Wife demands younger female coworker’s firing after boundary-crossing incidents at husband’s job. AITA? UPDATED 4X
"Me [32/m] and my wife [29/f] fighting about colleague [22/f]. She thinks it's inappropriate, I think she's just being possessive."
My wife and I have been married for two years, together for 8. She's never been the jealous type till just recently with this situation. I started a new job about a year ago. It's a management position and requires a lot of recruiting.
I've been doing pretty good building a team. I need to in order to advance further and I'm so close. I make great money doing what I do and have been able to give the wife and I a much better quality of life as a result.
Anyway, one of my recent recruits is a young female. She's a great addition to my team. She brings in awesome numbers, very teachable and all around just fun to have in the office. And yes, she's very attractive. But I'm faithful and love my wife and would never do something inappropriate.
The wife hates her! I'm not used to this from her. I've had female friends and colleagues in the past. Attractive ones too. It's never been a problem. But this girl...holy cow. We've been fighting constantly now.
Part of team building and keeping your team is being social with them. This is encouraged by the higher ups who even cover the cost of nights out to hang out with your team in an informal setting. We encourage team members to bring their spouses too.
Well like three weeks ago, we were supposed to have one if these nights. But we had two road trips going on, so most of my team was out of town. I only had the new girl and another new guy in town and the new guy bailed.
Normally my wife would come but she was working. So it ended up just being my new girl and myself, eating wings and having some drinks. My wife called to say she was off and could come join.
But I decided that since everyone was gone, that maybe she should sit this one out because my new girl was really new and I didn't want to third wheel her. Wife didn't like that. Too it off, the new girl thinks she's being funny and says loudly, "..comeback to bed!"
My wife gets pissed but it's unprofessional for me to fight with her on the phone in front of a new recruit so I kinda cut her short and said I had to go. My intention was to smooth it over later.
I also bt the way, told my new girl that wasn't actually funny and it was also inappropriate and I'd appreciate her holding herself to a higher professional standard in dealings with people related to our business in the future.
Well wife wasn't having it when I got home. And eventually in the berating, I said something like "she's not even attractive! You have nothing to worry about! Anyway, I only love you!" She's still pissed but calms down a little and whatever.
Then the following week, I'm talking to a few people in my office somewhat informally. I basically told my team to get in here for a second to go over something. I only have two chairs besides mine in there. So, those are taken, I have two people sitting on a low bookshelf in the back, a few leaning against the walls, etc.
New girl comes in last, looks around, and sits on the edge of my desk farthest from me. We have our meeting, everyone leaves but the new girl. She has a question about what I said.
Naturally, she turns more towards me as she's talking to me, whatever. Well, that's the moment my wife walks in with my phone charger and a Starbucks for me. So all she sees is the new girl sitting on my desk, leaned in towards me, talking to me.
I've never seen my wife act like this but it was embarrassing. She put the stuff down on the nearest surface and just walked out. Well I'm not going to chase her, that'll look bad. So I finish talking to NG then try to call my wife who won't answer.
So, I get home later and she's in the shower--crying. Wtf? I go in the bathroom and pull back the curtain and she's literally sitting in the tub, knees to her chest, crying in the shower. Why??
This is ridiculous! So I get pissed off and leave. I call a few work bros and meet at the bar. Well effing luck of all luck, NG shows up with them because two of the guys I called were with her already.
And she's dressed to the 9s! She takes a big group selfie shot and posts it on Facebook. Well guess what? Yup, the wife saw. And comments, "nice to see you having so much fun" (/s). To which NG responds, "he's in good hands".
And I know that sounds like innuendo but she swears it's not. I talked to NG and she really said that as an assurance like, don't worry, he's in good hands and didn't even think about the fact it could be misconstrued.
Anyway, I get home, more crying from the wife. She says I'm being willfully ignorant and that it's obvious this girl likes me and is stirring trouble and that I'm refusing to see it or that I must really think she (my wife) is stupid.
She asked me if she could look at my phone! Like, are you kidding me? I obviously said no. Then she cried more that I obviously have something to hide. Especially cause I lied about NG being attractive. Now for the last two days I've gotten complete silent treatment.
What the eff? I haven't done anything wrong! And NG is a good employee. I can't fire her or something for my wife. Like, what the eff does she want me to do? No one has done anything wrong!
The OP then added more information as comments poured in.
Okay okay guys! It's clear you all think I'm at best the stupidest person alive and at worst some kind of monster. First off, I would never sleep with NG and while yes, I can recognize that she's physically attractive by most standards, I am not attracted to her. Especially not after all the effing drama her very existence has been causing me.
Secondly, I'm not a bad husband. We've had 8 wonderful years together and have been through some pretty tough things before and come out stronger than ever. I've just never been in a situation like this one before. I'm pretty average looking. In fact, my wife is very attractive and normally, it would be me with insecurities. But I've never made my insecurities her problem.
Thirdly, I'm willing to admit some of you may be right about what's going on. If it's so obvious to so many people including my wife, I'm not arrogant enough to say you're all wrong and i'm right. I mean, I posted for a reason afterall.
Finally though, I'm still not sure how to proceed. We don't have an HR as we're still a small office. It's basically my boss, two other ppl at my level and our teams. (Sales ps.) the way you guys are talking, I'm a little frightened that this get turned on me if NG wants to be vindictive or something.
I haven't done anything inappropriate but I'm higher up and male. And given how I've apparently effed this up, how would my wife react if NG tried to allege anything against me for letting her go or something??
Ok. Well, I've been talking to my wife off and on all day since I posted. Been echoing some of your sentiments and apologizing. Trying to be empathetic. But she really isn't too interested in anything I have to say although is actually speaking to me nonetheless, so I guess that's something.
I have NG an assignment that requires her to be mostly out of the office and in the field next couple days under supervision of someone else, so we shouldn't really have contact for now while this is getting sorted. Going home now. I'd say wish me luck but I doubt you will. I'll update later.
The OP then quickly returned with that promised update.
It went about as well as could be expected. I explained that I really didn't "get" the whole situation but that I do now. I showed her this thread. I apologized and told her I was willing to do whatever I could to make this right.
I reassured her over and over and over again that I didn't cheat on her. She's not sure she believes me about cheating or sincerely understanding what I've done wrong but in any case, she's incredibly hurt.
After much discussion and tears and begging (from me), this is what she wants from me:
-Space. She wants me to move out for a while. And she doesn't have a set time for when I can come back.
-Counselling, for both of us as a couple and separately. She says this incident isn't the first time that I've been unable to see things from her point of view and have hurt her as a result. And not only that but she feels she needs help trusting me again.
-Like many of you, she thinks (putting it mildly), that NG needs to go away, far far away. And she wants me to tell NG why and wants to be able to listen in somehow. I don't know how I'm supposed to do that. I feel like does cross some sort of line professionally, whether I'm willing or not.
Finally, she said she doesn't know what's going to happen with us even if I do all these things. She cried a lot, which isn't surprising. I feel awful and scared and really effing stupid. I love my wife. I haven't done a good job of showing it lately. I realize that now. But I really don't want to lose her.
I'll be speaking to my boss tomorrow about how best to deal with this as far as letting her go or transferring her or something. Wife wants her fired, period. I'll see what I can do. I'm in a motel right now.
I spoke to my father and he pretty much told me I'm an idiot and to do whatever it takes to fix this. My parents are very fond of my wife. Thanks again guys. I didn't know how bad this was. God only knows how much worse this would've gotten.
In reponse to readers saying NG should be let go from her job:
I'm aware she should be fired. If you've read all my posts in this thread, I've figured this out. I spoke with my boss today. After first making sure I truly hadn't done something inappropriate with her, he has agreed she needs to go.
You have to understand that the culture of our small office is very informal. We all make off color jokes and rag on each other and good around. But at the same time, our images are important.
I may joke around with you and be your buddy outside of work but make no mistake, I should appear to you to also be serious about the business and have my shit together. That's why I don't like scenes or letting on about troubles in my personal life. My wife has always understood how this works.
That's why when that first very inappropriate joke was made, I tried not to make much of it. I thought it possible that NG having seen how the office camaraderie works, just thought she was being funny but failed.
So as I said, I spoke to her about that being inappropriate but didn't make it a huge deal. I also thought given my wife's knowledge of how the office works and her being exposed to it before that she might be overreacting. A major fail and error, I know that now.
I was seeing the things going on as isolated events all with explanations. Not as one entire fuck around like it actually was. I'm very embarrassed by my oversight as a professional and extremely sorry as a husband.
The part about letting her go that is tough is that she is a good employee in the sense that she hits and exceeds all her sales targets and is very well liked and considered a hard worker.
It will be very obvious exactly why she's getting fired given that. Now that I have a grasp of this situation for what it is, I fear, and my boss agrees, that she may the type of person to make her termination "messy". Given we're a newer office, this is problematic.
My boss believes we were being baited from the start and that she not only knew what she was doing but that it probably had little to do with me and more to do with her trying to set herself up for something or create some sort of sordid leverage. I have no idea.
All I know is I have to fix this immediately but carefully. But the wife doesn't want careful, she wants swift, decisive action she can savour. I get that, I do. But that is the part I'm trying to figure out now.
Even later that same day, the OP returned.
Late reply I know but it was a day...NG took her firing...ok. She did heavily deny that her intention was not to be inappropriate. She also expressed some upset that it was "unfair" since other people in the office make jokes too.
My boss spoke up at that point to say that others don't make jokes like that and that I had already warned her once about being inappropriate in that particular regard. Again she denied that her comment about me being in good hands was anything other than an innocent mistake.
Again, my boss stepped in and said that as a new employee, she was still under probation and therefore, he could dismiss her without explanation if he wanted and that he just did not feel she was a good fit. He threw the ball back to me, so to speak, and asked if I agreed and I said yes, we were in agreement.
She just sort of shrugged and said, "well, I don't know what to say then. Goodbye, I guess." And then as she collected her things and left, she threw a pot shot at me that, in my dreams she'd be interested in me.
My wife listened to the recording. I don't think it was what she wanted. She seemed disappointed. I think she wanted me to really tell NG off good. And you know, maybe I should have?
But my boss was involved and we were trying to get rid of NG without rocking the business. Wife was happy though that NG is gone. But then got kind of weird. I was confused because I thought that's what she wanted.
She ended up crying and basically said that she was still scared that I'd see NG. Especially with me staying at a motel, who knows what I'm doing? She doesn't know what to think anymore. With me out of the house, she has to trust me.
But right now she doesn't trust me... So I said there was nothing to worry about (like my saying that mattered in any way), and that if she wanted I'd stay at the house but in our spare room or something.
That wasn't good either cause she doesn't want me there right now. So, I just admitted that I really didn't know what to do then... She said she didn't even know what she wants either. I ended up taking a beat to call my parents and asked if I could stay with them for a while.
They said that was ok. My wife liked that arrangement more as well, I guess because then I'm supervised? I tried not to be insulted by that because I know I'm in the wrong here so I should just take it.
While sitting on the couch talking (watching her cry), she asked me to just hold her. I had tried to earlier but she pushed me away. Anyway, so I held her. Then we ended up kissing then..etc etc, I'll let you fill it in.
But I was kicked back out shortly after to pack my things from the motel and go to my parents. She said she still loves me of course but that she's still pissed off and hurt and unsure of things regardless of what happened tonight.
And seeing how hurt she is, and being so scared of not having her anymore, I'm really getting how much I've sucked lately and not even just in this scenario. She's been really patient with me and I've been fucking up. I reread my original post and I'm actually embarrassed at how selfish I've been.
Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP's post:
The part where he saw his wife in the shower crying which somehow pissed him off that he left to a bar????
You are so concerned with how you're looking in front of this subordinate that you're feeding right into your wife's insecurities. It was a BAD mistake to tell your wife not to come out. It was a BAD mistake to not chide your subordinate for her really quite offensive joke. You got pissed off and left because your wife was miserable? Instead of reassuring her?
I agree with your wife that the subordinate is stirring shit. "Come back to bed" and "He's in good hands" are NOT colorless language, and this younger woman is NOT your wife's friend. She knows better.
"I haven't done anything wrong!"
Yeah, right. You pushed your wife away, you lied, you didn't take your subordinate to task for her shitty behavior, you abandoned your wife when she was weeping in the shower and you didn't immediately leave when the subordinate was out with your friends (but instead let her take photos of herself with you). You are basically doing every single thing wrong.
I’m interested to know the other times he has failed to see things from his wife’s point of view. Her whole reaction here screamed exhausted “last straw.”
You have made many, many mistakes here. When your wife was on the phone and NG screamed out "come back to bed", you effed that up. What you should have done was stood up with the phone, walked away to somewhere private, and told your wife, "I can't believe she said that, I'm sorry, I will talk to her about that."
Instead, what you did was to cut the call short, and (like a complete jackass) got off the phone with your wife, leaving her imagination to run wild. Then, when you came home and found your wife crying in the shower... you thought the best effing move you could make was to leave her and go drinking with your buddies.
Very. Nice. Work. Since she's supposed to be your wife, the love of your life and your partner, how about consoling her and trying to help her feel better? In short, you think this whole thing is about right vs. wrong, correct vs. incorrect, etc., but it's not. What this whole thing is actually about is the way you treat your wife. And, sir, you treat your wife poorly.
I'm not sure that a post has ever made my blood boil to quite this degree.