SillyGreenGirl Posted March 9, 2012 Posted March 9, 2012 To start off, I'm not a jealous person - well not more than is healthy, I mean I definitely pay attention to what's going on and am usually pretty good at discerning whether or not a person is acting 'questionable'. That being said, I'm a huge fan of behaving honorably when in mixed company, after all, why give rumors fuel when you don't need to. That being said, in my 6 yr marriage I've seen plenty of women around my husband, and have never had a problem with any of them, until this year when his ADMIN sent him a sexually explicit email (joke). *That did not sit well with me at all and it was clear that it was over the top inappropriate considering she had only been working with him/known him for less than 60 days. That was nipped in the butt pretty fast by the company. (Large company - emails are monitored). So that went away almost as soon as it came up. Now, the other thing is this - in his capacity as a manager, he has many men working under him (100 or more). He is constantly on the phone with one or the other. That's not a problem because it's his job. Because his job is so invasive into our personal time together, he and I made a deal - there are some things that we keep completely personal: the house phone (no one work-related gets that number), his personal cell phone (only his upper-supervisor that MUST reach him in an emergency get that number), and our Facebook accounts (no one work-related is added - for obvious reasons). I recently noticed that one of his employee's wives sent him a friend request on FB. I'm not surprised that he accepted, he's what I call a "blind-clicker" - he'll just click the 'accept' button without thinking. So, I thought, alright - she added him, and though it does compromise that line of "no work-related adds" I let it go. But then I noticed that she was responding to a lot of stuff on his page, and him to hers. NOW, the comments, conversation, etc have ALL been innocent - nothing out of the ordinary, per se. But something about it is just bugging me - you know that gnawing little feeling that you get when the hairs on your ears prick up. I want to talk to him about it, but I don't want to come off as a jealous wife. He and I have Never had a problem, we aren't having problems now - but still there's something about this whole thing that strikes me as inappropriate, and here's why.... (I think).... She knows that he is married (this I know for certain) - but she has not sent me a friend request, only him. So, in the spirit of "not acting like a silly paranoid wife" I sent her one..... it's been two weeks and she hasn't accepted - meanwhile she's still chatting it up with my husband on FB. One of my friends (who's also married and has been an oilfield wife for 30 years) told me that this is highly inappropriate behavior on this woman's part because in our profession/lifestyle there are many divorces - and as my friend put it "she knows the rules of the wife-hood so to speak - and that is that we befriend each other for support - but we do not invite ourselves into 'relationships/friendships' with each others husbands." Am I being paranoid or is it inappropriate for he to befriend my husband (her husband's boss) and chat him up but refuse my friend request?
unforgiven13 Posted March 9, 2012 Posted March 9, 2012 It's absolutely inappropriate on both your husbands part and this woman. First of all, as soon as you saw that he added this woman after you made an agreement, you should have spoken up. When a man makes a promise to you, breaks it, and you say nothing..what do you think that says to him? Believe me, I am so very guilty of doing this so I know how it works. We teach them how to treat us. If you let him get away with breaking one promise, then he will just do it more. So talk to him about it now before it goes any further. You may also be a little insecure, but he broke an agreement without even speaking to you about it, so you have reason to be! I'm not saying anything is going on between them, but he should have atleast discussed this with you before adding her. It's possible when you bring it up to him he will say "wow I'm so sorry I didn't think about our agreement..." and he really innocently thought nothing of it. Just don't assume the worst already. The fact that married couples have separate facebook accounts is what really weirds me out. Unless you have each others passwords. I don't understand the privacy aspect of it. When you're married there should be no secrets, alone time sure, but on social networking sites you are far from alone. It's like stepping into a giant room with hundreds of people and you can have private conversations with each other and erase them like they never happened. Some couples are fine with this and if you are one of them then this doesn't matter, but I just don't get it. Bottom line, talk it out. Don't come from an insecure or accusatory place, just speak from your heart. Sit down together and hold his hand while you express yourself, this helps you to stay connected and helps him feel like he is not being attacked or accused of anything. Good luck.
Feliciti Posted March 12, 2012 Posted March 12, 2012 There seem to be a bit too heavy "no male/female friendship" policy on this forum... I admit, I'm not good at handling jelousy either, but seriously, show you trust him at least somewhat. Do you have any reason to believe that he's not enjoying your company, and wants or even prefers someone elses company? Otherwise, I'd say you're more on the insecure end. I can most certainly relate to that, I often feel inadequete as well, but the more I think about it, the less reason I find for these largely irrelevant fears. Besides, I'd think her husband is more than likely to step in if anything seems to happen. Men always seem far more protective than women, and I highly doubt he'd like to lose his wife to a co-worker (Or boss, for that matter). And this may be "rule bending", but if it's an employee's wife, isn't it technically a private matter, and not work-related? O_o
fencesitter Posted March 12, 2012 Posted March 12, 2012 It's sketchy that the woman won't "friend" the wife. That's totally against the sisterhood code. I think men and women can indeed be friends, but when you are a woman and friendly with a married man, you *have* to include the wife too. And vice versa.
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