'I met my boyfriend's 'work wife' for the first time and I’m devastated.' UPDATED
"I (23F) met my boyfriend’s (25M) 'work wife' for the first time and I’m devastated."
So, I have been with my boyfriend for 5 years now, and he’s been at his current job for a few years. We will call him Jake. I’ve never met any of his coworkers until last night, but there’s one in particular who we will call Amy.
He sometimes does favors for her, fixing her car, going to her house to fix stuff around her house, etc. and I was never really concerned because he told me all his coworkers are a lot older than him.
However, one night while he was asleep his guy friend kept blowing up his phone, so I answered to let him know Jake was sleeping and so was I, so please stop calling. Anyways, before I put the phone down I noticed 5 unread text notifications from Amy. I guess some of the spam notifications were from her. One of them said “Great Jake, now everyone thinks we are hooking up!😂”
This really concerned me. So, the next day after Jake got home from work I asked about it. He said that both him and Amy were late for work that morning, so everyone probably assumed that, and it was just a joke. I thought it was a weirdly unprofessional joke and expressed my discomfort.
He invited me to the bar with him and his coworkers that night so I could meet her and see it was nothing to worry about. It did not soothe my nerves, at all. Turns out Amy is NOT a lot older than him, she’s only 3 years older, and super pretty. The entire night she was all over him. Touching him, leaning on him, putting his arms around him, and even kissed him on the cheek and he acted like it was normal.
They were constantly teasing each other, in that “middle schooler who doesn’t know how to properly flirt yet” kind of way. She told me all about how she “loves him like a brother”, and also told me she’s hooked up with half of their other coworkers, and that she got the next morning off work because she sent a coworker NSFW pics to get him to cover for her…
Later on she started crying and sobbing at the bar (actual tears) because she’s “so lonely and wants someone to love her” and my boyfriend ended up having to comfort her. I am just unsure what to do or say. My boyfriend kept acting like this was normal, that he wasn’t doing anything wrong by entertaining this behavior.
I can’t ask him to cut her off, they’re on the same unit and they have to work together. I literally do not know what to do about this but I’m just disgusted knowing this has been going on these years that he’s worked with her. How can I set boundaries when they’re forced to be around each other all the time at work?
This is what people had to say to OP:
Nungakakascot said:
Your bf cares for his work wife...I just hate that term....more than you. The way they acted, touched I front of and your BF sees nothing wrong. I think you have underreacted. Ask the question..is he worth it?
OP responded:
I was just kind of in shock because they did it so blatantly and everyone else was acting like it was normal… she was also super touchy with ME and even kissed ME on the cheek and hugged me a lot despite being our first time meeting.
So I struggled with wondering if this is just how she is as a person. I know some people are just very touchy and physically affectionate and I guess that just made me worried I was being paranoid. I don’t want to seem like “the crazy girlfriend”
silver_grain_dust said:
Your gut is working, none of that is “normal coworker” behavior, and it’s okay to be disturbed. One small step: calmly tell him you need a firm boundary like “no touching/kisses, no outside-of-work favors,” and see if he actually respects that.
OP responded:
Thank you. I will try that and see if he respects it or not. Most people were telling me to just leave but a part of me finds it really difficult to end a long term relationship without at least attempting to talk out the issue with him.
XxLogitech98xX said:
You just tell him what's okay and what's not okay. If he can't respect that then he's not for you.
PingBingus said:
Bro this is actually unreal 😭😭
OP responded:
Yeah I was literally in shock at the bar about how blatant it all was. And no one else reacted to it they all acted like it was normal so I was just sitting there in disbelief
FullFrontal687 said:
She said she sent another coworker n%#$s. Questions:
1.) What kind of workplace is this where this us happening? It sounds like an HR nightmare?
2.) Has she sent YOUR boyfriend n%^$s? Have you checked his phone?
OP responded:
So, this notification from your comment popped up and it made me think… I decided that even though I didn’t like the idea of purposefully snooping, the curiosity got the better of me. I scrolled through his texts with her, and I found nothing concerning… until I realized the texts only go back a few months.
I know for a fact they’ve been texting since she started working there 2 years ago. So, I’m now worried that he deleted their previous conversation. I don’t see any other explanation, unless she got a new phone number a few months ago.
OP shared this small update in the comments:
Thank you! Lots of people gave me advice so far and I agree. He’s asleep right now and has work in the morning, it’s nighttime where I live. When he gets home from work tomorrow I’m going to tell him the behaviors I found disrespectful, explain why it makes me uncomfortable, and ask him to set boundaries with her.
I plan on asking him to send her a text saying he’s uncomfortable with those things and tell her to stop, so I can see it and know he actually did it.
But mostly I’m just going to observe how he reacts to it. If he’s understanding and sets the boundaries with her I plan on just trying to trust him, then have him invite his coworkers out again in a month so I can observe how they interact at the bar, to see if they’re actually respecting the boundaries or not.
If he gets defensive or argumentative when I ask him to do this, well, then it’s probably better for me to just end it at that point. I will update you about how it goes!
About 1 month later OP came back with this update:
So to start this off, I have to apologize for not updating sooner. It’s been a while and I’m not sure if you guys will even remember me or my post lol. A lot has happened and I’ve just been overwhelmed. I want to say thank you to everyone who gave advice, the original post got over 2 million views so there were tons of comments and I read them all even if I didn’t respond. I did not expect it to blow up like that.
Before I give the update I want to give some clarifications about frequently asked questions on the original post:
My boyfriend told me that all his coworkers were a lot older than him, but that was when we were discussing other coworkers months prior so I understand why he didn’t happen to mention the one exception (Amy) since she wasn’t on topic. He was making a generalization.
So, update time:
I did end up talking to Jake. I struggled finding a good time to bring it up because we ended up being invited on a spontaneous trip with our friends shortly after I made my post, but I ended up talking to him when we had a moment alone at the hotel.
I explained how those behaviors made me feel, and he told me he wanted to discuss this but wasn’t sure how to bring it up either since we didn’t talk about it when it happened. I was so emotionally defeated the night we got home from the bar that I went to sleep without a word.
Anyways, Jake told me that he was also completely caught off guard by how Amy was acting at the bar.
He said that while she did make odd comments every now and then, she had never physically done anything until that night, and he let their other female coworker know he was uncomfortable with how Amy acted at the bar, and she agreed and said she would not schedule him with Amy anymore since she manages the schedule.
I mentioned in my last post that Amy was constantly boasting about sleeping with a bunch of men and sending them pictures or whatever. I interpreted this as “she’s trying to tell him he’s down to do anything with anyone, including him. She’s telling him she’s interested, she’s telling him she likes having s#$”.
Jake however, interpreted the flirty comments as her personality because she was that way with everyone, and interpreted the sleeps-with-a-bunch-of-men-boasting as “I’m not interested in you personally though” which is why he didn’t find it odd.
You know how when you start talking to someone of the opposite sex, they’ll casually slip in a mention of their girlfriend/boyfriend as a way to let you know they’re already taken and are only interacting with you platonically? He thought it was like THAT, and THAT was why she kept mentioning whoever she was seeing at the time.
During our conversation Jake reassured me that he loves me and only wants me, he apologized for not resolving this sooner and that he just felt super awkward at the bar when he realized what she was doing and he didn’t know how to react. He mentioned that he would never do anything with Amy, or anyone like Amy, and that he found her promiscuity and emotional instability to be unattractive.
He believed that the reason she suddenly started being so handsy with him that night at the bar was because I was there and that must have made her lash out, but he promised it had never happened before that.
After this conversation, and him showing me texts from his coworker stating he won’t be scheduled with Amy anymore, I felt a lot better. Until, Jake told me he wanted to talk one day. He said that even though he wasn’t scheduled on the same shifts as Amy anymore, she started switching shifts with people to work with him.
Because of that, he started applying to jobs and later on let me know he got accepted to be a field technician at (redacted for privacy*). He put his two weeks in at his current job and now, he only has one week left until he starts. It’s a field he’s more interested in, has better pay, AND obviously Amy won’t be there.
Overall I’m currently happy and feel a lot better that he cut her, (and soon that entire work environment) out of our lives.
We’ve been talking about a lot of things since then, better communication, how we can enforce boundaries even when it’s awkward. I know this update is going to make a lot of people displeased, most responses wanted me to end our relationship, but, I’m happy with where things are going currently. Thank you again to everyone who responded! Except the few who kept accusing me of being AI lol.
Here's what people had to say after the update:
I like Jake
edit: I'm not Amy
LsRells
Although Jake is moving on to better things, I recommend he very clearly tell his security company why he elected to move on. What Amy did, as observed by other coworkers, was a form of s^%$al harassment, and her changes to work together after the schedule was modified, doubled down on the harassment directly leading to your exit. The company needs to be aware that they have a possible liability on their staff.
OP responded:
Thank you for the advice, I didn’t think of this. I’ll definitely mention it, hopefully it’ll spare other people from having to deal with this
Prestigious_War_3551
I'm struggling to see this as positively as the other comments. The absence of Amy isn't the absence of opportunity. He didn't shut her down or defend you that night at the bar. And didn't talk to you about this afterwards? And you believe his claim that she only acted that way that night? And you believe that?
No one usually behaves like that unless there has been a prior build up and consent. I think the alcohol dropped her inhibitions of what's been going on at work in subtlety. Sounds like your partner was doing damage control because you were there.
OP responded:
I understand your concern. You know, before we were dating, when we kissed for the first time, he said he was relieved because he wasn’t sure if I liked him romantically too or if I just viewed him as a close friend. I was like “dude, I’ve been sleeping in your bed the last three nights, we play wrestle, I baked you homemade cornbread because you said it was one of your favorite foods.
I hug and touch you all the time. How much more obvious could I have been without coming right out and saying it?” Lol. I do genuinely believe he interpreted things exactly how he said he did, and that he didn’t realize she was flirting until the night at the bar, he’s clueless sometimes.
I can forgive clueless, we all have character flaws and clueless is far from the worst character flaw to have. I do thank you for your concern though, I know you’re just giving honest advice so I don’t end up let down
OP added:
She did though, she acts that way with every man in her vicinity, I saw that with my own eyes lol. My boyfriend did not realize she was making moves on him until she became so forward about it, at which point he switched schedules immediately, on his own, and when she disrespected that he cut the environment out completely.
I understand how being harassed can make someone freeze up in the moment and be unsure how to react, to the point they don’t react at all. I didn’t react either because I was ALSO in shock and disbelief.
Yeah, he didn’t talk to me about it right after but I didn’t talk to him about it right after either, both of us share the blame for not communicating right away but honestly I’m not mad that we took some time to reflect before having the conversation, because it led to a very calm and collected conversation with a proactive solution.
I respect what you’re saying you would do in this situation, but we can’t all react perfectly to every situation all the time. But, now we’ve discussed it and a game plan towards unwanted and awkward advances in the future.