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?

Agree. I would also say that in some cases, when you’ve done something as badly regarded as cheating and leaving your partner and children for the other person, you don’t want to be proved ‘wrong’ by it failing, so there is an added reason for it just having to work. This can add pressure to a situation which changes in excitement levels dramatically once the secrecy/ risk is removed, it’s no longer the exciting “What if they find out…we have to be careful…...if only I could see you..if only we could be together…..woe is me…..”
Now it’s see each other whenever you like, nobody cares any more, who’s going to pay this bill/ wash up etc rather than just showing up in your finery for a fleeting tryst, whole thing stuck in an exciting permanent ‘first date’ situation.
A lot of cheats who end up together have spent so little actual time in each other’s company, even if the affair has gone on for a year or more, that they find they don’t even know the real person. So they’re with someone they don’t actually know as well as they thought they did in an entirely new, much less exciting situation. They’ve been presented with what is really a reinvention of the real other person for three or four hours a week in a situation which isn’t real life.
Many affairs aren’t about escaping your spouse and family, they’re about escaping yourself. You can be anyone you like with a new person who never gets to see how you really live or who you really are. That’s exciting in of itself. You keep your home life deliberately blurry and vague, only talk about them negatively to reinforce how important the affair relationship is to you and present this exciting and risk taking bubbly version of yourself, trapped with a dull spouse.
Then you get an uncomplicated (outside of the secrecy) relationship with mutual adulation in a permanent fantasy situation. No warts and all real relationship stuff. Chat/ eat/ sex/ go home to your spouse. That’s about it really. Rinse and repeat. Leaving for an affair partner is a big risk and only usually works out if you truly always wanted out of your marriage affair or not.

Yeah, I think most men end up with their affair partner when their hand is forced, either by the wife finding out or the affair partner making some threats. If they really wanted the other woman they would leave their marriage. The problem is, a lot of these men aren't in unhappy marriages. They want to be with their wives. They just want sex on the side.

So why didn’t you pick up or message - most people would assume that when next of kin of your friend is calling there may be an emergency / issue / issue etc - unless of course you had a guilty conscience.

Lots of perceptive points here. @Thewookiemustgo’s comment was interesting that Many affairs aren’t about escaping your spouse and family, they’re about escaping yourself. You can be anyone you like with a new person who never gets to see how you really live or who you really are. That’s exciting in of itself.

I think this is insightful and applies to physical and emotional affairs and even to the lesser flirtations and frissons. There is a thread of escaping from yourself, reinventing yourself and projecting yourself differently, which underlies the whole sorry business.

The reinvention aspect links in with it being the cup half empty, internally fragile types who fall for the ego boost.
( I’m not meaning to apply this to the OP, but just pondering the triggers and the broader context.)

It sounds like you are calling and chatting outside of work not just in work. It sounds like you are having an emotional affair- it’s real Google it. If I were his wife I’d be cheesed off too. If it’s platonic why contact outside as well as in work ?

THIS.

If it is totally platonic, then there should be no issues with having this friendship. I don’t think it is, even if it’s one-sided. I’d also be very upset if my husband made a close female friend such as this and he’d be upset if I did. In an ideal world, we should be friends with whom we want but I don’t think it’s an ideal world.

Controlling behaviour would be asking your partner not to have friends of the opposite sex, or telling them outright that they can’t. That’s not what’s happening here. If you’re married and have friends of the opposite sex, you need clear boundaries as to what’s acceptable behaviour and what’s not.

OP’s friendship with this man has no boundaries and is clearly crossing into an area that makes his wife uncomfortable, if not downright anxious. Are you saying that it’s acceptable to expect your partner to just put those worries aside and trust that this is just friendship, when everything about it screams the opposite ?

'it really wouldn’t hurt him to cut you off, block you, stop talking to you outside of work'

'He doesn’t need to speak to you outside of work at all, so he should stop'

That's exactly what is being said, if this were a man saying this about a woman, people would fall over themselves to say he's a controlling dick and LTB.

Actually, OP is getting a hard time in part because OW (which I appreciate she isn't actually) get much, much, much more shit on here than cheating married men. Much like in the offline world too. You lot are always so selective when complaining about double standards.

Why do you people do this? Come on to a forum of mostly women so that you can make up different scenarios ("don't talk about this scene that happened, talk about how unfair it is in the one I made up!") and complain endlessly because a community of mostly women centres women? Do you think the manosphere is a courtroom of perfect blind justice in everything? Do you think MN encourages worse things?

Why is it only the female led spaces (and you sought out this one because there aren't actually many to find) that need to be permanently lectured on perfect objectivity? And why is there never any acknowledgement that the centring of women in mostly female spaces is a counterbalance to the sexism of the real world?

Perfectly said. I'm tired of it too. These men come to lecture, not listen. And they lack understanding that the world women live in is very different from the privileged world men live in. And they're not interested in learning that because they're completely absorbed with their dicks and are stewing in infantile self-entitled resentment that women are humans with their own ambitions and desires rather than bangmaids who will breathlessly praise and adulate them.

But at least this one makes plain he's a man. I'm particularly sick of the sneaky male agent provocateurs who slime in under fake female names.

They don't seem to be doing that so much any more, but yeah. There have been so many times I've read a post/posts and thought "sounds like an angry misogynistic MRA", checked the username and it was something like ClaraMelindaFlowergirl. Fuck's sake.

Of course I'm selective about what i reply to, much like you have been with your reply to me, or does an opinion only count if i reply to every single comment and thread?

I don't need to be selective about pointing out double standards; plenty of women do that too. I don't see you replying to women.

I also don't hide the fact I'm a man, sometimes men need help with parenting, sometimes men need a woman's touch - not physically - to their parenting because my parenting style can be widely different to my wife's. I read some threads on here and agree 100% with them; other replies are bat shit crazy, in my opinion, of course. I try to write with what I believe is right and wrong from my moral standpoint. What I appreciate will vary from our lived experiences.

What does piss me off, mind, is when people's only argument is that I'm a man and shouldn't dare to post. If that's the case, campaign for the owners of MN to ban men. It'd be like me making condescending comments to women on car forums, which are typically male-dominated. If you have a point, you have a point; I couldn't care if you have a dick between your legs or not.

What does piss me off, mind, is when people's only argument is that I'm a man and shouldn't dare to post.

Well lucky nobody suggested that then, huh? Your selectiveness and double standards are preferable to your sheer fabrication. You are not the victim, you are not being silenced, you are not being discriminated against because women are fed up of you seeking out the few spaces where they are centred to whinge about things that you made up, including the delusion that we are objecting to what you are as opposed to what you say and do.

No reasonably intelligent person should be surprised that a female led space centres women, and no person with any understanding of the offline world, where anti woman bias reigns supreme, would think it some sort of serious problem in need of your correction. Like I said, if you're on a noble quest to correct dangerously sexist online spaces, you'd do far better to start with the manosphere.

If you want help with parenting, get help with parenting, and stop complaining about the female-centredness that you now claim you value. You know the place is mostly women, you think that benefits you when discussing parenting, you're going to have to accept that it's still going to be mostly women when that doesn't suit you. You don't get to pull the "I only care about what you say, sex is irrelevant" stuff when you seek a place out because it's largely female, whether that's to improve your parenting or try to claim victimhood.

Never once said I was being a victim, silenced or discriminated against. However, it's rather telling that as soon as someone doesn't agree with some posters, their only argument is that 'you must be a man'. even to established posters. I never once made up an alternative scenario, and of course I'm selective of what I reply to, aren't we all? I asked whether, if the tables were turned, would the advice be the same. If the answer to that is yes, then fair play if thats where your moral line sits then thats okay.

I'm not here on a noble quest to root out sexist comments - no one has that much free time. I admire how women stick together, almost as much as you cut each other down. It's not a delusion; I'm replying to direct quotes. I didn't fabricate or force people to reply. This is afterall a public forum, I can't remeber what dragged me here in the first place, it was some random story in the rag- seemed like a decent laugh.

I wouldn’t. It doesn’t bother me which gender I’m talking about, an inappropriate friendship is exactly that: innapropriate. If it has crossed boundaries acceptable to a married woman or a married man, I’d tell them the same thing.
I think both parties are responsible for this friendship, not just OP, but OP is getting the lion’s share of the disapproval probably because she made the post and asked if she was being naive about it.
As to those saying that his wife isn’t anything to do with their friendship and shouldn’t call making demands, we have no idea what his wife was going to say/ ask because OP never picked up the call. If his wife has to respect their friendship and stay in her lane, the least they could both do is respect their marriage and stay in theirs.
The man in question really should have explained to OP that the friendship was causing tension at home and that his wife had asked for OP’s number (if that’s how she got it) and was likely to use it. She must have been pretty concerned to go that far. Also I can’t believe that OP didn’t wonder or ask if his wife was ok with the level and frequency of their communication outside work, or be worried that they were giving the wrong impression. I would be.
I think anyone, man or woman, has a right to question relationships that they find inappropriate or concerning in a mutually monogamous relationship and ask for respect for their feelings (where reasonable) within that. I don’t think from what OP has described, that his wife is being unreasonable in these circumstances. Constant evening/ weekend messaging, ‘playful banter’, lunches together and very personal gifts given outside of special occasions, would be too far for me and also for my husband if the situation was reversed. I’d ask him to stop if it had crossed boundaries and consider my feelings (as well as his for this friendship) and would expect him to ask the same of me.
Looking at what has been going on suggests an emotional affair or at least the beginnings of one for me. Man or woman doing this, I wouldn’t blame their spouses at all for objecting.
Gender doesn’t come into it for me, neither of them are ‘to blame’ independently for this, they’ve both let the friendship get too consuming outside of work and too intimate.
However I do agree with the Mumsnet standards thing though. If this was his wife posting, anxious and distraught about her husband constantly messaging a female colleague and him receiving personal gifts/ going to lunch with her, I doubt anyone would tell her she was being a baby who needed to be soothed by her husband or to stay in her lane and let her husband have his female friends at work and shouldn’t call randoms.
If a husband posted and was anxious about his wife’s friendship with a male colleague at work to whom she was giving personal gifts, lunching with often and texting daily, he’d likely be told to stop being controlling and let his wife have male friends at work.
To me inappropriate is just that, inappropriate. It doesn’t matter if it’s a man, woman or both.

Late to this thread, and notice you've not come back to it for a few days @Bingowashisnameoh1 I'm interested to hear what your husband thought of your relationship with this "friend".

It's so interesting that you see that you cause a problem, and then almost gleefully say 'not MY issue is it'. URGH that is NASTY. How do you do that exactly and be okay with it? And it is LOL that you assume it's an unhappy marriage.

There will be a reason the wife is okay with the 'other women friends' and not you. Oh, and in answer to your original question, and in case you haven't got it yet - YES YOU ARE BEING NAIVE.

Get out of his marriage. HTH.

Never once said I was being a victim, silenced or discriminated against.

Of course you did. You claimed that we were objecting because our "only argument is that [you're] a man". I'm not objecting because you're a man. I'm objecting because you're a man who sought out a female oriented space, complains about it centring women and then, when we object to that, pretends we're objecting to your sex. When you sought out this space to lecture us because of our sex.

The tables are turned in real life, which is why we take such care of women's interests here. OW actually get pilloried on here way, way more than philandering husbands, which is one reason OP is getting such a hard time even though she's not the person married to this guy's wife.

The only reason you are complaining that it isn't a perfect Old Bailey of blind objective justice is because it's mostly women. But you don't care about sex!

All this! Especially:

"Like I said, if you're on a noble quest to correct dangerously sexist online spaces, you'd do far better to start with the manosphere."

Yes, who isn't he hanging around manosphere sites telling men how sexist they are? Guys with those views are literally physically dangerous to women.

Yawn -

Good, solid answer. Thanks for your valuable contribution, sir.

As a public service announcement, MN is likely to continue to be comprised of mostly women for the foreseeable future, so if you are looking for a place that centres men (or is perfectly objective and blindly just in everything as only female spaces are demanded to be), I hear Louis Theroux has been doing some research lately. Do check that out and see how it compares to the malign forces at work here. At the very least, it is unlikely to bore you.

She hasn't caused the problem - the husband has.

OP is colluding, yes. But the husband is the cause. He is the one whose wife has a problem with their friendship and is continuing to pursue it and not set boundaries. The boundaries are his to enforce, because it's his marriage that's being affected.

I don't say OP is innocent, but let's not let the husband off scot free and blame the woman for everything.

Nope. It’s not the same thing. OP says this man has other female friends and his wife doesn’t worry about them. What sets this aside is that there is something about this that worries his wife. She is his priority and it would be the same if the sexes were reversed. Wedding vows are not made to friends, they’re made to spouses. The problem here is not the friendship itself, it’s the lack of boundaries that are making it look like more than friendship.

Yes, I do think that it is between him and his wife.
And I didn’t answer her call because, quite honestly, I know she doesn’t like me. It felt a little like harassment actually.
I really am sorry for how she feels but there is nothing romantic happening here. He is just my friend.

I hope you don't find yourself in her shoes a few years down the line. As much as he's just your friend, your friendship is putting strains on their marriage. Although it is not your fault, I personally would not want to be a part of that.