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Since my wife and I have been in reconciliation we have had a firm boundary for both of us not to have any opposite sex friends. That was a non-negotiable for me when considering reconciliation. I've noticed a sort of double standard that society seems to have when defining what a friend is or maybe it's more of an expectation that co-workers get a slight exception to the boundary. I've always agreed with the phrase "the opposite of networking is not working". Most of us work in mixed gender jobs where you have to be friendly to be successful and survive.

So, in our case my wife had an old co-worker contact her to let her know about a job opportunity. For those who remember my story, this is not the old co-worker she had an affair with. This was a guy she worked with after we established the boundary and I think she's honored the boundary. She applied for the job and got it. During the application process she reached out to him a few times to ask for advice pertaining to the job. She was careful to make sure I knew about the communication and let me see any test messages and gave me the option of being in the room during any phone calls. I want to be real clear, I don't think she has anything going on with this guy on any level. There have been no red flags and I'm not having any alarms being set off.

The problem for me came up the week she started the job. She showed me a text he sent saying she should call him so they could catch up and talk about how the new job was going. She didn't respond to the text, but a few days later he called her on her desk phone, and she said they chatted for about 30 minutes. I told her that it sounded like this guy was headed towards the friend category. They work for a very large organization and their offices are in different states. They do the same kind of work, but there are no overlapping projects. So, there is no reason other than it being a friendship to have future calls and communication. None of the couples we're friends with husbands called her to see how the new job was going. If they did that would clearly be weird and raise red flags. Buit for some reason it's ok as long as the person has the designation of co-worker.

The part we've struggled with is how to maintain the boundary without making things weird. Neither one of us is comfortable with her making a direct statement about not having male work friends. But situations come up where a male co-worker might ask her to go to lunch. For us that's a no-no, only mixed group lunches. It seems like a choice between oversharing at the work place by stating the boundary in which case people draw conclusions , or potentially hurting a co-workers feeling by declining lunch. I don't really care about their feeling, but workplaces are political and coming off as unfriendly can impact things.

I'm very curious to hear about how others have navigated this situation. Maintaining boundaries without alienating co-workers. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Wow. That is a lot to unpack there. I am a MH that had one EA in the workplace (I had two other EAs that weren’t workplace related), although while in it, neither of us called it that. However, as my career has grown, I’ve reached a point where I’m an executive leader and everyone of my direct reports is a woman. My job necessitates that I have one on one conversations, phone calls and emails with women. One thing that I did to help with boundaries is that I told each one of them that I had an inappropriate affair relationship with a colleague in my past and as such I need to have boundaries with each of them. I have their phone numbers and they have mine. They all agreed to me sharing their phone numbers with my wife and they all have hers. A couple of my team have met my wife at company functions and like her. My team has been told by me that if you ever feel that I crossed a boundary that they are encouraged to tell my wife. I’m not inappropriate with my team and my wife knows that, I’ve taken this situation and turned it into an accountability for myself situation.

It’s because I have these boundaries that there are workplace conversations that I will excuse myself from. I also have a fortunate office situation where we can close the door most of the way for a private discussion for confidentiality sake, but we don’t have to fully close the door, at my request because I don’t want to be seen alone with any woman in the workplace and I want them to feel safety.

It is slightly different in my role, because I’m in management and I have to be able to reach my team and they me after work hours and so texting is kept to a minimum, always reviewable with my wife, oftentimes I’m proactive in telling her things like, "oh, so and so’s kid has an ear infection so they won’t be in right away because of the appointment" and so my wife knows who and why I’m getting texts in the evening.

As for the former colleague who helped her get her new job, it is perfectly normal to want to monitor that situation and see if he makes continued contact attempts or if he was just being friendly with someone he knew to make sure they settled into the new role. Every job I’ve ever taken I was fortunate enough to know somebody at the company and having just one person I knew maybe not even in my area of expertise was really helpful just kind of acclimating to the new landscape, a new office environment, etc. I would only become concerned if his contact with your wife is continuous. as for how she handles this new interaction situation with her colleagues I truly think that honesty is the policy here. I’ve spoken before on this board about how I have a lot of alcoholics and addicts in my family tree as my father, my brother, my grandfathers, all struggled with their sobriety throughout their lives, and the one thing I’ve seen as successful recovered addict/alcoholics is that they own it. I think for your wife to establish appropriate boundaries she could own the fact that she had an affair in the workplace, and use that to be very clear and setting boundaries with her new colleagues, especially her male colleagues.

Legatus, although your fWW may feel "weird" about disclosing your boundaries, I say tough excrement. As a natural consequence of her previous evil choices, I think she should disclose to this man at the MINIMUM you and her have very firm boundaries of no opposite-sex friendships. If someone presses why, I don’t think it’s unreasonable for her to be like Bor above, and disclose she’s had a workplace affair and, INCREDIBLY, her BH stuck with her, and it’s the very least she can do by maintaining zero opposite-sex friendships.

Choices, meet consequences!

[This message edited by gr8ful at 7:35 PM, Monday, January 22nd]

Even though they work in different states, it doesn’t hurt to have a good relationship with coworkers in other offices. Sometimes when things get "stuck" in terms of the bureaucracy, or if you need a contact somewhere, or if you have a question, etc., it’s good to have a colleague to turn to.

He obviously considers your wife a competent person, since he recommended the job to her and told her to apply.

Since she is being very open, this is a very good thing, and she sounds like she is very aware of the risks of coworker to friend to affair "slippery slope".

That said, it is completely possible he is just being supportive. She is new to the job, and he is the one who recommended her - he may feel an obligation to make sure she is successful. As part of that, he may just be doing follow up calls to make sure she’s feeling comfortable and doing well as she is going through the first months of onboarding.

Employee retention is important, and it is very possible he is getting a bonus for recruiting her, so he might be trying to make her feel welcome and secure. And that she stays beyond a certain amount of time so he gets the money….

Ultimately, she drives the bus on how she communicates with him. Since he isn’t in the same office, lunches aren’t a risk. And she can easily keep him at a distance by keeping calls short, professional, job-related nay, nothing about personal life, and then close with, "well, I’m getting another call, thanks for checking in, have a good week!" and be done.

I'm assuming you've read and discussed Not just friends. It may be beneficial to review it again to work together on how to best defend your relationship when others attempt encroach on it. A fWS has to have stronger boundaries further out. It's not going to be just co-workers. It could be other parents of your children's friends, teammates, school mates or any other people we randomly interact with on a regular basis.

I’m with 5Decades on this. Firm boundaries are very important, but the scenario you describe doesn’t raise red flags to me, especially if your wife is being completely upfront and honest about it.

I’m a public school teacher in a very high poverty, high trauma district where we have terrible issues with retention because it’s brutally hard and underpaid work, and there’s a big teacher shortage nationally and especially in my state. Whenever we hire a new teacher I make it a point to check in with them once they get settled. It’s a small school, and it’s the least I can do. It doesn’t matter if they’re male or female; I try to make sure they’re ok and provide some kindness and reassurance. There are ways to do that while still holding to very firm, appropriate boundaries. It would not be my working assumption, even as a highly sensitive betrayed spouse, that this call was inappropriate, and with her being honest and him being out of state, it seems like it could easily be seen as a one-off courtesy call. If he calls again, she can always politely cut it short.

I re-read your original post and realized I responded more to the issue of the phone call than to the larger question about navigating workplace socializing after an affair.

For what it’s worth, my husband had an affair with a coworker, and they still work together. The single best resource for us was Not Just Friends. It helped me realize that despite the fact we both behaved similarly in the past with opposite sex friends and coworkers, I have always instinctively had firm boundaries, and my husband has not. What has worked for us is that 1) he keeps contact with his ex-AP to the very minimum necessary to do his job, and that 2) he has good, healthy boundaries, but interacts normally, with everyone else. We don’t have a policy of no opposite sex friends, but I think we’re both much more conscious and cautious about having really clear and firm boundaries in those friendships. To be clear, I don’t think it’s a bad thing after an affair to have a policy of no opposite sex friends if it’s appropriate in your situation, but I think you can maintain that policy and still have polite, non-awkward social interactions with co-workers. I feel like it’s pretty easy to find an excuse to cut short a phone call or decline a lunch invitation without disclosing personal information to someone in a way that may be inappropriate and awkward in the work environment. Just making the excuse in and of itself can be a pretty effective way of drawing boundaries.

Thanks for all the responses. It's helpful to get other perspectives. We read the Shirley glass book together some years back and would discuss each chapter. Maybe I should skim it again.

Perhaps, next time your wife could consider cutting the conversation short? A half hour seems like a long time just to chat during work hours. (FWIW, It would upset me if DH (the WS) was having 30 minutes chat with coworkers, particularly since we do not have the same amount of time at home together. Last night, we saw each other for 5 minutes. So, there would be more investment in a work relationship than the marital one.)

It is curious that you all said chatting. Now, I do mentor someone at work. I have never once referred to mentoring as "chatting" my colleague when I talk to DH. The colleague asks questions, I guide.

I did actually reach out to the colleague I mentor to check in on them late last week, because projects they are working on have pretty strict deadlines coming up and this is all new work. This person has not even read my check in message. It means, they are busy, and they will follow up if and when they are ready. I would be too worried if I just called, that I would be interrupting other important work..and I wouldn't even go there.

Legatus

I am one of those that think it’s OK for someone to have friends of the opposite sex.
But then… I discern between "friends" and "acquaintances". Like – I have a couple of friends that I have known for years, people that would go to great lengths to help me in times of crisis, and people that I have reached out to in their times of need. Then I have acquaintances that might even come-and-go. This group incudes present coworkers, some past coworkers, people I met in college and uni, people from my angling club, neighbors and so on. I’m guessing that if I quit my present job some of my acquaintances there might become past acquaintances.

The former group – the friends – I would be ready to discuss anything and everything. The acquaintances… not so much. As "friends" I have maybe 10 people, of those maybe 2 female. Of acquaintances I guess it’s more like a 70/30 gender divided. Probably because the angling club is nearly all-male…

To me the big issue is NOT that if I have a female friend then I would automatically be sexually or romantically attracted to her, nor would I be more inclined to share marital issues with her. If a coworker were to make a sexual advance to me, it would be my role to thwart that advance. The guardians of my marriage, vows, integrity… is not based on the actions of others, but on MY actions and responses.

On a less radical level – if a female coworker were to share her marital issues with me I would automatically be placing MY borders on the extent of that conversation. Like – if she shared she has an physically abusive husband I would allow myself more involvement than if she shared he had erectile dysfunction. But I am also fairly certain that I would know and understand my role as a listener rather than a sharer, that at some point I would disengage and that some point I would reach a stage where this needs my wife’s awareness. It’s called boundaries, and those boundaries are enforced by US – as individuals.

Now – I can fully understand that infidelity completely shatters the trust and creates a need for very clear boundaries.
In some ways this can be compared to general advice to newly sober alcoholics. They are told to stay away from all establishments that serve alcohol, all event that offer alcohol and even the booze aisles at stores. Their families are advised to remove all alcohol from the house and to not offer beers or wine, even to the non-alcoholic members.

I guess fresh out of d-day a no-friends-of-the-opposite-sex rule makes sense.

But like the alcoholics… their total distancing from the problem isn’t recognized as a sustainable solution. With time they live to learn with the temptation in their environment but learn to resist – and eventually – ignore it.

A recovered alcoholic that is secure in his sobriety can confidently enter a bar with a group of friends and share a soda while they down their cocktails. Just like I could chaperone my drunkard brother-in-law to a strip-joint without falling to the temptation of a "special price" sexual favor from the working girls.

The boundaries are eventually within us.

Maybe it’s time for your wife and you to sit down and discuss this "no friends of the opposite sex" rule and define it better. Like – maybe she tells you when she’s interacting on a more friendly level with someone at work, why and how. Maybe shares what they chatted about. Maybe be clear where she can go with the convos (like you can talk generally about family, but not specific issues or kids). How that can be enforced and why it needs enforcement.

I see zero red flags with what you describe. A few thoughts:

If someone makes you aware of a job and gives their recommendation for you behind the scenes, it would be ungrateful and rude to avoid a follow up phone call.

Frequency and the content in a call matters. A 30 minute call every week could be a red flag. A 30 min call every 2 or 3 months is not. A call where you are discussing work strategies, work problems, best practices etc is not a problem. A call where one or both parties are talking extensively about their personal life could be a red flag.

This guy will eventually visit her office for a meeting and will likely suggest lunch. I think she should invite a local colleague or two and if they accept, go to lunch. If he presses for a private lunch after that or anything else (which he probably will not) then she needs to turn him down and tell you immediately.

Part of boundaries is not just what you will not do but also what you can do proactively to ward off potential ill intent from others. Inviting others to lunch is a good example. Making brief but sincere positive remarks about your spouse-- early and often-- is another example. I have not worked in an office for well over a decade but I also used to frequently say a quick, silent prayer before meals and make the sign of the cross. That's faith dependant obviously but I think that sent a clear signal to others as well. Another thing is when an opposite sex person opens up about their partner or spouse negatively, empathize briefly, avoid sympathy and poaitively redirect them to others for help. Avoid problem solving and too much listening/empathy in these cases.

I am the BS and the victim of a workplace A replete with false R and years of lies involving an OBS and AP we both knew (AP, OBS and WH all work together - and do still - somehow OBS managed to divorce AP and not kill either/both of them and still works there - he's amazing but I digress). I am absolutely not a fan of such restrictive boundaries as they reflect a lack of trust I can't live with. I cannot imagine having to tell a male co-worker I cannot talk to them on any kind of friendly terms because I am married/my partner and I have an agreement. As you have noted it's an awkward arrangement - socially awkward for the two of you - or has the potential to be.

But that being said - this is the agreement you two are comfortable with right now, and if it works for you all, that's cool. But I think if you are living honestly, and this is the arrangement that you all have, that the best course of action is that if someone gets inadvertently too close to friends-land for comfort, then you simply need a way to convey to them your agreement with as much or little detail as you feel is sufficient. Otherwise it seems orchestrated and at least to me would be very uncomfortable to live with. Just come out with it - have her tell this guy "hey, thanks for all your help with the job - really appreciate it - but I don't do same-sex work friendships so I'd like to keep things on a professional level.

Granted, when your wife needed/wanted this guy's help she took it, with your blessing. His help was a classic bit of a friendly-coworker move - hey former coworker, I think you are perfect for this job - let me tell you about it etc. So when your wife gives him the cold-shoulder or openly tells him about the arrangement - he may feel a bit used or be a bit irritated. Likely not, especially if your wife is open about it as noted by another poster:

One thing that I did to help with boundaries is that I told each one of them that I had an inappropriate affair relationship with a colleague in my past and as such I need to have boundaries with each of them.

Thisissolonely - for us the boundary is no opposite sex friends. We both live by the same rules, there's no double standard at play. We've discussed the difference between being friends and being friendly. Being friendly would be telling a coworker or old coworker about an open position. Or maybe chatting in the office about how the kids are or something funny the dog did. Being friends would be talking about life dreams and worries. We agreed that walking to the local coffee shop a few days a week with an opposite sex co-worker is out of bounds. Or having lunch one on one on a regular basis. This is still evolving for us and I'm sure we'll make adjustments as time passes and trust continues to strengthen.

Granted, when your wife needed/wanted this guy's help she took it, with your blessing. His help was a classic bit of a friendly-coworker move - hey former coworker, I think you are perfect for this job - let me tell you about it etc. So when your wife gives him the cold-shoulder or openly tells him about the arrangement - he may feel a bit used or be a bit irritated.

I'm not a fan of my wife having to wear a scarlet letter by telling people about our boundaries. I am a fan of her politely maintaining our boundaries. Like cutting the calls short with an excuse. Basically, being friendly, but brief. If she hears of an opportunity that might benefit him later, she can pass that along to him like he did for her. But him giving her a lead on a job doesn't entitle him to regular non work-related phone calls. My wife is in agreement with this.

It sounds like you're still married and your husband still works with his AP. If that's the case, I'm curious what kind of rules or boundaries you have in place. I know everyone is different so it's really interesting to hear what works for people.

[This message edited by Legatus at 2:32 PM, Thursday, January 25th]

I'm not a fan of my wife having to wear a scarlet letter by telling people about our boundaries. I am a fan of her politely maintaining our boundaries. Like cutting the calls short with an excuse.

If I had this agreement with my partner/spouse I would be much more uncomfortable with the practice of making things up - to me to me it was the lying on behalf of my WH that really killed us - the "slippery slope" that gives me pause now. I guess I would be less comfortable with an arrangement where I am asking my WH to basically come up with ways to avoid the truth of the matter as opposed to owning his A. But again, I'm NOT trying to make you feel crappy - it's just an alternative way of thinking.

It sounds like you're still married and your husband still works with his AP. If that's the case, I'm curious what kind of rules or boundaries you have in place.

Not still married but we do date and talk everyday etc - but I did move out. But, but, but - I also did not and still don't see the A as a "scarlet letter" - I am still on speaking/dating terms with my WH and there are people who are friends (his and mine) that have twisted the knife a bit about "why I even still talk to him" but I own the A and the aftermath and where we are now without bother. To me the A is just something shitty that happened to us - and it is not in the closet. In fact that was one of the things that was not negotiable - that needed to be out in the open to proceed - during the ugly days of the A I blew it up so everyone at his work knows as does his friends and mine and most of my family (he's not close with his immediate family so telling them seemed pointless as I never would have told them about us otherwise).

WH does still work there - and I trust that he is keeping appropriate boundaries with other female co-workers. He's been in therapy for almost 4 years and has done a lot of work. I have no interest in a rule like the one you all have as I have several male friends from 30+ years ago that I would never ever give up - nothing sexual has ever gone on with the two I'm thinking about but I would never drop them if asked - like never. I've known them both since high school and one is one of my closest friends. So, I'm not willing to make a gender based arbitrary line about something of which I would never myself agree to.

And finally, I'm too tired to do all that monitoring and worrying. I've changed. I'm stronger, more self assured, and 100% willing to walk away as I know nothing is worth what I went thought before - and I could walk quickly and without reservation. I am, in a word, free. If I can't have a relationship with someone without worrying about the content of their interactions (for example I don't want my WH to call an opposite sex co-worker in front of me to prove nothing was inappropriate) I don't want a relationship like that where I'm still in a policing type situation. Could my WH still cheat on me? Of course. Could he still go behind my back and have some inappropriate friendship? Naturally. As could I.

But giving my WH a reason to be less than truthful about something by making up an excuse to not talk to someone...ick. I want him to own that A - it's not a scarlet letter - it's a past that dictates future actions. It's a lesson learned hopefully. But again, that's just me.

Finally, I will end with this:

If she hears of an opportunity that might benefit him later, she can pass that along to him like he did for her. But him giving her a lead on a job doesn't entitle him to regular non work-related phone calls.

My reading of your initial post was that your W reached out to him multiple times for advice on how to secure the job etc - to me that is sort of a friendly thing to do. It builds a connection in a way - not in a bad way - just in a friendly way. I guess I don't see anything abnormal about thinking a friendship was made in those interactions, but I may have misunderstood how things actually happened. And there is nothing wrong with saying "I don't do the opposite sex friend thing" and not mentioning the A either - just a suggestion.

[This message edited by ThisIsSoLonely at 9:09 PM, Friday, January 26th]

Hello legatus. Your story was one of the first I read after becoming a member. I’m glad to hear that your wife is reforming her prior behavior. I hope things continue in this direction. God bless