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?

You haven’t told your own husband ? Says it all really. You know what you are doing is crossing a line .

She doesn't like you because you're becoming the third person in her marriage. With that knowledge, you absolutely should back off.

And FWIW I would never buy a colleague a present unless they were a very close friend and it happened to be their birthday. It's just not colleague behaviour, at least not where I've ever worked.

She doesn’t like you? She’s a better judge of character than you are .

I also think it's pretty weird and weirdly intimate to buy a colleague a rare and hard to find DVD when it wasn't even his birthday or Christmas, and I understand why his wife would be put out by that. Personally, I'd have just sent him a link to where I found it for sale so he could buy it himself. (That's assuming this particular story bears any resemblance at all to reality.)

This is just pointless. I didn't think that the OP would come back to update us, but now that she has done, it's pretty clear that she hasn't taken on board a single thing that has been written on 38 pages worth of thread. She'll get taught some harsh lessons. Eventually.

Genuinely, I trust my husband 100% and he’s never put a foot wrong other than what I’m about to say BUT it’s never hurt me as much as when I saw one phone number on his phone bill and it turned out it was a female colleague. It was devastating to see he had so much contact with someone else. Another 10 years or so has passed and never had any other reason to have doubt but that still bothers me.

As OP did appear but only to say ‘ He is just my friend’ I thought I’d ask AI for an objective ( non MN) opinion on friendship and how much time is appropriate for a married person to spend texting an opposite sex friend during evenings and weekends… it gave a long response including:

While there is no universally fixed time limit, texting an opposite-sex friend during evenings and weekends is generally considered inappropriate if it is consistent, private, and occurs at "odd hours" (e.g., late at night), as this can foster emotional intimacy that belongs within a marriage.

Healthy boundaries usually involve avoiding one-on-one texting after 8:00 PM or 10:00 PM, unless it is an emergency or urgent work-related matter, as late-night chats are a primary cause of emotional affairs.

I can relate so much to this. The hardest thing was not knowing anything about it until I saw his phone records. Then I worked out he called her at the airport when I was in the toilet, when I was in the shower on Christmas day etc. He called her before and after saying goodnight to me when we were apart. He physically cheated on me with others, but it was the emotional intimacy of the calls that hurt more.

😂 😂 😂 "harassment"

I hope his wife takes it upon herself to "harass" your husband. I think your husband deserves to be involved in this friendship that's so innocent.

Quite frankly you, together with your attitude, disgusts me.

I was thinking the same. She may try to contact
your dh next .

Harassment = REPEATED.

Louder for those AT THE BACK!

REPEATED

That mysteriously showed this woman’s profile picture even though it was from an unknown unsaved contact 🤷‍♀️

We spoke and he suggested I reduce the contact which I have done. There are times when we are not in work and we don’t see each other for a couple of weeks. I honestly can’t see how it can be a problem for her if I message very occasionally during this time. He always replies so I am assuming that’s acceptable between them?

Maybe if you'd been brave enough to answer her call you'd have a better understand of why its a problem for her.
Or you could let the hundreds of replies you've had here explaining it to you sink in.

Do you need to message at all? Why not just respect his marriage and stop the messaging ?

We spoke and he suggested I reduce the contact which I have done.

So he's told you to back off.. good. He was obviously enjoying the attention, but the risk to his marriage is not worth it anymore.

How many people have to tell this dim woman to stop contacting him. I can only imagine she is loving the attention and drama and being the cause of another woman’s distress. I hope you get it back one hundred fold and see what it feels like. STOP CONTACTING HIM!

Ah. I thought you might be having us on, but now I know you are.
This post screams, my threads dying a bit, better pop back and stir up some shit by looking like I’m wilfully ignorant.
Completely disingenuous thread.

At this point I think you are not only NOT his friend but you are actively trying to damage his marriage. He has had to ask you not to message so much, you know it's causing trouble in his marriage and yet you persist.. pretty gross and desperate. Maybe, if you sooo need friends, try somewhere else.

STOP messaging him.

Why didn't you answer her call?

This isn’t disingenuous, it’s my life.
But okay, message received loud and clear.

In answer to how you’ve said that he always replies so he must be happy to message you: Are you writing questions when you message him? If so then that might be why he feels the need to reply.
Anyway, it does sound like you need to cool it off. Much as we might like to waltz about being cosy with whoever we like, it’s not always possible do so in life - we have to think of others in the network.

Well it is a problem for her and to be honest your opinion shouldn't matter. She is his wife and she comes before you, if neither of you can see that then there's more to this than you are letting on.

What is your agenda here and why can't you just back off and leave them to it?

OP, are you being a bit of a pick-me? It’s coming across like you’re trying to pull him in and keep his attention on you and away from his “life”