AITA for telling my husband he is either married to me or his co-worker?

A Reddit user shares their frustration about their husband’s overly helpful relationship with a co-worker who seems infatuated with him. After months of increasingly inappropriate behavior from the co-worker, the situation reached a boiling point when she called him at 2 AM for help. The user demanded her husband set boundaries, leading to a heated argument. Read the original story below:

‘ AITA for telling my husband he is either married to me or his co-worker?’

My (37f) husband (40m) has been working at his company for 10 years as a maintenance supervisor. About a year ago they hired Tabitha\* to work in their accounting department. Since the day she first started working there, she has had an infatuation with my husband that is now becoming unprofessional and inappropriate.

This started when the heat went out in her office. My husband’s job as supervisor is to assign tasks to his employees, however, she is never satisfied with the work they do, even though he says that they do great work, so she demands he work on her office.

She constantly calls him on his work phone for mundane things (carpet is loose in a corner, loose s**ew on her coat hook) and he goes and fixes them without issue.
Last year when we went to the company Christmas party (pre-plague times) she was very flirty with him, constantly grabbed his hand.

When he introduced us she just grinned at my and said “look there’s Peter,” and grabbed his hand and walked away. When we sat at the table she damn near pushed me out of my seat to sit next to him, and my husband told her to get up that it was my seat. She walked off in a huff, and when she saw me in the restroom she shoved past me.

I told my husband what happened and he said it was fine, that she was harmless. I told him that she was not fine, and that she clearly had feelings for him and she was acting like a jealous girlfriend. The past few weeks this has ramped up to an astonishing level of inappropriate.

She recently moved into a new house and my husband and some of the other guys from work helped her move and put things together. He gave her his personal cell phone number, and she has been calling and texting non-stop about things she needs help with. Multiple times a day at all hours of the day and night she will call and text him for help.

Last night at 2:00AM she called about her heat not working right. My husband said he would go over and look at it after work. I broke down. I told him he was not going, that she could call a technician like everyone else, and that he is not her personal maintenance man.

I told him very clearly that she has feelings for him and he is so dense he can’t see it. I told him that while it is nice to help on occasion, she calls him all the time asking for help with things that she can do on her own (move boxes/furniture) or pay to have a repair person come and fix.

I told him that once he gave out his personal phone number that he crossed a line, and I am not comfortable with it. He said that this will most likely be an easy fix and it won’t take long, so I cried and told him that he can either to be married to me,

or married to her, but I wasn’t going to be the third wheel in my own marriage. He says he does not have feelings for her and that I am overreacting to him just wanting to help a friend. I feel otherwise.. AITA?

Here’s what Redditors had to say:

MamaFen −  You are NTA. Hubs, on the other hand, is a grade-A dyed-in-the-wool jackhole. ANY man who invalidates his wife’s concerns over behavior THIS blatant is either banging side-chick,

or is at bare minimum enjoying the attention… but doesn’t want to *admit* he’s enjoying it. Either way, you’re in the right here and if he doesn’t willingly shove this woman off, you will have some decision-making to do.

HowardProject −  NTA – Your husband is either incredibly dense or he’s cheating on you and lying.

redheadedravenclaw −  NTA. Either your husband is extremely dense, or he is fully aware and is g**lighting you.. Whichever it is, it isn’t on.

[Reddit User] −  NTA it doesn’t matter that he doesn’t have feelings for her, she does for him and by her behavior it’s clear. She was blatantly okay with disrespecting you infront of him at a Christmas party.

She eventually escalate (as she’s already been doing) since he won’t set boundaries with her. You’re not being crazy and he should respect you as his wife. You don’t feel comfortable with it and that should be the end of it and he should respect that

WanderingWedding −  NTA the fact that he went over to her HOUSE and gave her his # AFTER she was rude to you and acting inappropriate says A LOT. It was clearly something you were uncomfortable with and it crossed a line. I think it’s appropriate to put your foot down.

DragonCelica −  NTA and stand firm on this, because I’ve been in your shoes. My husband was far too kind, and far too naive. His ingrained lack of self confidence (I hate his parents for that) made him think there was no way a certain coworker was interested in him.

It slowly escalated for about a year. I saw something at his work space one day that set off an alarm inside my head. We talked that night, and it wasn’t an easy discussion. He hated the idea of confronting her, and figured it would just go away since he didn’t reciprocate her feelings.

I tried explaining that it hadn’t gone away in a year, and he didn’t see the danger I felt she was capable of. It was the first talk we ever had where we both left feeling like nothing was resolved, but it was late. As I’m about to get in bed, he walks in and tosses his phone on the bed and says three words before he goes to change for bed.. “You were right”

I was so confused. Turns out, part of what I saw at his work that day was leading to her boiling point, and she sent a very long, broken-hearted message to him. There was a lot that concerned me, but one part really hit hard: She would have still loved him if he were hers and his face got burned, or he was handicapped. PEOPLE HAVE DONE THAT TO UNREQUITED LOVES

I didn’t tell him “told you so”, but I let him know that I’d do whatever he needed to to help guide him with how to manage the problem moving forward. He set it up to talk with his company and wanted me there. It got resolved, and it never escalated beyond that message. We were lucky.. My dm box is open if you need ❤

HauntofhighAFtower −  gurrrrrrrrrl her heat is not broken, there’s an altogether different reason hubs is going over there.

[Reddit User] −  NTA-But girl, he’s already made his choice. You shouldn’t have to be fighting for your husbands attention with this broad.. Your husband is not dense.
He’s okay with her behavior because he digs it.

He doesn’t care that you’re bothered by this to the point of you being in tears because He’s most likely just waiting for you to get fed up and leave him so he can be with her and get off Scott free. Your husband is a c**ard and you’re better off without him.

aquasaurex −  NTA. He had better stop going to her place before she decides she is jilted and gets him fired for s**ual harassment (going to her place and “bothering her”)

AnimaLumen −  NTA – flip the roles on him and ask him how he would feel if you had a male coworker who always flirted with you, who shoulder checked him when they were alone in a bathroom, and went out of his way to talk to you all the time.

Ask him how he would feel if then after that guy CLEARLY having feelings for you, you gave him your personal number and he started abusing that texting and calling you all the time, asking you to come by and cook for him, and help him do all sorts of things around the house that you typically only expect a wife to do.

Ask him how he would feel if he confronted you about a man like this and instead of respecting his feelings you told him he’s overreacting and that “that guy is harmless I’m just trying to help a friend” when your husband clearly knows the man has feelings for you and keeps crossing boundaries that make your husband uncomfortable.

If he still can’t see how this situation is wrong your husband is a huge a**hole and he might either already be cheating on you or he enjoys the attention he gets from his “work wife” and values that attention more than he cares about you and your feelings.

In that case he can gtfo and go be her husband like you said. He’s definitely not acting like a friend, he is acting like her boyfriend or husband and I would not be putting up with this s**t either if I were you

Is the Redditor overreacting, or is her frustration justified? How would you handle a similar situation where boundaries with a co-worker become blurred? Share your thoughts below.