I was reading an online article about work relationships, when a comment caught my eye. The commenter, bookbug273, wrote: “I have a ‘work husband’, and my real husband has a ‘work wife’! We tease each other about it, but it’s all totally OK.”
That’s when I realised: there was a name for my husband’s friendship with his co-worker, Kimberly. She was his ‘work wife’. And I was definitely not cool with it.
The phrase ‘work wife’ made complete sense to me. After all, she was Matt’s closest friend at work, the one who understood all of the issues he had with his boss and the corporate structure. And their closeness was making me uncomfortable and jealous.
That night, when Matt got home, I said, “Kim’s your work wife, isn’t she?”
He grinned. “Yeah! I guess you’re right. She is!”
That was not the response I wanted. A denial would have been preferable. To have Matt so comfortable with acknowledging his intimacy with Kim – even if it was just as a friend – was unnerving.
Is 'work wife' on this list of breakup reasons? (Post continues after video.)
Three years ago, when Matt told me that he was training a new woman named Kim at his office, I didn’t bat an eyelid.
Top Comments
Emotional infidelity is a type of cheating in my opinion. I think it is a combination of an evolving workplace and too many TV sitcoms glorifying work "friends," but work is work and all coworkers should be held at arms length IMO. Any relationship beyond that is asking for trouble in a personal or professional sense.
I think you may want to re-read everything you wrote and reflect on yourself. He isn't hiding things from you, they both seem to respect eachother and men or women are not strictly to be good friends with the same sex. My husband has mostly female friends and his best friend was a female that he did most of his partying with. I have a work husband and am friends with his wife. We can talk about work things in depth. I can understand that side and diffuse so it isn't brought home. I think there is a deep seeded issue with many people re: relationships. Marriage doesn't mean we own anyone and we need to be comfortable enough with ourselves and comfortable enough with our partners to let them be free to be themselves. It sounds like you are jealous that you aren't the one stop shop for all needs. I hope that you can think on these things and see a way to improve that instead of hindering your husband from having a great friendship. Life is too short and it is obvious you do not trust him with her. I'm sorry you feel this way.
I can't agree with you. The fact that the term 'work wife' even exists shows how rampant emotional infidelity is in the workplace. The use of the word 'wife' in this context speaks volumes.
It is an arbitrary word assigned to the relationship which is up for interpretation by anyone who considered the term and how it affects them.. the issue lies with folks focusing simply on that phrase. How foolish we get hung up on these words and descriptions and aren't more focused on enriching our lives in relationships like these and others..