'My husband got fired for harassing a coworker, and won't talk to me about it.' MAJOR UPDATE

"My [36F] husband [41M] got fired for harassing a coworker, and won't talk to me about it."

My husband Charlie and I have been together for 10 years, married for 6. We've had our ups and downs, but are currently in an 'up.' He has never done anything like this in the past, so it came out of left field for me and I'm very much shocked and at a loss here. Charlie is a computer programmer and was a senior engineer at his (former) company, where he had worked for 4 years.

He'd never had any trouble with coworkers and we're both friendly with a few of them, mostly other men and their wives. On Friday of last week, he came home around 11am and told me he'd been fired. He was really upset and agitated, and I didn't want to push him about it, but he told me that they'd said he was harassing a coworker and was fired.

The information I've been able to get out of him:

The coworker is Beth, a junior engineer who he's never mentioned to me before. He said she's 'terrible at her job.'

Beth slept with a senior engineer we are both friendly with, Darren. Darren wasn't involved in the harassment, wasn't fired, etc.

The company's lawyers were there and among the things they told him was that Beth could have pressed charges but chose not to.

Something happened with her car, but he won't say what. His exact words were, 'There was something with her car.'

He was escorted off of the premises and is not allowed back in the building to get his belongings, and instead has to arrange with security to pick them up after business hours.

As far as anything else goes, he won't give me any details. He isn't interested in seeing a lawyer because he says everything is legal.

He has basically admitted to 'sending Beth some e-mails' but won't say what they said or anything like that. I don't know if Beth sleeping with Darren had to do with it, but the fact that he gave me that detail makes me think it does. I'm not sure how it relates; Darren is a very nice, single man who is in his late 20s and approximately the same age as Beth.

My mind is running wild here. Charlie has been depressed and withdrawn all weekend, won't talk to me about it, and won't talk much in general. I work remotely so I was home all day with him and he played video games all day and then went to bed at 6pm.

The fact that he won't tell me anything and isn't interested in seeing a lawyer makes me think that it's Bad, and makes me worry that everything is true and not just a misunderstanding or a small thing blown out of proportion.

He has never been flirtatious with other women or cruel to them, and he's never said anything bad about other women engineers he works with. I don't know what to do here. My instinct is to be supportive of my husband, but I don't know what kind of behavior I'd be supporting.

I don't want to run to his coworkers we know and ask them, since they're more 'our' friends than my friends, and while we spend time together at get togethers or bars, I'm not close with them. In an immediate sense, I don't know what to do about helping someone who is so depressed and won't talk to me.

TL;DR: My husband was fired for harassing a coworker and refuses to give me any details or talk at all since Friday.

The internet did not hold back one bit.

cleveraccountname13 wrote:

I would tell him you have to assume the worst if he won’t be honest with you. I’ve gotta say he must have done bad stuff to be escorted off the premises with no warning like that.

Either he was hating on her and went over the top, or he tried to fuck her and went over the top, or he tried to f#$k her and then hated on her. Edit. Re-read. I’m guessing tried to f@$% her, sent crazy emails and vandalized her car. He could easily still be charged criminally and/or sued.

Rs1000000 wrote:

I've worked at larger companies and when they fire people, sometimes they are walked right out of the building. The reasoning is they don't want the fired person to make a scene and rock the boat. It's heartless in my opinion but it does happen.

Something tells me OP's husband did something terrible because lawyers were there and apparently the girl could have pressed charges. That is very unusual.

My guess is OP's husband got jealous that Darren was sleeping with Beth and not him as he had a crush on Beth for a while and he flipped out and went all nice guy on her. He mentioned there are emails so there is evidence in writing as well. This does not bode well for OP.

mindjyobizness wrote:

Seeing as it got so far that he's been fired and he doesn't want to fight it, sounds like the allegations are probably true. The fact that he brings up Darren makes it seem like he's harassed her as a result of jealousy. Does he usually shut down conversation on things? Does he usually keep things from you?

I'd be very cautious about what he's hiding and what it means for you and your relationship - even if it's not s3xu@l and it's just plain old harassment, do you want to be with a grown man who harasses young women to the point he gets fired?

The next day, OP shared an update.

My thread was locked before I was able to respond to any of the comments, but I was able to read them this morning. I got up at 5:30 to go to the gym before work, and my husband was still awake playing video games.

I presented him with the very good idea someone suggested of sending me an e-mail with the details, but that it wasn't acceptable to shut me out of this situation, since it effects me too. His response was basically, 'The paperwork is in my car, go get it if you want to read it.' I asked him to go get it so we could look at it together and he said, 'You're going to believe what you want anyway.'

ALL of this is unusual for our marriage because I'm a pretty patient person, I think. We went out to the car together and he got in his car, handed me the papers, and left. For about two hours I was panicked because I didn't know where he went, if he was okay, if he was thinking of hurting himself, but his mother texted me at 9 saying he was over there, asking me what happened, if everything is okay, etc.

His parents live about 15 minutes away and I guess he told her he's going to be staying there.

So, the paperwork. According to the paperwork he:

Sent her multiple harassing e-mails from anonymous e-mail accounts. The e-mails are printed out and attached. He apparently did this while at work and they have been monitoring his user account for 3 months.

The e-mails aren't s#$%al or romantic in nature and are all anonymous and about how she sucks at her job, wouldn't be there if she wasn't a woman, how she should quit before she gets fired, and how everyone in the office hates her. He made fake user accounts for his company's product that she works on and submitted bad reviews of her work. He also did this while logged in at work.

He sent an anonymous e-mail to her boss saying that she was sleeping with a senior engineer on another project. He put a g^n catalog on the windshield of her car. I don't know what this gesture means, but I obviously understand that it was meant to be threatening. Unfortunately, inside was a subscription card that the company auto-filled with his name and address.

She also says she has been harassed for the same length of time (about 3 months) on Twitter. He only logged into one Twitter account that harassed her at work, so they can only say one was him. All telling her to quit her job. So, I don't know what to do now. This is all terrifying to me, and I feel so bad for this woman. I have no idea what this is all about.

He works with other women engineers, and he has worked with male engineers who don't pull their weight, and he's never done anything like this. I would've bet a million dollars that he'd never do anything like this. He's at his parents' right now and I don't know what my next move here could possibly be. This is so scary and out of left field to me. My husband definitely harassed his coworker for 3 months.

The internet had OP's back all the way.

greenbean999 wrote:

“This is unlike you and I’m concerned about your health. Can we go to a counsellor together to talk about this? Would you go to the doctor to make sure things are okay medically?” If he refuses, be firmer- it’s essentially a ‘let’s look at this clinically or I’m not sure I can continue to support your unreasonable choices” time.

kmerion wrote:

Time to sit your husband down and give an ultimatum. He needs to give you his side of the story, or you two are done. This is clearly a Jeckel and Hyde thing going on.

OP responded:

I forgot to mention, this paperwork is copied from the original and was signed by both him and his company. I don't know if that's a full admission but it seems damning either way.

JackNotName wrote:

Your husband needs serious therapy. What you describe is absolutely abhorrent behavior. If he is unwilling to get help about this, or do anything to convince you that he understands how wrong what he did is, you should seriously consider getting as far away from this man as you can. What he did is evil.