Woman ashamed when she finds out her coworker is married. AITA?

When this woman feels guilty for getting into a "flirtationship" with a coworker, she asks the internet:

"AITA for assuming he wasn’t married?"

To make a long story short; I (23 f) struck up a flirtationship (nothing physical and mostly harmless fun) with “Al” (40 m) while he was contracting at my business, I run a medium scale start up business alongside some other entrepreneurs.

When he would come in we always had goofy, cute, and just easy conversations, once he was completed his tasks at my work we exchanged phone numbers and continued talking over text. I learned that he has 2 children, and frequently would discuss how busy his evenings are caring for them.

Caring for them…alone? Or so I thought. I guess I should have checked to be sure. Today, I got a call from his companies head office. It showed up on call display so I picked up and say “This better be Al calling!!”

The next thing I heard was a VERY hesitant “Uhm. This is “Sarah”. Al’s wife” It was a work related call, and she didn’t further question my excited-ness about speaking to her husband.

Now I’m sitting in my office panicking because if I was a wife I would definitely question why some random 23 year old is THAT excited to talk to my husband, I wouldn’t blame her for asking him about it at all!! I just feel a little ashamed and embarrassed, is this something I should bring up with him? Or to her?

I had no idea she worked for his company, and now he’s coming in TOMORROW for a demo. I don’t even have sufficient time to grill him on why he never said anything lol!!

TLDR: Am I the asshole for assuming the guy who I’ve been in a “flirtationship” with for 3+ months is single and not married? Edit for clarity; I didn’t know the word flirtationship would draw so much attention lol.

It’s not a term I would typically use, but I did think it would make sense in this context. It is simply to say someone youre flirty with but not IN an active relationship with.

Let's see what readers thought.

colegn writes:

This is hard. Im teetering between soft YTA and NTA because you didn't know, but you should have asked in any case. Also, what you call flirting he may just view as a normal conversation with cracking jokes and being a goof. I'm exactly like this and my wife will tell me it comes across as flirty and I get horribly embarrassed.

Im gonne give you the benifit of the doubt and say NTA, Just learn form this experience.

oksta6 writes:

ESH except for his poor wife. I have never heard of the word "flirtashionship" and thus have no idea what it entails so my reply may not be all that accurate.

If you knew he was 40 and had 2 kids, it would have been safe to assume that he was or is in a committed relationship/marriage/partnership. I think it would have been perfectly natural to ask: "is your wife/girlfriend in the picture?" before deciding to keep texting someone. Also, a ring? Tan line? Anything ring a bell?

He purposely omitted his wife from any conversations with you, which means that, even if you had asked him, he probably would have lied. However, if he had lied, then the blame is entirely in his hands.

tsandov writes:

ESH (well, not the wife). You ran a huge risk when you struck up a "flirtationship" with a professional contact (especially based on assumptions), and now you're seeing why that was risky as it's coming back to bite you.

Lesson to learn: keep professional relationships professional (or at least strictly platonic) so that they won't interfere or make things awkward with your business in the future.

Even if this guy hadn't been married the whole time, this interaction would still be awkward as heck if he ever got with someone, reached out to your business in the future, and this is how you greeted his new wife/gf on the phone.

Also: if you see someone calling from a business number instead of a personal number, that right there is a huge sign that this call is PROFESSIONAL and not personal, and you should answer the phone accordingly.

Al sounds shady, and it's really interesting he mentioned his kids but not his wife. If this is a regular thing for Al and his wife works for him because of it, you may be losing his company's business shortly.

But I would take this as a lesson and immediately start keeping things with Al strictly professional.