Husband’s female coworker bought him a bottle of scotch, she won’t talk to me

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A bottle of scotch is not a very romantic gift. I'd probably keep an eye on things, but absent other red flags (do they text outside of work often, discuss personal things?), I'd let it go.

Depends on the man, and depends on the Scotch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A bottle of scotch is not a very romantic gift. I'd probably keep an eye on things, but absent other red flags (do they text outside of work often, discuss personal things?), I'd let it go.

Depends on the man, and depends on the Scotch.

I agree and I'll add that it is a personal (therefore, inappropriate) gift.

[Anonymous]

How do you know so much about your DHs coworker and what is he and isn't doing? Are you stalking her?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do you know so much about your DHs coworker and what is he and isn't doing? Are you stalking her?

Do you not talk to your spouse? How do you not understand that people who are married to each other talk about their day?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What was the weekend event you invited her to? I am a female in a male dominated field.

When I go to business dinners, I am going to be nice to the wives but I am really there to network with the men - I.e. my peers. If my colleague’s wife invited me to a social event I would feel weird about it. I socialize with coworkers outside of work sometimes or as couples, but not as a third wheel.

But are you narrowing in on one guy and gifting him expensive presents whenever he has a bad day?

[Anonymous]

Stay out of it. Not your bottle, not your business. Your husband is the one who will handle it any way he wants.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What was the weekend event you invited her to? I am a female in a male dominated field.

When I go to business dinners, I am going to be nice to the wives but I am really there to network with the men - I.e. my peers. If my colleague’s wife invited me to a social event I would feel weird about it. I socialize with coworkers outside of work sometimes or as couples, but not as a third wheel.

Op here. I totally agree and not thinking twice on this. I did offer just to be nice but also totally understand. No big deal. I guess I am just keeping an eye open since the bottle of liquor was gifted to him and no one else, ya know what I mean?

Not really. If I gifted your husband / my colleague scotch it would not be romantic. It would be an indication that I am also into scotch and I am trying to curry favor and signal I’m one of the guys and not to leave me out when they go to happy hour. I’ve been struggling with how to articulate how your weekend invite would make me feel. I married in my late 30s. If I was unmarried and you were married with kids and the invite to hang out on the weekend cane frkn you, the wife, not mh colleague I would have felt patronized or belittled - like you think I’m a kid who needs someone to take me under their wing. Or that I’m pathetic or lonely because I’m single so I must have nothing to do. I look younger than my age, so I spent a lot of my career in my 30s proving I had the talent and experience to hold my own with guys older than me. Something about the way you describe your husband’s female colleague and the invite rubs me the wrong way. In 18 years in my field I have never had an invite, call or text from a wife of a colleague who was not also in our Industry.

[Anonymous]

She’s already his affair partner.

He wants to be caught.

Smell the coffee and call the lawyer.

[Anonymous]

I work in a male dominated field. I have given colleagues bottles of wine, whiskey and Scotch. I am married some of them are married/some not. These gifts were not romantic in nature but tokens of appreciation for a job well done, celebrate a deal or promotion, when someone has had a rough patch or even when I happen to know they like something fairly rare and I come across it. I don’t think you’d have thought twice about this if a man had given the bottle. It’s views like this that hurt working women in the advancement of their careers. Rethink what has actually happened. Would you have sought to chat up a young male colleague who gifted the Scotch?

[Anonymous]

Tell her to Keep Walking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ok help me understand the situation. My husband works with about ten others at his level including the only female. They do not see each other daily but numerous times throughout the week at meetings and events. She is fairly new to the group as of this summer and she just gave my husband an expensive bottle of scotch because he was having a hard day / week for his first time with his employees. Most of the other men have a harder time and she has never sent them anything nor does she seem to have that friendship with them.

Since she is new and never married or without kids I thought I would invite her to hang with us for a weekend event. She barely answered me and won’t speak to me really at all. She will however spend the most time at events with my husband. Sometimes she is the only one in attendance with him to elective events. am not upset at this but just thought i would try and be nice and include her. Honestly no big deal, but now I am starting to wonder about the scotch thing.

Do I need to read more into it or is this a no big deal and fairly common practice to do in the corporate world?

Curious to know which industry this is in. Is it sales? Commercial real estate? Technology? Public Facing? Legal? Local? MNC? Corporations are in all industries, and the workplace cultures of the norm can greatly vary by industry. It is hard to give a 100% objective consideration to all facets of possibilities of this (assumingly young and junior) woman entering into a professional circle with 9 other males. If there is a culture of leadership, competition, interpersonal relationships, etc. that comes into play too. One client based overseas may gift a $200 oz of parfum oil to all team members, while a different client working in public administration may not be able to pay a dime toward your $5 subway footlong. Context matters here when asking questions about culture and norms.

That said, I would definitely keep my antennae tuned, without crossing boundaries in my function as a wife and professional, and my husband's function as a husband and professional. I agree that this woman's behavior is alarming, if not for naivete, then for the potential negative implications whether intentional or consequential by no fault of her own doing. Is she a subordinate, or in any type of administrative support role? That your DH shared it with you is good too. I think you are taking the right approach, from what you did by not getting upset in any way (so refreshing to see!), and offering an opportunity to meet each other by inviting her when your DH shared what happened (assuming it is not out of the norm for you to do that in his workplace).

And, add me to the count of readers that liked the thank you note from the first poster in this thread. I suspect this woman likes your husband OP, and also agree with the male poster who called the behavior as excessive in nature at first look. Again, there are a lot of unknowns, so I would try to learn as much as you can about the situation before reacting further.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Perhaps she feels your husband is her go-to whenever she needs help, especially since she is new, and therefore she gravitates to him. She may be socially clueless enough, if unmarried, to forget to cozy up with the wife as well, so she may have no idea this is looking inappropriate.

This and she also may be under so much pressure/stress, she can't care about your feelings. I do it. I am jot interested in men at my office, but sometimes, I can't care about what other people feel when I lean on someone to help me through all this BS.

[Anonymous]

PS: You may want to consider whether it would be nice for your husband to write a thank you note, verbatim to the page 1 poster. You don't have to match her cattiness. But there isn't a damn thing wrong with checking her if she is going to try some mess.

[Anonymous]

If she is avoiding you, you are making her uncomfortable. I would just leave her alone. Your husband has been forthcoming with you. Don't continue to interrogate this issue unless you want to come across as brooding and jealous. 1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She probably feels way more comfortable around your dh than you.

What is the context of the scotch gift? Was it like a bottle for dh to keep in his office for him and others to enjoy (like a communal bottle)? Was dh blindsided by it? Was it part of a joke or someone lost an office bet? Collateral for the office's fantasy football league?

What brand - let us decide on whether it's too expensive to an appropriate gift.

I dunno op. I feel like you're looking for something that's not there and just reading way too much into it all.

I completely agree. Cut the woman some slack she’s the ONLY woman in her peer group. You’ve lucked out and married a nice guy who apparently treats her like an equal and she appreciates the friendship.

The note is fine. Don’t write it and have your husband sign it. That will look ridiculous.

Just keep being friendly and polite to her. I would imagine a woman who works in a male dominated industry doesn’t socialize much with other women much during the day. And, since she’s actually in the job she is, she probably likes it that way.