Husband and his partner

[Anonymous]

My husband has a female business partner, and I am uncomfortable by the amount of communication they have and how much personal information is shared.

Every single day, the two of them have a one-on-one meeting for an hour where they just have coffee, discuss what they did the night before, chat about personal things (“Oh, did you do yoga on the beach when you were on vacation?”, “If you could eat one thing forever, what would it be?”, “what’s your middle name?”), and laugh.

After that, they are in near constant contact from 9 am to 7 pm. She calls him around 7 times a day. They chat on Slack when they’re not on the phone. They call each other before meetings to plan, call after meetings to discuss how it went, and any questions she may have during the day, she calls him. It’s never less than 30 minutes.

Now, she’s pregnant. She told him when she was about 6-7 weeks, which is way early for work. He’s been mentioning things like, “Oh, She came to the meeting today but she was so nauseous” or I’ll overhear her whining to him about how nauseous she feels or how unwell she feels.

I have talked to him numerous times about how the excessive communication makes me feel like he does nothing but spend his days giggling and flirting with her. If there’s a question, I think email or slack is appropriate. It doesn’t need to be an hour long phone call. If you need to plan meetings, do it during your hour long morning call when you do nothing but just chat about your lives and how much you have in common. The pregnancy stuff is really throwing me off too— that’s stuff I would never, ever share with a boss or coworker; I’d text my husband if I was feeling morning sickness.

I am preparing to talk to him about it again today because I’ve gotten to the point where it deeply bothers me. His response is always that he’s doing nothing wrong except running a business and if I have a problem with the way he’s doing it, THAT is a problem.

Any advice? Am I overreacting?

[Anonymous]

Have you wondered who the father of the baby is?

[Anonymous]

OP: It’s her husband.

[Anonymous]

Does your husband have sisters? Is he pretty egalitarian?

[Anonymous]

I would call this an emotional affair. It’s definitely way beyond a business relationship or even a normal friendship.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does your husband have sisters? Is he pretty egalitarian?

OP: He has a sister. He’s 15 years older than her, so they didn’t grow up together.
He’s pretty egalitarian. He helps out around the house and has no issue with chores.

[Anonymous]

This is highly inappropriate behavior, and I agree with the poster who said this is an emotional affair. Full stop.

He is not stopping this woman from contacting him all day long because he enjoys the attention from her. He is leaning on her emotionally and she is doing it to him (obvious with the pregnancy). It is very dangerous to both his marriage AND hers.

[Anonymous]

I would be uncomfortable with this, too. I think you have to be careful how you approach it. He is sharing all these details with you, which seems like a good thing (indicates no secrets.). Could be he needs a reality check? Do you know how her husband feels? How much co tact / interaction do the four of you have.

Maybe something along the lines of, you feel distanced from him and him sharing all this personal stuff, plus work stuff, with one person is making you feel second fiddle. Which may resonate better / be more effective than saying ‘you are being inappropriate’.

[Anonymous]

You can't police how they communicate about business. Often phone calls are better than messaging. You also can't tell them how much to communicate about work.

You can discuss your concerns with him about the extent of their personal relationship. Is he confiding more with her than with you? Is he sharing things about your personal relationship that you'd prefer to keep private?

[Anonymous]

Your husband is flirting with crossing the line.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would call this an emotional affair. It’s definitely way beyond a business relationship or even a normal friendship.

You'd be wrong.

He's clearly pretty open about it all. So now nobody is allowed to have friends of the opposite sex? Or close working relationships? JFC some of you need to grow up and stop being so insecure.

[Anonymous]

Ah, yes. Another small business owner using the fragility of their company to excuse an affair/inappropriate behavior. I was married to a man who was sleeping with his business partner for years. Any time I tried to talk about the inappropriateness of their work relationship, I got shut down. “Don’t you want a roof over your head? Don't you want food on the table for the children? Don't interfere with that.”

Small business owners use their lack of an HR department as a way to run rampant with inappropriate behavior. Although, it sounds like the business partner is driving the contact. Either way, I have lived this, OP. You’re not crazy for wanting your husband and his business associate to remain professional.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would call this an emotional affair. It’s definitely way beyond a business relationship or even a normal friendship.

You'd be wrong.

He's clearly pretty open about it all. So now nobody is allowed to have friends of the opposite sex? Or close working relationships? JFC some of you need to grow up and stop being so insecure.

My friend’s husband was very open about everything except for the little fact about banging his coworker. Som people think it’s easier to hide in plain sight.

[Anonymous]

I have 15 lpartners at work and we talk to each other about vacations, how we are feeling, what we did over the weekend, bounding ideas of reach other, etc. he isn’t her boss — he’s her partner. The only thing that seems very different is that there are only 2 of them. If their business is successful and making money and their personal friendship allows the business to thrive, I don’t see a real issue. (If they are not doing well because they spend too much time chatting, that’s a different issue.)

I just can’t see how you benefit by making a big deal about this “emotional affair.” Obviously it improves his mood to have a friend that he is in business with. Do you want him in a worse mood? Do you want his business to dissolve because they feel awkward around each other? What do you gain by telling him he can’t talk to his business partner so much? It seems to me you gain nothing and potentially lose a lot.

Finall question—would you feel this way if it was a male partner?

[Anonymous]

If it bothers OP, its an issue. Just discuss it in presence of a neutral person like couple's counselor, clergy person or any wise person you both respect, instead of both assuming other person is in wrong.