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?

This level of desperation to keep in contact shows that this is absolutely not just a work friendship for you, whatever you have managed to convince yourself, and also explains why you are so intent on ignoring the fact that you are hurting his wife.

If you're that good a friend, you'll back off and stop coming between their marriage. You are aware that you are whether you agree with it or not.

Of course you’re being disingenuous OP (or extremely thick) and you’re clearly enjoying every minute of your obsession with someone else’s husband.
Your desperation is crystal clear.

I think you need to look at yourself and your marriage. It sounds like you pursued a married man for some kind of validation with little care for your husband or your colleagues wife. I am so glad he has chosen her over you. I also think it wasn’t a conversation you had, I think it was a request from him to stop contact. Please respect the request. Spend your time and attwntoon on those near and dear to you. And possibly get some therapy.

Why not just stop being a dick and stop contacting him altogether?

It needed doing and he’s done the right thing. I get that you have a close relationship with this guy and sympathise that it can’t go on the way it was, I honestly do. But the reason it couldn’t go on the way it was is because he’s married and his wife comes before any other relationships with women he has, end of. If she doesnt, she should.
You can be friends with members of the opposite sex, of course you can. But there comes a time when the level of closeness starts to seep into places that only his wife should occupy.
It sucks, but it really doesn’t matter whether you can’t see why it should be a problem for her or not. She’s the arbiter of that, she’s the one who gets to decide if it’s a problem for her or not. He then gets to decide whether her objections are justified or unreasonable/ unfounded and act on that. You don’t. You’ve already said his marriage is nothing to do with you, so you can’t expect to be the one who decides what is or isn’t a problem for his wife. If, as you asserted, it’s none of your business what goes on between them, none of your responsibility if she’s upset or not, then it’s neither your business nor responsibility to decide what should or shouldn’t upset her.
He’s decided that he respects his wife’s opinion and wishes and wants to tone it down. You should respect that now and as his friend, you should stay well out of it and give him what he requested. If all you’re doing (and it sounds like this) is being the judge of how much you think you can both get away with in this friendship, how far you can push his wife’s tolerance and boundaries, then you’ve missed his point. If I was you I wouldn’t initiate any messages presently and respond appropriately to anything he sends. We still haven’t heard your husband’s opinion of the friendship and the messages you were happy to show him. If you have to keep them away from him and not disclose the details of the closeness of the friendship and it’s importance to you as you have here, then I think you should be asking yourself if you really ought to be doing this at all.
This guy is now respecting his wife’s boundaries and showed her your messages and responded respectfully to her objections. I think you should give your husband the same opportunity to decide whether or not he’s happy with you pursuing this friendship.
I think you know deep down that it’s more (on your side anyway) than you’d like to acknowledge, and are spending a lot of time and investing a lot of energy into something you are dressing up to yourself as innocent friendship, to divert your conscience.
This shouldn’t be as big a deal as you are making it, you see each other at work, cutting down out of hours messaging to a friend isn’t the end of the world. what is it about your evenings and weekends that draw you to him and not your own home life?
Pour this level of time and energy into your husband and see what happens, you might find that whatever this close friendship is supplying you with, is already right at home.

Op you’re not taking any responsibility how do you know if this hasn’t happened before and he has form for this or he’s cheated on her. You basically know nothing about her you only care about him and you.

At first I thought it was the man but given that he’s suggested reducing contact and your still whining about messaging him, I can see that actually you’re the one driving all of this. You’re coming across as desperate for attention - both in terms of how you’re messaging him and how you’re interacting with this thread. I think both the man and his wife have read you very well.

The thing with this present you got him…. It’s all very well saying you “would have bought it for any good friend”, but really you need to have some empathy into how that was inappropriate because to his wife that would have seemed like overstepping and too intimate - it wasn’t his birthday, just a personal gift out of the blue. I get that you wanted to buy it for him, but it would have been more appropriate to send him the link to where he could buy it (or to lend him your copy).

lol

If this is true (big if), you should ring her back and suggest she turfs him out. She's married to a loser who's prioritising another loser over her. She's be well shot of both of you. Good riddance.

So he loved the attention you were giving him but now his wife has found out he wants you to back off as hrs getting it in the neck and you’re not worth the drama

This has got to be a wind up. No one is this naive and insensitive

Women in love can be.

It’s very clear he has picked her so you should stop making such a fool of yourself and understand he did not pick you. His wife is 1st and clearly more important to him than you will ever be. Stop chasing and validating his ego he is making a massive fool out of you. Raise your bar and stop this “pick me” dance you are doing. It’s embarrassing

Because they’re FRIENDS. Not everything is sexual. If the wife has a problem with her husband having female work friends, she needs to discuss that with her husband, not the OP.

@Bingowashisnameoh1 I have male friends at work and out. None of them would need to tell me that we need to cool down our contact, because my boundaries are tight. I respect their relationships, they respect mine. You need to acknowledge that you do appear to be intruding on his relationship and even he is recognising this now and asking you to stop. It sounds as though you’ve pushed your luck and he is drawing an important line to protect his marriage. Your boundaries need to be stronger.

Agree, eg, if a female friend said calling in the evenings made her DH uncomfortable, most people would respect that for the friend, so her life isn't difficult.

No one would carry on knowing it's making their friend and DH uncomfortable.

But because it's a man, OP feels she knows better than the wife, except, the wife has probably seen it all before.

He’s told you. Now you need to back off. He has told you nicely. He has picked his wife.

You'd give a friend a massage for example, but not a married man for no reason.

OP is either thick, not getting any at home, insecure, desperate for attention, jealous of friend's wife or all the above.

Why don’t you ring his wife back and ask herself? She obviously has questions and I’m sure you’re brave enough to answer them?

I don’t think so in this case.

Then I’d be surprised if she doesn’t have reason to feel concerned about her husband’s attitude towards you.

You are embroiled with this man, far too familiar.

If any man asked me to not contact him, I would feel nothing but shame, how on earth can you not see this is innapropriate.
Leave him alone and allow him to return to his marriage, his wife has choices to make regarding how she is going to proceed with a cheater, you need to back off because your attention seeking is preventing their dialogue, how selfish of you.

@Bingowashisnameoh1 could you please explain how his wife’s profile picture came up on your phone when this call was from an unknown unsaved number?
edited to add I know you mentioned it was a Wattsapp call earlier up but I tested this out due to my own privacy concerns and that simply doesn’t happen.

Many people reply as they're polite, I reply to people I cba with too.
He's told you to back off so just accept it.