I'm Married & Flirting With A Coworker. Is That So Wrong?

Q: My husband and I work for the same company but in different departments. I have a close friendship with a colleague in my department that tends to involve flirty banter. My husband went through my phone and read our messages. He doesn’t like the friend. I admit I probably have a bit of a crush, but I also value my colleague’s friendship very highly as I don’t have many friends that are just my own and not inherited from my husband.

I can feel myself starting to resent my husband’s attitude. I feel very stressed and confused and would really love an outside, expert perspective.

A: You, my friend, are tap-dancing on fireworks. You are having your cake, eating it, and stealing someone else’s dessert out of the work fridge! You’re putting extramarital workplace flirtation in writing?! You seem genuinely surprised — resentful, even! — that your husband would be upset about you having a crush you flirt with at work. Where he also works.

En général, I am not opposed to a friendship fizzing with chemistry. To me, flirtation is playfulness, and what your social life meant to be if not fun? I’m undisturbed by the idea that one might, on occasion, think of a friend in a sexual or erotic way — as long as you aren’t crossing any boundaries for either your relationship or theirs. Life is neither straightforward nor scissible.

But this is egregious.

I don’t even have the space to get into the professional issues at play here, but I would strongly suggest that regardless of anything else you do, you dial this friendship back. Like a lot. Not just for marital reasons, but also for the sake of your job. Bare, bare minimum: no more flirty banter, please — out loud or via text. Delete the incriminating Slacks.

It might help to investigate the source of your feelings. If you weren’t sending coy messages and being tacky at work, this wouldn’t be a big deal. But this is a crush you’re acting on. A crush that your partner found out about because you are so Acting On It.

And the question is: Why? You’ve identified the pull of a connection outside your husband’s social circle — but if that was the full explanation, you two would simply be chatting about Oscars snubs in the break room. What else draws you to this person? What do they give you that you are missing? Why are you otherwise lacking that? Have you told your husband about it?

You cannot do a little emotional cheating as a treat for staying in your marriage.

Now, this might sound like I’m suggesting that this is entirely your fault and that your sweet, innocent husband is beyond reproach. I don’t think so. Especially since you’re at the same company, you need space from each other.

The fact that all your other friendships are his worries me. For your well-being and sense of independence, it’s crucial for you to have your own social life. The fuller that is, the less appealing this work connection will be.

It’s also concerning that he’s looking at your phone. (Unfortunately for the Pro-Phone-Checking group, your situation kind of validates them. Alas, I remain faithfully Don’t Ever Check Someone’s Phone.)

Do you have parts of your life that are only for you? Does your husband decide what you are and are not “allowed” to do? Is this flirty friendship about having something he cannot control? Why stay in this marriage, beyond just “we’ve been together for so long” or “it would be hard to decide who keeps the Article sofa”?

I’m asking because, from a very limited amount of information I have, I’m guessing you don’t like your relationship all that much. Actually, you have nothing positive to say about it — most people who write to me throw in a line or two about how their partner is the sweetest, best person ever before they continue on.

So… why are you still married to him? That’s the most interesting question to me. The best I can surmise is that you are stuck.

I’m not sure why. Is it emotional? You don’t want to be single, or can’t imagine life without him?

Financial? You’re on his health insurance, or your mom lives with you and you’d both have nowhere to go?

Something else? A green card issue, or your religion or culture doesn’t believe in divorce?

If you and your husband were perfectly happy together — or as realistically close as two individuals operating under late stage capitalism and global biodiversity collapse can be — then yeah, this office faux-mance would get a green light from me.

If this brought you something pleasant and fluffy during the day, like a profiterole on your lunch break, and then you came home to fully participate in a loving marriage, I’d be like, “Hell yeah.” That is not the case!

Despite what the French would like to think, a quasi-affair here and there is not going to be enough to keep you going for 38 more years with this dude.

You and your partner both seem unhappy. And this situation is making things worse. Or, at the very least, more complicated. In your own words, you feel resentful, stressed, and confused.

You’re making innuendos about spreadsheets (or whatever) and you’re not at all contrite — which even if he’s a dickthistle is still, as Jane Austen would say, “badly done, Emma.” You cannot do a little emotional cheating as a treat for staying in your marriage. It is cruel, and even if the other person was cruel first, there is never a need to cede moral high ground and join them in the dumpster.

Your lack of remorse and total disinterest in your husband’s potential pain suggest that your marriage is in bad shape. Zesty banter with a coworker is not going to improve that. Despite what the French would like to think, a quasi-affair here and there is not going to be enough to keep you going for 38 more years with this dude.

If this was a healthy, happy partnership, you would be horrified to have hurt your husband. You would be beside yourself. Your relationship is currently putrescent; I don’t know if this little trifle is a symptom or a cause. You both have to decide if your marriage is destined to rot, or if there’s a spot of mold that can be cut off to save the rest of it. (USDA, please don’t read this.)

You should not be simply tolerating a marriage. And you certainly shouldn’t do it by hurting your husband.

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