You Don't Need a Work Wife, You Have a Wife at Home
Affairs often start with harmless friendships--often people you don't initially find attractive.
Years ago, I remember being on Reddit and seeing a young woman post a general question to r/AskWomen: “Can a married man and a single woman be friends?”
Of course, everyone said they could be. Surely, only some Mike Pence fundamentalist whackadoodle MAGAT would say otherwise, right? But then one very smart commenter said something to the effect of, “Are you asking about a specific situation? Because if you are, there’s probably a reason you feel the need to ask and it’s probably not okay.” In the words of the prototypical Redditor: Holy intuition Batman!
OP proceeded to elaborate on the specific situation: she had become “great friends” with her married male coworker who was fifteen years older than her. He frequently drove her around and they hung out alone together on weekends. They had “cute little inside jokes” together, and he loved the way she “teased him.” Sometimes, they would just go on long drives together after work, chatting and laughing into the sunset.
Okay, pack it up! We’re done!
The Internet (and perhaps humanity at large) is generally divided over stories like this: was this guy a born sociopath who would have cheated on his wife no matter the circumstance? Or did he, perhaps, go into the friendship genuinely assuming it was innocent and ignoring any latent attraction? In practice, this means: if you want to avoid infidelity in your marriage, is there anything you can actually do? Many people vote no, on the count of cheaters being irredeemably evil, with a compulsion to cause selfish harm no matter what. But I vote yes—because I think cheaters are often regular people who don’t know their own limits.
To put it more simply, if you have a “work husband,” you may very soon have an “ex husband.” And now, I finally have the data to prove it.
