'AITA for accidentally revealing my boss’ affair during the office Secret Santa exchange?'
"AITA for accidentally revealing my boss’ affair during the office Secret Santa exchange?"
Content-Country-9125
I (29F) work in a small office where we always do a Secret Santa like gift exchange. This year, I drew my boss, Rachel (42F). She’s always been the sweetest to me, so I wanted to make her gift thoughtful.
Rachel frequently mentions her husband and their shared love of hiking, so I got her a fancy pair of hiking boots and a gift card to an outdoor gear store. During the exchange, she opened my gift, and I made a joking comment like, “Hopefully your husband doesn’t already have these boots, or you two can match!”
Her face turned bright red, and the room got super awkward. I thought maybe she just didn’t like the gift. But later that day, one of my coworkers, Dan (34M), who I’m casually friendly with, pulled me aside and said, “You know Rachel isn’t hiking with her husband, right?”
I had no idea what he was talking about, so he spilled that Rachel’s been having an affair with Steve (45M), another manager in our office, and they’ve been sneaking away on hiking trips together.
Apparently, it’s been an open secret among a few coworkers, but I genuinely had no clue. My “match with your husband” joke unintentionally exposed their whole situation because now Rachel thinks someone told me about the affair and that I was making a passive-aggressive dig.
The fallout has been insane. Rachel has been cold toward me ever since, and Steve won’t even make eye contact. Meanwhile, the office gossip has exploded, and I feel like everyone’s whispering about it.
A couple of coworkers said I should’ve been more careful with my joke, but others think Rachel and Steve brought this on themselves. AITA for unknowingly exposing my boss’s affair with an innocent Secret Santa comment?
Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP's post:
No-vem-ber
NTA. You didn't know, and they brought this upon themselves. They're the assholes for apparently expecting everyone to play along silently with their affair. Unfortunately, the workplace politics consequences still probably won't play out in your favour, I'm afraid.
AvaCancerMoon
Rachel and Steve are responsible for their own actions. If they're engaging in an affair, they should be prepared for the potential consequences, including exposure.
drapehsnormak
Talking about going hiking with her "husband" was super stupid on her part too.
It must be her first affair. Cheaters seem to get better at this over time.
BlueBirdie0
OP is definitely NTA, but low key though how does the office even know they are having an affair unless they caught them at a work event? People were convinced a (male) friend of mine was having an affair with a slightly older married woman because they occasionally grabbed lunch together and some co-workers saw them eating out (at a Five Guys, hardly a romantic spot lol) on a weekend afternoon.
She was giving him advice, because he wanted to go back to school and get a PhD at the same place she received her degree, and she knew all the people in charge of the department and stuff like that.
I don't want to get more into it, but both of them are POC and she was very much into getting more Black academics as there are very few Black academics in their field, so she went out of her way to mentor him and help him out.
Her husband was totally aware, and my friend even went over to their house and hung out with them on occasion, because he became friends with them. He's still friends with them, and arguably closer to her husband now.
But my friend ended up going straight to HR because people started making jokes about him having a sugar mama to his face at work, and stuff like that, even though he told them what was going on.
Lil-Eliza
Hiking boots are hella expensive, so any boss who gives you grief, say “I didn’t mean anything by it, if you don’t like your gift, can I get my $250 back?”
i_watch_regularly94
Nah OP especially if Rachel has mentioned that her and her “husband” love to hike. It’s not your fault you didn’t know which one was the husband 🙏🙏🙏
NefariousnessFresh24
NTA - She played stupid games, she won stupid (or actually in this case very nice and thoughtful) prizes. If it is an "open secret" you didn't expose anything. Everybody either already knew it, or would have thought that it was a nice and thoughtful gift, until somebody else clued them in, just like Dan did with you.
If nobody clued them in, they would still think that maybe Rachel didn't like the boots, just like you initially did. In any case, she should not talk about hiking with her husband, if she actually fucks her co-worker during those trips.