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Bothered by fiance's behavior with work colleague....Normal?


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I'm not sure if this is the right place, but I thought I'd post here.

 

My fiance is in the digital marketing/social media scene. He is ramping up his business and using a strategist marketing agency to help him with this. He is assigned a sales professional to work with him closely for the next year to help him with sales and landing leads (he pays for this service). This professional happens to be a flirty, beautiful, bubbly 24 or 25 year old female. My fiance is 51 years old.

 

Her behavior towards him (and his towards her) bothers me sometimes. He works from home so I see/hear their conference calls. Now, I know her expertise is in sales and she is very slick...He even said this. I know that a lot of people who are in sales can sometimes use flirting to land a lead. Sometimes it seems like she is teaching him to be this way. My fiance can naturally be this way too. It's kind of his personality unfortunately (people pleasing).

 

I've seen him write emails to her and he is very careful with his use of words...Almost like he is trying to impress her. Careful placement of exclamation points, "lol" 's, etc. She is a chronic smiley-face user. I watched him compose an email this morning (I was behind him cleaning the table and happened to see him writing and was watching...not sure if he knew this). He kept stopping, erasing, getting rid of periods and replacing with exclamation points, etc. Like he was trying to get it just right, a little flirty but not overly done so...Why? I mean, it's kind of pathetic.

 

He has admitted that he is trying hard to impress the people he works with at this agency because he needs to have good rapport and work this well. His...our... livelihood depends on making this work. We are financially screwed right now and he really needs good business partners with this agency. This woman isn't the only person he works with...There is another woman who isn't as flirty as the other and he kind of uses the same language in her emails. I've seen 1 or 2.

 

I'm not sure if I am nit-picking and looking into it too much. This women knows he is with someone and has a baby. She hears us in the background at times during these calls. And, yesterday at the beginning of the phone call they were making small-talk and he mentioned us going to his mom's beach house. He told her "my fiance took the kids down early and I came later because I was caught up with work". So that makes me think I am looking into it too much. Why would he mention me like that if he was trying to get with or flirt with this woman.

 

I don't know...What do you think? Just sale-sy flirtation or whatnot?

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Unless he gave you other reasons not to trust him, I think you need to calm down. Sometimes paranoia/insecurity can creep in, especially when we are "all in" with someone like you are. Try to assume the best and wait things to unfold. I don't really see evidence of him cheating at this point. If he's in sales, it's going to be many women he's going to interact with and you won't be able to control that all the time.

 

Ask yourself why are you insecure. Is it because he's been giving you reasons in the past, is it because you're not sure of his love, maybe not married yet (do you have a date set?). Or something else.

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Look, I've yet to meet a 40 or 50 year old man at the office who wasn't flustered and flirting and flattered by the attentions of the youngest women in the office. It sucks, but it's a fact. Men are attracted to young women. Whether they rein themselves in is your only hope.

 

But my guess is she is not interested in him because he's twice her age, though she may well use men such as him to climb the ladder if she's so inclined, but not all women are, of course, because it's just not necessary much anymore.

 

My own boss writes and rewrites everything 10 times before he sends it, though I do not consider that normal, but he's trying to take just the right tone with his clients. It is a little puzzling why your man is being SO careful with someone who is his subordinate, and yes, he may be trying to impress her in more ways than one, but the likelihood that he will succeed is practically nil. I mean she's 25 and sounds like outgoing, so she's probably got more options than she can manage already.

 

I wouldn't worry about it unless he starts disconnecting from you or disappearing on you. Good luck.

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Eternal Sunshine

He is attracted to her for sure. But that doesn't mean much - most men are going to be physically attracted to a large number of women. Especially young, good looking women. That doesn't mean that they are going to cheat or fall in love with them or leave you.

 

Good men can control their impulses and don't let their attraction get in the way of a stable relationship. The most attractive and best thing you can do is assume like everything is fine and hope for the best. It can really go either way. Don't show him that you are jealous or try to control their interactions - this will only push him away and weaken your relationship. It's actually going to work in your favor if you find out what kind of man he is before you marry him. Given your awareness of the situation, you will know if he is starting to cheat.

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Well, it's almost like he thinks of her as HIS higher-up. He is paying for this service and wants to do well...He knows they have something he doesn't and needs to learn. (I swear, it's like he idolizes this company. I'm not even kidding. Talks about it constantly how great it is and HAS to do well.) She's teaching HIM. And he admitted to wanting to do well and be on the up and up and be "the" client to work with so he gets the attention he needs to get what he needs out of the training. He said he felt that if he put a great amount of work into their system, it will look good to them and he'll get more attention...:rolleyes::rolleyes: Maybe not in those words because that sounds terrible but that's exactly what he meant.

 

He is a people pleaser due to low self-esteem. That's a fact.

 

This is going to sound horrible, but I looked into their emails to each other when I had the chance, just to see if I was missing something that I feel I have the right to know. Upon reading the email sent this morning, it actually wasn't a big a deal as I thought. It wasn't flirty, though it's strange about the erasing and re-writing. In fact, they rarely email each other. And when she sends him some attachments, she doesn't even write a message with the email at all.

 

I think I may be nit-picking. Still definitely something to keep my eyes and ears open about though.

 

(And yes, I am sure she has many prospects with her outgoing personality and her beauty. I'm sure she has many men at her feet.) Though she is always telling my fiance how she thinks he's so wonderful and loves how engaged he is in the work and so interactive with tons of feedback. She says she's never had a client so in-tune. The line she likes to use: "We're like 2 peas in a pod!" (Gag.)

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It doesn't sound like there's anything to worry about. You should tell your fiancé about the hole in his security though. If word got out that company emails could be so easily accessed, it would be bad for business.

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I accessed his email directly from his computer. He went upstairs to take a shower and I jumped on the computer and opened Outlook right up. He had left the tab open.

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I accessed his email directly from his computer. He went upstairs to take a shower and I jumped on the computer and opened Outlook right up. He had left the tab open.
Many of my clients would drop me if this had happened to me.
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Well, it's almost like he thinks of her as HIS higher-up. He is paying for this service and wants to do well...He knows they have something he doesn't and needs to learn. (I swear, it's like he idolizes this company. I'm not even kidding. Talks about it constantly how great it is and HAS to do well.) She's teaching HIM. And he admitted to wanting to do well and be on the up and up and be "the" client to work with so he gets the attention he needs to get what he needs out of the training. He said he felt that if he put a great amount of work into their system, it will look good to them and he'll get more attention...:rolleyes::rolleyes: Maybe not in those words because that sounds terrible but that's exactly what he meant.

 

He is a people pleaser due to low self-esteem. That's a fact.

 

This is going to sound horrible, but I looked into their emails to each other when I had the chance, just to see if I was missing something that I feel I have the right to know. Upon reading the email sent this morning, it actually wasn't a big a deal as I thought. It wasn't flirty, though it's strange about the erasing and re-writing. In fact, they rarely email each other. And when she sends him some attachments, she doesn't even write a message with the email at all.

 

I think I may be nit-picking. Still definitely something to keep my eyes and ears open about though.

 

(And yes, I am sure she has many prospects with her outgoing personality and her beauty. I'm sure she has many men at her feet.) Though she is always telling my fiance how she thinks he's so wonderful and loves how engaged he is in the work and so interactive with tons of feedback. She says she's never had a client so in-tune. The line she likes to use: "We're like 2 peas in a pod!" (Gag.)

 

Well, she may just be good at motivating people at work. Don't know what her job is, but if she's training him, then she is just trying to keep him motivated. He is bending over backwards to succeed here, so you should support him and tell him it sounds like he's giving it his all and like things are going well and maybe he'll eventually relax a bit. He's trying too hard, probably, but she is liking it, so let it go and don't worry about it.

 

Do be sure and be sure he maintains balance between his work and his personal life by getting him engaged doing leisurely things and don't let him slip into just living for his work because he sounds inclined that way.

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That email thing could happen to anyone with a spouse. It's not like she's a corporate spy. Good grief. Her marriage is her only concern here.

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I think the easiest advice I can give is this: you can never, ever, ever prevent someone from cheating -- it is their decision to be faithful or not. What can reduce the likelihood of an affair is for couples to create positive energy so that one partner doesn't sour on the relationship. But you can't stop someone from cheating -- not possible. You can only control how you react to it if you find out.

 

Point being, you can worry about how attractive his coworkers are, but it won't help. He can decide when, where, how, and with whom to cheat. He could be attracted to her, but he could just as easily fancy one of your cousins or a homely-looking neighbor across the street. You just don't know. But I say that not to make you worry. When stop worrying about things you can't control, life is easier.

 

All of that said, looking at the information you've posted, I don't see any evidence at all that he's even thinking about it. Even if he's flirting, so what? Normal behavior. People want validation that they're still attractive to other people (you probably do as well). Doesn't mean you or he would cheat, right? Beyond that, it seems like he's just trying to do a good job and put food on the table. Getting jealous is going to add stress in his professional life, which is the last place it is needed.

 

And I say this as a guy and you need to heed this: to a man, feeling competent at work, feeling productive are extremely important. Start messing with his career and feelings of manliness and that WILL cause problems between you two.

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