Husband’s Work Wives. Why?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A lot of men feel a deeply rooted insecurity form childhood and they play it out by putting chips on the table. With therapy, if he wants to, he can go all in on you. Wishing you and your family the best of luck.

💯 This is OP. Thank you!! Yes. He went to a counselor and then attended w me to my counselor.

Both of the counselors described his behavior as savior complex, resulting from a trauma in his childhood where his mom literally ignored him for a month when he was ten.

He is seeking women who he works with approval, but swears that he never cheated.
He let me go through his phone and all texts exchanges were just work related. I guess I just didn’t like the secrecy of it.

My counselor also said we could get through this if he puts in work to get therapy and make some changes.


She also had high hopes for us.

Thank you for your rational and genuine support!

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I’ve had two “work husbands”. I’ve also had a work wife (I’m a wild girl 😜).

But. With my work husbands, we never communicated OUTSIDE of the office/official work stuff. Like ever. For one of them, I didn’t have any personal contact info, and the other, we were connections on LinkedIn. That’s it.

OP - your husband is having emotional affairs, and trying to cloak them as a work relationship. Do these women even know he is so secretive with you about them?

Wait, so it was wrong to text my work wife a picture of the Pacific ocean when I was dropping my daughter at college? Seriously? Are you Mike Pence?

Are you feeling guilty or something? I said what *I* did. Not what I think others should do.

But. Why did you feel the need to text a picture to a co-worker? Why couldn’t it wait until you got back to work? Sit down and think about why you had to text this woman right at that moment, and whether it’s truly appropriate.

Because she is my friend and I care about her and she's never seen the Pacific. What an odd question.

So, in your world, married men can't have female friends?

You are the weird one here.

It is the fact that you couldn’t wait to get back to work to show the picture. You are obviously thinking about her on your trip.

Why would he wait until he's back? Why not right then when he is standing in front of the ocean????

Is this just you being jealous he talks to another woman? You need to grow up. Or be prettier than the other woman.

lol I had an affair with a coworker and this is how it started

DP. This is such an odd exchange. I'm heterosexual, and I text pics to a handful of both female and male coworkers who are also friends frequently while on personal time and trips. How is this inappropriate? For example, I recently texted a female work-friend a picture of my cocktail while I was traveling with my kids solo. I've had a male work-friend do the same to me when he was traveling solo with his kids. I assure you, in neither of these cases is there an affair happening or about to happen.

[Anonymous]

I had a work husband but I wasn't in touch with him constantly outside of work and I wasn't secretive about our communications. We just got along great and worked well together. We were kind of the same person and acknowledged that we'd be a terrible couple because we were too similar and we'd probably kill each other.

I find it very suspect that your husband is secretive about these women. And why do you believe that he hasn't had an affair? Because being secretive is one of the main indicators that that is exactly what is happening...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In each instance there is a man and a woman doing it. Why do women do it?

I'm a woman. I've generally had more male than female friends over my life. Men are less drama and more easy going. My best friend (other than my husband) is a woman, and I have plenty of close girl friends, but I just get along well with men. And no, I've never cheated and I don't plan to ever do so. I adore my husband.

[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.

I'm a female lawyer and had a work husband but I didn't do any work for him. I didn't touch his cases and he didn't touch mine. It was purely social (and platonic).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve had two “work husbands”. I’ve also had a work wife (I’m a wild girl 😜).

But. With my work husbands, we never communicated OUTSIDE of the office/official work stuff. Like ever. For one of them, I didn’t have any personal contact info, and the other, we were connections on LinkedIn. That’s it.

OP - your husband is having emotional affairs, and trying to cloak them as a work relationship. Do these women even know he is so secretive with you about them?

Wait, so it was wrong to text my work wife a picture of the Pacific ocean when I was dropping my daughter at college? Seriously? Are you Mike Pence?

Are you feeling guilty or something? I said what *I* did. Not what I think others should do.

But. Why did you feel the need to text a picture to a co-worker? Why couldn’t it wait until you got back to work? Sit down and think about why you had to text this woman right at that moment, and whether it’s truly appropriate.

NP, but I send people pictures of things in the moment all the time...

My work husband and I share an affinity for scotch, so if I were to run into our favorite kind (not generally found at restaurants but sometimes will be carried), I would absolutely note it and tell him when I saw it. I'm not texting him "I can't wait to share a drink with you again" or anything like that. But for me, if I see something that makes me think of someone, I'm going to text them at that time. Otherwise I'll probably forget.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve had two “work husbands”. I’ve also had a work wife (I’m a wild girl 😜).

But. With my work husbands, we never communicated OUTSIDE of the office/official work stuff. Like ever. For one of them, I didn’t have any personal contact info, and the other, we were connections on LinkedIn. That’s it.

OP - your husband is having emotional affairs, and trying to cloak them as a work relationship. Do these women even know he is so secretive with you about them?

Wait, so it was wrong to text my work wife a picture of the Pacific ocean when I was dropping my daughter at college? Seriously? Are you Mike Pence?

Are you feeling guilty or something? I said what *I* did. Not what I think others should do.

But. Why did you feel the need to text a picture to a co-worker? Why couldn’t it wait until you got back to work? Sit down and think about why you had to text this woman right at that moment, and whether it’s truly appropriate.

Because she is my friend and I care about her and she's never seen the Pacific. What an odd question.

New poster, but it’s not an odd question. Think about what you’re saying. You see a beautiful piece of scenery. You know your work wife well enough to know that she hasn’t seen this before, so you’ve had that conversation before. In this moment, you look at this beautiful thing and are compelled to send it to her. Do whatever you want. But what everybody is pointing out to you is that there is more to this relationship than you’re acknowledging. The plausible deniability is what allows it to continue. But there’s a reason you’re defensive. And if you spend any time thinking about it from the perspective of your wife, you might get it.

If PP had sent the picture of the ocean to a male friend would you say he is secretly gay? I just saw something the other day that was related to a conversation I had last weekend with my friend's husband at a party. I took a picture of it and sent it to him. I'm not looking to sleep with the guy.

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I’ve had two “work husbands”. I’ve also had a work wife (I’m a wild girl 😜).

But. With my work husbands, we never communicated OUTSIDE of the office/official work stuff. Like ever. For one of them, I didn’t have any personal contact info, and the other, we were connections on LinkedIn. That’s it.

OP - your husband is having emotional affairs, and trying to cloak them as a work relationship. Do these women even know he is so secretive with you about them?[/quote]

Wait, so it was wrong to text my work wife a picture of the Pacific ocean when I was dropping my daughter at college? Seriously? Are you Mike Pence?[/quote]

Are you feeling guilty or something? I said what *I* did. Not what I think others should do.

But. [b]Why did you feel the need to text a picture to a co-worker? Why couldn’t it wait until you got back to work?[/b] Sit down and think about why you had to text this woman right at that moment, and whether it’s truly appropriate.[/quote]

Because she is my friend and I care about her and she's never seen the Pacific. What an odd question.[/quote]

This is in inappropriate, and you don’t realize it OR you know, and do it anyway. There is no reason it couldn’t wait until you saw her again.

THINK about your motives for sending this picture, to this specific person, at this specific time. It’s one thing to recap your trip at work next time you see her and say hey, let me send you this great pic I took.

It’s completely different to be on a personal trip, away from work, and feel the need to send your coworker a picture AT THAT MOMENT.[/quote]

RELAX

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve had two “work husbands”. I’ve also had a work wife (I’m a wild girl 😜).

But. With my work husbands, we never communicated OUTSIDE of the office/official work stuff. Like ever. For one of them, I didn’t have any personal contact info, and the other, we were connections on LinkedIn. That’s it.

OP - your husband is having emotional affairs, and trying to cloak them as a work relationship. Do these women even know he is so secretive with you about them?

Wait, so it was wrong to text my work wife a picture of the Pacific ocean when I was dropping my daughter at college? Seriously? Are you Mike Pence?

Are you feeling guilty or something? I said what *I* did. Not what I think others should do.

But. Why did you feel the need to text a picture to a co-worker? Why couldn’t it wait until you got back to work? Sit down and think about why you had to text this woman right at that moment, and whether it’s truly appropriate.

Because she is my friend and I care about her and she's never seen the Pacific. What an odd question.

So… how come you care for her so much? And even of the Coworkers one cares about - how do you know what oceans they’ve seen or not?

I have many very close best friends and I don’t know what water bodies are important to them.

You’re fibbing to yourself to make it feel okay. I’ve got one of those too.

Just because you're a cheater doesn't mean everyone is. I've had plenty of close male friends over the years and I haven't cheated with any of them.