'I accidentally called my wife by my co-worker's name and now she won't let me rehire her.' UPDATED

"I accidentally called my wife by my co-worker's name in an intimate setting."

I'm a (M42) and wife is (F35) married for 5 years with a blended family of 3 kids total. I realize I'm hosed....trust me. I just don't know what to do at all to recover from this.

The co-worker is a woman that works for me. She's contract and has been there about 3 months. She's attractive, I'll admit, but I don't have feelings for her or anything like that. She's just another co-worker but I have been training her so we've had to work closely together lately. I honestly have no idea why I said her name.

My wife and I were being intimate and I was doing the normal "letting my mind wander" and my mind drifted to work, a project, then her, and it just happened. My wife was inconsolable. I talked to her at length and she does believe me now when I tell her I have not cheated with this woman.

I offered up everything....access to my phone, text, logs, email, everything and she knows that I'm not missing any time that can't be accounted for but I can't convince her that I'm not romantically interested in this woman.

The sticky part is this: her contract is up and we have the option to hire her. She's a good worker and there is no question that I want to hire her. It's not fair to her to let her go through NO fault of her own but my wife is convinced if we continue working so closely together, something will happen.

And she is not a jealous person so this isn't just a passing thing that she thinks about every woman. I mean I called her by this woman's name for Christ sake....I can see why she's rattled. We have a wonderful marriage, rarely fight, have great physical intimacy, etc. so I don't want to do anything to mess this up.

So what now? My wife hasn't made any demands but this just happened two nights ago so she's still digesting it. I can't punish the woman for my mistake but if my wife lays down an ultimatum should I tell her to deal with it (in the most understanding way possible) or start searching for a new job?

What do you think he should do? This is what top commenters had to say:

InfernalWedgie said:

I've blurted some pretty weird things in bed, so I sympathize. You might just need a session or two with your wife in marriage counseling so you can have a safe place to explain yourself with a mediator to help you through awkward patches.

pantsparty1322 said:

Ouch. I know it was innocent, but I know I couldn't easily believe that my husband wasn't attracted to and fantasizing about this other woman if he said her name in bed, either.

The best way to move forward and win your wife's trust back? Make sure she KNOWS that you understand the gravity of what this did and will continue to do to her. As a female, the thought of my husband being attracted to and thinking about someone else is actually more hurtful than if he cheated on me with a random stranger.

Because what's going on in your wife's mind right now, is that the way you used to feel about her is how you now feel about this co-worker, and you've decided to do the right thing and stick by your wife despite your desires.

Acknowledge that you realize this is what's going through her head, and assure her that even though you are incapable of feeling this way for anyone else but her, if you ever did think you were developing feelings for someone else, you would remove yourself from the situation entirely (but emphasize that would never ever happen anyway).

Tell her that you have thought this through and if you were ever given the impression that she was had feelings for someone else, you would be devastated.

If the co-worker is the right person for the job, then you are obligated to hire her, this isn't her fault. But you are also obligated to make sure your wife is happy and knows without a doubt that she's the only person who's T's you want to C on.

A_StarNamedAlice said:

If this happened to me I would expect my husband to apologize profusely and explain in full detail why he said another woman's name in bed. Did you explain to her like you did in your post? It's not something she will forget but with the right explanation I think it can calm her nerves. It sounds like it was an honest mistake.

I think your next step should be to make your wife feel special. Take her out to a nice dinner or maybe even a weekend away together if you can afford it.

OP responded:

Oh yes, everything has been explained. She's not going nuts about it...she's just being quiet right now and digesting it which is her way of handling upsetting things. We're still talking about it and she does believe that I didn't cheat but thinks I'm downplaying my attraction to the co-worker.

And dinosaur_train said:

Hire the girl, she doesn't deserve not getting the job. As mad as it is going to make everyone here, I'm going to put it out there that you may need to look for another job. This isn't about right and wrong, this is about your marital happiness. The right thing would be for everyone to forget about it and you keep your job and so on. But right isn't going to happen. Look at it objectively.

So long as you work with her your wife will be concerned and unhappy. Those are terrible feelings for her to have to suffer with. Those will undermine your marriage.

So forget right and wrong. Explain to your wife the truth, again, but tell her that you care more about her happiness and your marriage than being right. Tell her you are ready to look for another job and see how she feels. If she wants that, then you should leave.

OP responded:

Yep, this is exactly what I'm thinking. Might not be exactly rational but I also can't to go work every day with my wife growing increasingly insecure about this woman.

The next day, he shared this update:

Thanks for all the comments. It really gave me a lot more points of view to take in. I wrote my wife a long email yesterday explaining in detail that it was just a slip of the tongue and that was it. Nothing deeper, nothing devious....just nothing.

I also let her know that I couldn't not hire the woman but if this was going to be something that would eat away at the foundation of our relationship then we could talk about an alternative to my working with her and what that would/could entail last night at home. Lots of professions of my love and reminders that I have NO desire or inclination to ever fuck up with we have.

About an hour later she responded and said she had digested it all, thought of all possible senarios and while she was very rattled (and highly pissed once the shock wore off) she knows that I'm telling truth, she believes it was a slip of the tongue (albeit a huge one) and she would never ask me to not hire the woman when she is completely ignorant that any of this is going on nor played a part in it.

She said she would like to meet her just to put the matter to rest in her head so I asked her to come meet me for lunch tomorrow. FYI- this isn't new behavior at all. She knows all of my team and goes to lunch with us as a group a couple times a year and we also socialize with a couple of them outside of work at times.

Last night when we got home she was back to normal and actually joked about it at one point. She went to hand me my plate at dinner and I said "Thanks hon" and she said 'Ahhh...are we going to start using pet names instead of our real ones? I like the forethought!" She laughed....I shook my head.

TL;DR: My wife is awesome.

Love wins!