Husband’s Work Wives. Why?

[Anonymous]

Because they benefit from the invisible labor of these women. Every "organized, assertive" work wife out there is being organized and assertive in a way that benefits the guy. She knows she good at these things and may benefit as well. But overall this is almost always filling in for men where they fall short. Ask yourself how many of those work husbands function in that role for women. The work DHs may hold value with proximity to power, or consensus of opinion, but they're not using their "organized/assertive" skills to push the women forward. Just ain't happening.

And then there's guys like 16:38 who basically called his wife dumb and his co-worker "just so interesting". Wife isn't too dumb to keep his household running, but apparently is uninteresting. Why put intellectual effort into her?

Men will take from women in every instance they are allowed. They consider it their birthright.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Seems pretty simple: It feeds his ego to have positive attention from a woman.

This. It doesnt have to be nefarious and cheating, but it definitely is an ego/harem type of thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Seems pretty simple: It feeds his ego to have positive attention from a woman.

Weird. At work? Gushing over a male worker? But some women are like that.

[Anonymous]

I assume a Work Wife is some put together lady at work that is good at her trade, fun to talk with on interesting news or work, and you have to more closely rely on her for team projects, feedback, and team reasons. This builds respect and the relationship.

Usually neither cross a line.

Maybe OP is talking about one or both feeling chemistry and trying that angle eventually. Not sure. I get pretty unapproachable if I sense a coworker or industry worker coming on to me. Creepy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Super weird and shady. This is not normal and if he hasn’t strayed yet, it’s quite probable he will in the future.

Or maybe it is simply because other women are more interesting to a man than their wives in different ways?

I talk to my female coworker all the time. I am not in any way physically attracted to her at all, but I enjoy conversations with her because she's actually more educated than my wife and has a lot of different experience in the field that is very useful to learn from. She's just an interesting person to talk to.

That’s not a “work wife”. That’s normal socializing at work.

Work wife connotes some mothering and dependency factors

[Anonymous]

Or some romaine attraction, be my wife

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems pretty simple: It feeds his ego to have positive attention from a woman.

This. It doesnt have to be nefarious and cheating, but it definitely is an ego/harem type of thing.

Agree with this, probably just insecure ego feeding. Which is not an attractive trait.

However, the secretive nature of the texting is a red flag - he might just be embarrassed about his attention-seeking behavior but it also could be an indicator that boundaries are being crossed.

[Anonymous]

Every time it started out as using the woman to compensate (likely for undiagnosed ADHD). I am not sure what she got out of it. Eventually it would start crossing the line, as if he needed to offer up my own personal friendship, kids or household to the DH work wife to show her power over him (and me). Maybe I was the "beard" in his relationships with these women at work.
Finally, I searched through the Linkedin profiles of these women and found their connections - areas of interest, companies, professional organizations. I started asking DH about the various work wives and did they know about eachother, citing information from their profiles.
The wives seem to have finally disappeared. Or maybe he is being more secretive.
I wish DH would get a job that comes with a secretary so we could definitively end this nonsense. Medication would be even better.
If you see a man at work and he has a Work Wife, he likely has unmedicated ADHD so I suggest tread lightly in your group projects with this person.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My work husband was just really smart good guy and I was organized and assertive.

We worked well together and I’m not competing for his job.

Men are often not collaborative so maybe he seeks some who are.

Nothing even came close to happening but he had 2 other work wives as he moved through the organization.

All of us are similar in that we are organized and assertive.

I think there is a difference between being friends and working with a guy and him being a work husband. I have friendships with several of my male colleagues but I would not call them work husbands.

? He and I have never seen each other outside of work.

[Anonymous]

Why do you believe him?

With the details you have given, I wouldn’t.

[Anonymous]

Text nonstop? 50 texts a day? If so, that is f crazy.

[Anonymous]

It’s strange when it’s a one on one thing with constant communication after hours. I’m in HR and we had one man in a group of about six women. He hung out with us exclusively. We only communicated after hours if it was work related. Nothing going on, everyone went home to their significant others/spouses when work was over.

[Anonymous]

A flirty relationship is not a “work wife/husband” imo. To me that’s more like an “old married couple” dynamic, and doesn’t come with excessive or really any texting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because they benefit from the invisible labor of these women. Every "organized, assertive" work wife out there is being organized and assertive in a way that benefits the guy. She knows she good at these things and may benefit as well. But overall this is almost always filling in for men where they fall short. Ask yourself how many of those work husbands function in that role for women. The work DHs may hold value with proximity to power, or consensus of opinion, but they're not using their "organized/assertive" skills to push the women forward. Just ain't happening.

And then there's guys like 16:38 who basically called his wife dumb and his co-worker "just so interesting". Wife isn't too dumb to keep his household running, but apparently is uninteresting. Why put intellectual effort into her?

Men will take from women in every instance they are allowed. They consider it their birthright.

You need a large dose of lithium, STAT.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe he is gay? Just throwing that out there as a possibility.
Men usually will not seek female friends for non-sexual purposes unless they are gay.

Really ? Men can’t be friends with women