your self worth. Isn’t it also counter productive as at some level most seem to feel at least a little guilty about the hurt they caused, which then increases the feelings of inadequacy in the medium term.

That took a while coming. How did you get that impression? Have you discussed it between the two of you? It’s obvious what’s going on here and if his wife has got concerned enough to ask for your number and call you, then whatever you are texting crosses her boundaries, the timings and frequency of your messaging also crosses her boundaries. If you’re getting the impression he’s unhappy at home then stuff is bring mentioned that should be discussed with his wife, not you. If she was concerned, had asked for your number to contact you and he gave it to her and didn’t tell you himself about all this, why the hell not? Not great for you to get the out of the blue call from somebody who was given your personal number without your permission and I’m absolutely certain his wife would only be calling you to ask you what the hell is going on. Did he not think you might need to know this? He’s not such a lovely man as you think he is. Both of you need to tone this down if it’s upsetting his wife. No doubt she’ll be ‘crazy’ or ‘paranoid’ any minute now. I often wonder how many if these crazy/ jealous/ paranoid/ bitter wives were perfectly fine until their spouses found a special friend at work and prioritised messaging them out of hours over interacting with their wife and family.
Far better to respect her boundaries and both leave each other alone in the evenings and weekends, that’s their time, not yours and his.

My ex had a period of being incredibly angry because on some level it was hard to live with his actions. He also had very low impulse control and a very fragile ego. There wasn't a master plan when he was cheating. It was a combination of personality flaws that exploded into poor decision making. Well adjusted, logical people rarely do things like that, so we can't understand it, but a lot of people are not like us.

But this is a male married friend and a gift like that sounds incredibly personal and intimate. He couldn’t get it anywhere but you’d searched and found it and bought it?
That’s pretty far to go for him and ever likely his wife didn’t like it. It reminds me of the Friends episode where Chandler got Joey’s girlfriend a copy of The Velveteen Rabbit.
I think you’re excusing getting pretty close to this guy with stuff like ‘I’d do it for any good friend.’
If somebody gets very personally tailored gifts outside of their birthday or Christmas from a close female friend at work, that they message often at weekends and evenings despite working together all day five days a week, I’m not surprised at all that their wife doesn’t like it. Can’t believe you can’t see this.

Funny isn't it, I have great banter with some of my male colleagues at work. We don't have private meet ups though. We don't message each other outside of work or see each other outside of work. Because we are all very respectful of boundaries.

You are either very immature or very naive OP. Or just not a very nice person. You're obviously lapping up the attention. You've not got back to report what your husband thought of the messages.

Op has long gone doubt she will be back.