Should I tell her or not??? sort of an ultimatum from my wife
 

ok...so i have a co-worker that i have gotten really close to in the past 2 years. we work very close to eachother every day and we have the same sense of humor, same taste of music, so forth and so on.

My wife likes her when we all hang out but doesn't want me hanging out with her alone due to self admitted insecurities on her part (she doesn't like me hanging out with girls when she isn't around either way no matter who it is). I think/thought she was being ridiculous about it all cause i felt like she didn't trust me. But whenever I did want to hang out with my coworker/friend my wife would come along (after a little whining about not wanting to go) and acts like she is having a good time.

Anyways, I am not attracted to her at all, and love her as a close friend. we occasionally text message eachother through out the day when not at work (which my wife makes comments about but says she is only giving me a hard time about it for shits and giggles). My wife thinks she has a crush on me but i don't think she does as she has many male friends. All of my wife's friends, and my sister think she has a crush on me, but I think they just don't understand how we are.

I was also told that when my friend is around...I tend to ignore everyone else including my wife. i don't see it, but she insists it happens.

Anyways, at our work christmas party she and her friend were staying at our house since it was so close to the venue. I had a bit too much to drink (which I tend to do more often than I'd like to admit). I was told the next day that she was laying down on the couch and i was sitting in front of her on the floor and i put my hand up her shirt and started rubbing her stomach for a good long while, while we were watching tv. I don't remember this at all. I was told it looked waaay more than just a friendly kind of thing, which i agree with if it did happen.

My wife saw this and mentioned it and told me she couldn't take me hanging out with my friend anymore wether she is around or not. Including work happy hours that my wife is always welcome to come to, or when our work group goes out for lunch. it was killing and or would kill our marriage because it has always bothered her how close my co worker and I were. She said we (me and my coworker) acted like we were boyfriend girlfriend to people who didn't know better. That can be written off to my wifes self admitted insecurities.

Anyways...she never said "choose her or me" in so many words but it does feel like that. And obviously I would choose my wife because I love her (even though after this talk about what happened she felt like our marriage might be one of those that might not make it if things don't change).

I'm just wondering if I should tell my co worker that I can't hang out with her when she wants to make plans because my wife is worried about the repercussions in our marriage. Or just make excuses. I dont want her to think I hate her and am blowing her off.

I love my job and am doing really really well in it. It will not be easy for me to find another one like it.

I feel like total shit because she is a really really good friend of mine and I totally fucked it up.

Any thoughts or advice or anything would be appreciated. I have never felt this bad before in my life. Like I said, I want to stay with my wife, but I don't know what to do about my friend.

By the way...we talked about marriage counseling due another issues (there is a thread about it here somewhere), but this will probably be an issue that will be brought up as well.


"Help me [TFP Community]...you're our only hope."

I would think if she's that good a friend, telling her the truth would be the only way to respect her, why would you tell her anything BUT the truth?, surely if you're THAT good of friends she'd understand.

#1 - if you're drinking to the point of blackout (which is how I read the "under the shirt" incident), you have a problem. If for no other reasons than your health, you may want to reconsider how drinking affects you.

#2 - Since you apparently don't have any memories that would confirm or deny the incident, you need to figure out if it actually happened. Maybe it's just my interpretation, but there seems to be some doubt.

#3 - If this did indeed happen, I think that if you want to keep seeing your friend in a nonwork setting, you should only do so in the company of your wife. If she's with you every time you see her outside of work with no exceptions, hopefully that will make her more comfortable. Your friend seems ok with that setup already so no one should have their feelings hurt. That would include lunches, which would obviously be a pain in the ass, but since you seem interested in saving your marriage, that seems like a logical hurdle to clear for me.

#4 - Right, wrong or indifferent, it's your wife's perception of the relationship that's important here. Maybe she'll figure out what it really is in time, but if she perceives a threat she's going to act accordingly. That's what you need to work on.

I'm glad you came to the conclusion you did. The whole time, I thought you weren't going to accept that your wife was saying 'her or me'. Regardless of the situation, you can't expect a reasonable, jealous person to understand that once the drunken situation happened. She tried to deal with her jealous nature up until that point, but that was enough, as it should be.

IMO, you're making all the right decisions. I think you should choose your wife over the friend, assuming it'll be the happiest decision for all involved down the road (as in, this is the largest problem in your marriage). I also think you should tell the friend the truth. And, in the future, have ONLY open communication with her. As in, don't use text messages or other things that your wife might not know about. Keep the communication sparse (but still there), but make sure that every time it happens, your wife is informed. It'll help her to trust you again and understand that she's the only one for you.

Best of luck :)

Jazz is right, especially on these two points (I also agree with #1 and #2, but I would advocate for #3 and #4 no matter what). This is because, in my opinion, you still seem just a little too non-chalant about your wife's feelings and how your behavior affects her. Even if she is insecure, it doesn't mean you need to go around reinforcing that with your actions, especially if you guys are working on other issues. You admitted that right now, you are not sure if the relationship would last; man, don't mess with your spouse's feelings when your actual marriage is unstable. That's just asking for trouble, even if you don't "intend" it.

And I am sorry if this is too harsh, but you seem to see yourself as being very innocent/passive in all this. I'm not saying you've done anything wrong, but if you want to save your marriage, you have to be *proactive* about stabilizing and strengthening it... which, right now, your behavior does not lend itself to doing.

To answer the OP: YES, tell your friend that you and your wife are dealing with crap right now, and you need to back off the female friends for a while, maybe for a long while. As Shani said, if the woman is *truly* your friend, she should understand completely and respect your wife as much as possible. (Frankly, if she's your "friend" and therefore cares about your marriage, I don't see why she didn't jump off the couch when you were purportedly feeling her up, especially if your wife was watching... that is a warning sign to me right there that she might be up to something.)

Tell the truth to your co-worker.

If oyu can get your co-worker and your wife to talk (without you there) it might get the co-w to realise that your wife is not just making a fuss.

Also - if you are fondling another woman, while your wife is there, you deserve to have your ass kicked. By your wife. And all of her family.

Sorry - but all the way through your post you keep saying that your wife is insecure, and yet your sub-conscious behaviour appears to indicate that had you been alone with the co-w and not stopped by the situation, you can't be certain that you wouldn't have gone from hand up shirt to head up skirt, or whatever.

I would be shocked that the co-w didn't tell you hands off. Even if she wants you to "reline her pipework" she ought to have had the decency to make you stop while your wife was there.

Sorry to sound harsh, but what you did is pretty much as bad a dent in marital fidelity as you can go without inserting part of you into another person.

I would just like to add I agree with every word Daniel said, and to add you dont say one word about feeling bad because of your WIFE and how you've made HER feel...you just say you feel like shit because of your friend.

why DIDNT your friend "stop" you from feeling her up?

Well, there it is, much simpler than what I said. :D

Alright....so here is the deal. In order to try and avoid any preconceived notions about me and my views on my wife and I's relationship that I have expressed in previous threads, I switched the details around. Stupid as it was...it made sense at the time. Now it doesn't make any sense at all. I sincerely apologize for that, cause most of you people here or anybody for that matter, doesn't deserve to be decieved. but I thought I could see what people thought in her side of things. Stupid eh?

OK, so basically I am my wife. She is me. And her co-worker is her friend at work.
My wife is definitely sorry. Its kind of hard to write as someone else (and stupid too). She has apologized non stop for the past two days for hurting me like she did. flowing tears. so forth and so on.
Her hand was all up his shirt rubbing his chest. I saw it with my own two eyes. She is a touchy feely kind of girl and always has been, but never like this.
Why he didn't stop her??? Its because I truly believe he is into her. Everyone sees it but her. All of his friends I meet constantly tell her "Its soo good to finally meet you, I've heard sooo much about you."
I don't want to be that kind of guy that forbids his girl to hang out with guys, but like I said, i am pretty insecure when it comes to her and other guys, but I've really really been doing tons better then I used to be. But with this guy, i feel it is justified. and even more now since he didn't try and stop her at all. I try and play it cool....but it isn't easy at all.
I sincerely apologize for trying to be all sneaky and untruthful about it in my first post, and I sincerely thank you for all of your advice that I will definitely (like I always do) take into serious consideration.

EDIT:

In light of the switcheroo, I have nothing further to offer.

OK, on the surface, and as things have been presented, no, I don't condone what your wife did.

But to be really frank here, if you can't even be honest with a bunch of internet strangers, I can *easily* see how You and your insecurities can be introducing serious fractures into your marriage.

fair enough it was shady how it was done....but like I said, I was trying to gain some insight on how what happened might be viewed on the other side of the coin. I actually was going to show her the link after some substantial replies, but felt fake so I came clean here, and then sent her the link.

either way..yes it was dumb..but if I didn't want to be honest to some internet strangers...I wouldn't have come clean in the first place.

my opinion is unisex

Well, it's pretty brave to send her the link.

To get back to the original problem, I had a good friend at my old job--a guy friend. A married guy friend. There was never anything in any way inappropriate in our relationship, and he and his wife came to my shows, and we went to lunch together on occasion, etc.

After a party at his house where everyone was pretty tipsy, I didn't hear from him for a long time. No biggie, people come, people go if they are busy, etc. It wasn't until later that he finally told me his wife had decided that I had been insufferably rude and horrible to her at the party (which no one else collaborated. And I am so not a rude/mean person, no matter how drunk I have ever gotten. I'm pretty darn nice to start with, and only grown *more* so after drinking). And hello, my husband was at the party too! Anyways, she swore it wasn't jealousy, but I have a very hard time accepting that. But she made him cut off all contact with me whatsoever. The funny thing is I didn't even realize anything was wrong! But he felt bad and told me what was going on. Boy was I shocked out of my ever-lovin' mind! For the record, he didn't see anything related that backed up what she said about me at the party.

Now for all I know, he's given her reason to be suspicious. But the end result is he did what she asked. I don't think it was a "her or me" thing, I'd be surprised if "or me" was any part of that. Just get rid of her. And he did, and I don't have a problem with that. I do however, wish he had been straightforward with me from the start instead of going the high-school mentality route, maybe we could have nipped that in the bud and changed something. Whatever. It was sad, and it bothered me a lot when it happened, but I'm fairly certain I'm better off without that kind of drama-people in my life.

I would say your first priority is your marriage. You obviously are in a danger zone with that friend and it could jeapordize things with your wife. Friends are a dime a dozen.
Simply tell her that because of the inappropriate things that went on you can only spend time with her when your wife is around. If she's really your friend she'll understand, if not then she isn't worth the time.

I'd be more concerned about your wife having feelings for him than if she should hang out with him or not. Who cares if she hangs out with him or not or pats him or rubs him or fucks him? It's the same situation if she has FEELINGS for him no matter what she does to him physically. Her rubbing him is the least of your worries. You need to find out if she is attracted to him, if she likes him as more than a friend, and if she's serious about the feelings. Find out if she loves you and if she has any insecurities or problems with your marriage. The rubbing doesn't mean shit if she really has feelings for him, sober or not. If she REALLY loves you, and REALLY doesn't have feelings for the guy, then the physical part of rubbing can be attributed to alcohol and be forgiven. Otherwise your wife has feelings for 2 men.

Given the new situation, I'm going to revise my 4 points above:

#1 - Assuming that alcohol is being used as an excuse/crutch and that the black-out/lack of memories statements still hold true, someone has a problem here and needs help. This is not normal behavior. Alcohol, as most of us know, doesn't "make" you do anything. It may lower inhibitions, but if you take your clothes off at a party, that's because you probably wanted to do that anyway. It sounds to me like your wife has a problem with alcohol, and that's something that's not going to improve on its own.

#2 - There seems to be some sort of admitance that touching took place now.

#3 & #4 - I'm mixing these two because now we're talking about YOU firing off ultimatums. This whole thing is about both of your perceptions about your own relationship and the one that your wife has with your friend. If she's going to sneek around and see this guy secretly behind your back, I can see where you'd find that threatening. If she doesn't feel comfortable inviting the guy over for dinner with the 3 of you, I see that as a problem. You obviously don't want to "ban" her from having male friends, but I don't see any problem with you tell her that you don't want her to hang out with this particular one any more. Again, this is about your perceptions, and you seem to perceive this guy as a threat.

I'm glad that you've finally noticed the elephant in the room and admitted that there are some trust issues. By the way, you won the war - she married you. Game over. Unless you both continue to fuck it up, and then she can be someone else's problem and you're better for it.

Finally, how do you sit in a room with your wife watching her feel up some guy you don't like? I can understand it if you're into cuckolding, and maybe that's your thing, but how can you at the very least not even say something? My first reaction would be to grab the nearest thing resembling a bat, grab her hand and tell him to get the hell out and never darken your door again. Maybe you're better at handling these things than I am, but at the very least I would have repeatedly smashed my nose against his fist (although I like to think that I might do a little better).

^ as mentioned, my partner would never have sat and watched me feel up some guys shirt, drunk or not. The guy would be kicked out. I'd be in deep after sobering up. No more party. Out with everyone! or.. we'd be going home.

I'm sure your wife will not mind one less male friend if its to save your marriage. I had a lot of male friends, some who were quite close and my bf found it uncomfortable. So I simply didn't contact them if it wasn't really necessary. They were good friends but not more important than my bf. Some who I had to explain the situation to, didn't understand why and accused him of being controlling, unreasonable, posessive etc.. they were the ones to go permanently.

I still have male friends, but i limit them to my best friends from high school. Old friends. I still have my girl friends, so I'm not in the least upset about this arrangement. Its not like I havn't requested similar things concerning his female friends.

Jim. Honesty. Online here, with your wife, the guy friend, everyone. It's really the only way to keep things under control. Without it, everything becomes a twisted spinning mess.

Tell your wife exactly how you feel, don't skip anything or sugarcoat it. Your future with this woman will depend on DAILY honesty. As time goes by, the little things become bigger with time.

I would also be honest and ask yourself the following question:
"Why did I watch and just let it happen?"

Lastly, because you pulled this role reversal with those that took the time to think and reply, you can practice your honesty here and don't do that again. The quality of responses would have been equal, and you wouldn't have put some people off by your lack of honesty. Let the anonymous stature of the net prove to you that even here, lack of honesty is not productive. Best of luck.

Regards, T

As a guy that has been in similar situations with my wife, I don't know what to tell you really. My wife is a major flirt. sometimes its just flirting but not always.
she has cheated on me with my best friend. I have no idea what she has done with the guys she works with but I have my suspicions.
As to how you should deal with this, I think everyone involved needs to know that this is unacceptable behavior that is putting your marriage in danger. it is allot easier to prevent damage to your relationship even if the prevention is hard or seems harsh at the time, then it is to repair it once things have gone too far.

I hope I dont sound to cynical, but come on.. You don't remember? For some reason I just don't buy it. If you are that god damn drunk you need to possibly seek out some help, because you are an alcholic.

Secondly, this should be a no brainer, unless you are unhappy in your relationship, and want an out. What you need to ask yourself is this, are you "In love" with your wife? Or do you "love" her because you're comfortable with her.

I'm not trying to be a dick here, but like I said, if this gal is a friend and a mutual friend at that then she needs to understand that you are obligated to your wife and need to respect her. Me personally I dont have many female friends, but I could understand my wifes concern if I were always off running around with the few that I have. It would be the equivalent if your wife told you she'd be home in a few hours and was off partying with some guy friend.

Personally I would tell the friend honestly whats going on, and if she's a true friend to you, and your wife it won't be too big of a deal. However if she flips about it then maybe there are some issues there.

www.marriagebuilders.com

That site is a treasure trove for people wanting to work on their marriage. Readup on the basic principles there regarding dealing with affairs. (because, sex or not, your wife IS having an affair)

There is a forum there as well. It is full of people who are dealing, or have dealt, with both Emotional and Physical affairs.

Best of luck Jim.

I have to say, in all honesty, my opinion (though not my answer) has changed slightly from when I read it was him to when I read it was his wife. I think some others may have experienced the same thing but aren't willing to admit it due to how it looks. I am not a person who worries about posturing over truth.

When I thought it was you, I was going to say that you need to knock off the drinking if you're forgetting shit and admitting to doing it too often, and move along with your life and marriage with the promise to not hang out with the other chick anymore.

Now that I know it was your wife doing this, I can't help but feel this is more of a betrayal because it was her doing it and not you. Maybe it's because I first sympathized, and now I hate her for doing that to you, or maybe it's because I feel like a woman's infidelity is somehow even worse than a man's- and that is NOT to say I at all find male infidelity acceptable... I just somehow find it even WORSE when a woman is doing it.

Well... I think the result should be the same... get the drinking in check and she shouldn't be spending time with him anymore.

I am wondering if the drinking aspect of the story was merely a "technical assist" for the story, to explain why he couldn't say what "he" was thinking at the time this stuff was going down.

Analog, interesting admission! I would submit that perhaps the reason you you more sympathetic to the first story than to the second is that when he was telling it from his viewpoint, he didn't say anything that would indicate that he was "emotionally cheating". But when the actions are presented without the pretend filter of innocenct intentions in the mind of the person doing these things and we have only the actions to evaluate, it sure does look more like cheating to the observer.

This whole thing kinda makes me wonder if it's a psych. class homework experiment or something. LOL.

HAHA!

Thanks for all the opinions, advice, etc.

We have decided the following:

1. No more than one or two drinks.
2. Marriage counseling.
3. She is never to be alone with co-worker while at work.
4. Out of work functions (happy hours, dinners, so forth and so on) will not be attended unless I am there.

As far as her telling him, I'm leaving that decision up to her. She has read this thread (although not after the first day) so hopefully unbiased advice will help her sort that out.

And about the first post. Yes it was dumb, but people....given the situation I was in, its not like I was thinking 100% clearly. I thought that I may be getting a divorce from the woman/my best friend that I have been with for 5 1/2 years. If any of you can say you would have been thinking clearly and made perfect decisions after that.....I envy you.

Again, my most sincerest thanks and apologies to anyone who feels the were boombazzled.

I promise that we're not the same person, but every time this woman (Shanni) says something, she prevents me needing to.

Expect the stuff about fancying Dave, of course - he's not my type. :lol:

but he thinks you're great!!!!

Well, as long as he shaves, and I can go Top... ;)

ultimately it is about trust- If she is going to cheat on you, she will, and you are better off without her- no ammount of rules setting and such will change a persons nature- if she is going to cheat on you, she will eventually do so, and all that preventing her from seeing someone will do is equal out to resentment- if the guy is a sack of shit, and trying to take advantage of her, then your only hope is honest heart to heart comunication, even when it hurts or is less than easy- the hows and why's pf how you both feel is what is important, and will matter in the long run.

I have to second marriage counseling and work being strictly work.

May I also suggest a nice vacation with your wife? Perhaps some extended time alone would be well spent right now?