I am posting this here as I think I posted it in the wrong forum before.
We recently went to a get together for my husband's company. My husband introduced me to some people and then walked around,just talking to people. This woman ran up to him,grabbed his hand and kissed it then held his hand and arm and snuggled up to him. All eyes were on me. My husband kept talking,just standing there,holding her hand,her head in his arm. He then looked at me,looked down and stepped away from her.
He could tell I was upset and walked over to me and walked me to a table and sat down with me. He told me it was completely innocent and "that's just the way she is". I told him she made me extremely uncomfortable. I asked did she know he was married and he said yes but please not be be upset because "that's just the way she is.
I told him that was not acceptable,him making excuses for her. It was total disrespect for me and I didn't appreciate it. I DID see his female boss take her aside and she was shaking her finger at her.
I'm still mad. What do you think? It's just eating at me.

the woman is not the problem. Your husband is the one that is not protecting you by enforcing reasonable boundaries. You should be mad.

Thank you...This isn't over yet,believe me. It's all about her disrespect...and HIS. He thinks I am over reacting. I asked him how he would like it if a man did that to me. He said that,as long as we weren't having an affair and it was just an innocent hello,he'd be fine with it.
I told him he was full of it.

Apparently, your husband has led her to believe this is acceptable behavior. He is to blame for this outrageous behavior.

I agree with you. I TOLD him that,if his wife doesn't like it,that should be all he needs to know.

What are you doing? You are focussing on HIS view, which is that his interaction with her is innocent, and he is fine with it.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with that view, IMHO.

The problem is YOUR reaction, not HIS. Focus on your reaction. Tell him that what you saw makes you uncomfortable, and ask him to stop for your sake. Whether it is actually innocent or not is irrelelvant.

I remember asking myself once, "Why are her feelings more important than mine?" That was, in fact, the problem. A caring husband would stop for your sake even if he sees nothing wrong with what he is doing. In my husband's view, he was showing care and compassion to a fellow co-worker.

Oh the lies people tell themselves to talk themselves into an affair... You are getting caught up in a lie that your husband is telling himself.

I made a huge mistake in not focussing on how I feel. What you can say to your husband is this: "I am concerned about this even if it is innocent. Please stop. Please tell her to stop." If he doesn't, then you know the problem is his lack of consideration for you, and sooner or later a lack of consideration and care for you can turn into all sorts of behavior, including an affair.

The OW is irrelevant. As I was told by my father, "There are 20,000 women who would hit on a married man -- in the Twin Cities!" Your husband's consideration for you or lack of consideration for you is not depedent on the behavior of any other person, including you or this other woman. It comes from him and him alone. He alone can choose to respect your feelings or label it an overreaction. He alone can tell this woman to stop and remove himself from her if she does not stop.

Affairs start as friendships which start to involve affection. You may have seen the very beginning. Handle with care. Don't make your reaction and disrespect ("You're full of it") the issue. Make your feelings of hurt and concern known, and then ask him to be considerate of those feelings, whether it is innocent or not, whether he thinks it is an overreaction or not.

Cherished

This is so not true. I understand where you are going with this...but, IMHO, it CERETAINLY DOES matter if something is innocent or not. Those details will suggest where the changes need to occur.

If I was doing something perfectly okay and my wife because of her insecurities had a problem with it...it would be my wife that needs to change...not me.

In this case her husband is clearly wrong and is not protecting her. Not all feelings deserve consideration. There was a poster on here whose GF FELT that he shouldn't eat Chinese food any longer. Her feelings are clearly nothing more than an attempt to control him. They should not be honored.

I have seen this happen before. I want to remain PC though.

Is there any chance that this woman is developmentally disabled..or mentally challenged?

Alot of places hire people that are challenged.

They can sometimes be overly demonstrative in these aspects because they have not been told that it is inappropriate.

I had a gentlemen do this to me once. I was very uncomfortable...not because he was challenged, but because it was wrong.

All the other women were telling me..."it's ok...it's just B...he had a brain injury...that's just him'.

Well, I didn't care if it was just him or not. I didn't like it and I didn't think that I should have to accept that type of treatment from him. I told them so.

It turned into me being the bad guy.

Years later I ran into him again. He was doing the same thing and tried to kiss me...on my mouth! He took it for granted that it was gonna be ok...and I tell you what...it wasn't. I wanted to SCREAM for help. Once I got away from him I broke down in the car and was literally sobbing.

I don't know if I was sobbing because I felt so close to being violated...or if I was sobbing because I remembered how everyone told me that it was "just B, and his brain injury makes him do that" and once again I was overreacting.

Sorry for ramble.

I would ask if she was mentally challenged...and then proceed to let him know that it is STILL inappropriate. That might be why you saw the boss chiding her a bit.

committed

Something similar happened between a coworker and my H at a work party we attended. He swore it was nothing...I was mad but let it go...and later that year he ended up having a EA with a different woman.

It turned out that my H had very poor boundaries.

I don't think your H can deny that his friendship with this woman had risen to the level of "cozy" in order for her to feel comfortable behaving that way with him. So I would say this is a red flag to you that this is something you two should discuss and work on.

Some ways to strengthen boundaries is no flirting with female coworkers, no chatting, emails or phone calls one on one outside of work issues, and no discussing personal problems.

Talk to him and let us know how it goes.

ps...If I were you, I would snoop (just to be certain) and verify nothing more is going on with this particular coworker(phone calls, emails etc).

Yeah, that's a good point, committed.

Especially with the finger-wagging boss. That seems to be the usual reaction with some people who are mentally challenged getting "in trouble" from someone in charge of them.

Charlotte

medc,

Before the affair started, my husband said, "Everyone in the office thinks we're having an affair." I remember thinking but not saying, "You are, but you haven't figured it out yet."

What I meant by my comment to this poster is that he may think that what he is doing is innocent. That's why I put in there that people justify their actions and sometimes don't even know what they are doing. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

That's why I suggested to stay away from a discussion of whether or not what he was doing was innocent because it may be that he thinks it is innocent but it is not. There's a judgement call here, and well-intentioned people can differ in their opinion.

There is no judgement call involved in her saying that she was uncomfortable with how she saw her husband act with another woman. It is then up to him to respond to her concerns in a caring manner. The more she pushes her view that it wasn't innocent, the more he can defend his behavior as innocent and her reaction as "overreaction."

Better to stick with the indisputable -- this makes me uncomfortable, and please change your behavior out of consideration for my feelings.

POJA.

Later in your post, you wrote: "If I was doing something perfectly okay and my wife because of her insecurities had a problem with it...it would be my wife that needs to change...not me." It seems to me that you don't believe in the POJA. I do.

Cherished

so, should the ability of a husband to eat Chinese food be POJA'd?

The POJA does not extend to unreasonable places IMO. It is up to people to decide for themselves when something is "off." If I liked to play basketball, you can pretty much rest assured that if I had a wife that thought playing basketball was wrong and would not enthusiastically agree...well...sorry, I don't buy into that cr@p. There is reasonable and then there is "off."

The husband here is clearly wrong. I was basing my comments on what you wrote. You have clarified and I understand. I stand by my statement



and suggest to do otherwise would be to give credibility to dysfunctional and controlling behavior. I can imagine that a man showing up here and not enthusiastically agreeing that his wife could have friendships would be met with disdain.

Again,I believe that,if I object,that should be all he needs to know. And no,this woman is NOT mentally challenged. She looked at me across the room later and smiled this stupid smile. I wanted to knock her lights out.
I caught my H in an budding EA many years ago. He was mad at first. You know that "just friends" explanation. We went to MC and he finally DID see that calling a female co-worker at home when you are out of town is WRONG. I caught this because he called from the motel phone and didn't notice her home phone number was on the receipt as a local call.
But my H knows I am entirely capable of going to his boss. I believe that's what stopped the budding EA in the first place. I do MEAN what I say.
We have been married 35 years and I'm not about to let him throw that away. But I WILL go to his boss if I see anything again. He knows that. He said,"You would take away our livelihood"? I said,"No,YOU would be doing that if you think I don't mean what I say". I will not be made a fool of.

Your H is not respecting your boundary.

He needs to make you feel safe and with this ladys actions and him not stopping her actions has crossed your line.

You need to work on coming to agreements that you find acceptable and vice versa.

If he saw a guy kiss you on the lips or give you a little bit longer hug would he still feel the same?

I think you are being very, very wise.

Well,this was really bizarre. My husband is a big handsome man and turns females heads. Always has. Our son is even more handsome. But my H KNOWS that if I catch anything again,that's it. This woman saw him,ran up,grabbed his big hand and gave it a huge kiss,leaving lipstick on it. She held his hand to her with her left hand and put her right arm and hand through his left arm She snuggled up to him,eyes closed,big smile on her face. My H seemed totally oblivious til he looked at me. I was getting ready to go over and wipe the smile off her face when he stepped away from her. I did not see her do this to any other man.
Several people were uncomfortable with it,looking at me then down at the ground.
I've been through too much in life to put up with this kind of stuff. We are going back to MC,you better believe it,:)

I would STRONGLY suspect an affair since she did not do this to others.

Be careful.

I would start snooping and seeing if co workers know of anything going on in the office.

If she didnt do it to anyone else there. Then clearly she has no mental problems. And clearly something is not right for him to have no reaction when she did this.

Being a woman,it's entirely possible she was just being a b****. But I am really smart.:)))))) With his EA,I noticed traveled to another city 2 hours away and was coming home late afternoon saying he had to do paperwork with her,all of the reps had to do this. So,at the Christmas party,I asked the questions of the other reps,"How often do you have to go work with her"? And every single one said they did the work over the phone with her.
I confronted him when we got home and it was quite a fight. I said,"I MEAN WHAT I SAY"! He told me I had not right questioning the other men. I told him HE gave me that right when he LIED to me. At the same time,he said in MC that he never thought I really cared and expressed surprise I had even noticed. I told him I loved him so what was so surprising about my actions? I remember he just smiled at me and stared at me like he appreciated it.

You have every right to question his being with his co workers. And you have every right to feel the way you do when this is happiening to you two.

I hope he honors your wishes and follows what you expect of him.