Posted this elsewhere but the comments were locked…looking for some perspective on what could be considered cheating or having an affair. I’m stuck on “she didn’t want this to happen so I shouldn’t be upset about anything” and it’s really keeping me from processing. I’m having a hard time thinking of her as having no agency in this relationship for months. Any outside perspective would be helpful. Thank you.
My wife made friends with her boss without telling me anything about it. He hit on her relentlessly and she wouldn’t return any kind of overt flirting but was still “nice” to him (watched TV shows he recommended, sent him a note of how she appreciated him spending time with her, gave him a pet name). She admitted to me that she liked having his attention.
Eventually, it came to a head and she told him she had a crush on him but she was married and she couldn’t act on anything. She told him about when she was pregnant and took a trip to a winery, she wanted to, but she didn’t drink any of the wine. She told him this situation was similar. She told me she didn’t really have a crush on him and this was an attempt to “let him down easy.”
He told her he had the same feelings about her and began pressuring her into a physical relationship. He would regularly spend time with her and demand hugs and kisses. She told me she would have a “fawn” response to his pressure and let kisses and hugs happen. She attributed this to a learned pattern of fawning when bullied by her brother in her childhood.
He continued to visit her and pressured her for more and more contact. He got her to regularly sit on his lap where he would touch her all over her body and put his fingers in her.
She told me she played the part of his “work girlfriend” and continued to comply with his requests out of fear of being further assaulted, fear of employment consequences in his power, and fear of being exposed.
According to her, she never touched him aside from the hugging and kissing (which she claims were always just smooches on the lips) and he initiated all of the sexual contact.
This lasted for about ten months before she found out he was doing the same things with another co-worker. She let it slip to one of his peers that he was in relationships with subordinates. She told me right before she had to have meetings with her HR.
During the course of their relationship she:
* Shaved her privates and legs so she would be smooth when he touched her
* Would take his calls outside of work
* Waited after hours at work for him to visit her
* Met with him for a coffee date
* Exchanged text messages that she immediately deleted
* Told him she would meet him for sex if conditions were different
All of this, she said she did because he pressured her and she felt like she had to do as his girlfriend.
I stood by her side, got her a lawyer, and fought her HR to keep her from employment consequences. Eventually, there was an investigation and they fired the boss and removed him from this field of work.
TLDR… My wife says she was forced into a relationship with her boss and I’m having trouble excusing her behavior. Can I still be upset if she did things she didn’t want to do?
42 comments
Yo man how many girls you know that let them put their fingers in them, but only keep it to that and kissing and hugging?
Come on OP. Don’t be naive. You’re being trickle truthed.
You can 10,000% be upset. I’d dump my wife if she did this to me.
Your wife is a cheater. Maybe she convinced you (and HR) that she was some helpless victim, but I’m not buying it. She found out he was fooling around with another co-worker and suddenly she let “it slip to one of his peers that he was in relationships with subordinates”?
Do you ***really*** believe her story?
Your wife had a very long consensual affair, got mad when she found out she wasn’t the only privates he was fingering, and got you to help get her out of trouble.
Your wife is downplaying.
She exposed him bc he was seeing other women and she was pissed.
She had an affair. That’s it. And she is definitely trickle truthing you.
Yeah. She’s lying to you. She had agency. She was married & told him she had a crush. She had a full-blown affair. Honestly, she didn’t stop with making out & fingering. They had sex. No question. Sure, he was in a position of authority, but her completely shaved privates certainly indicate that she was a more-than-willing participant. I’m sorry.
Your wife is doing that most disgusting of things, and hiding her infidelity under the umbrella of assault and trauma. It devalues people who actually go through these experiences.
Read that bullet list again. Then again. You know what this is.
I’m sorry.
She was a willing participant. She cheated on you. If you forgive her, know what she was doing and at least get her to admit it.
don’t buy it
she’s a very accomplished liar
walk away bro
Yeah, this was a series of choices she made. I can believe she felt pressured, I can believe she wouldn’t have done this if he hadn’t sought her out. But she still chose to actively participate in a romantic, sexual, and emotional affair with him when she had other options. She made the choice to do this and she is responsible.
Dude. Come on.
Her logic was to lead him on to let him down?
>During the course of their relationship she:
>Shaved her privates and legs so she would be smooth when he touched her
>Would take his calls outside of work
>Waited after hours at work for him to visit her
>Met with him for a coffee date
>Exchanged text messages that she immediately deleted
>Told him she would meet him for sex if conditions were different
She’s full of shit, she cheated on You and is trying to cover up claiming assault, She’s a disgusting human being For playing the victim card when she was 100% into it.
>I’m having trouble excusing her behavior.
Stop fcking doing that, You are enabling a garbage person, stop, there are no excuses For her, she was 100% cheating and when shit hits the fan she claims sexual assault… Disgusting.
I am a woman. If a man gets too much we know how to let them down. For example: not answering or just short answers. Not dressing where he can easily access private parts (dresses/ skirt).
Avoiding beeing alone. Having excuses.
Alone the part where she HID that she has so much contact shows that she is in the fault.
(English is not my mother tongue so excuse mistakes)
Okay, I am a sexual abuse survivor, trained to behave the way a male predator wants me to behave from birth. I have spent years trying to unravel the ball of yarn that mental abuse has had over me and there’s no way I can separate it out from who I actually am because it happened when I was so young. That being said…. I call bullshit on your wife. Not 100%, but more than 50%. The fawn response is not out of our control any more than a man is out of control of himself when he sets his hands on a woman without their consent. If she recognized that this is a behavior she had issues with she could have prevented it from going this far. Instead of saying she had a crush on him (and initiating that entire conversation btw), she could have said that you found out and are forcing her to end it in order to stay with you. There are a million ways to let him off the hook gently without digging yourself in deeper. I get that the use of power in the workplace can be effective but… why wouldn’t she just quit? EVERYONE IS HIRING. She could have come to you, and told you this guy was trying to use his power at work to get sexual favors and that she simply quit because it’s not worth dealing with that for a paycheck. If your wife hasn’t taken upon herself to seek out therapy to deal with the issues that “forced” her to behave this way so that it never happens to her again… then I’d say I call BS on her about 80%.
Go to surviving infidelity.com. It helped me with a cheating wife. She is blame shifting. She is giving you the trickle truth. A girl doesn’t shave for just anyone. Deleted messages is another dead give away
Why didn’t she tell you at the beginning when he was hitting on her or when she told him she was married and couldn’t act on it? If I were being pressured into something inappropriate, I would definitely tell my husband. I’d be curious to hear her answer to this question. Also, I’d be curious to hear from women who experienced sexual harassment at work, if this lines up or seems different.
And yes, you are allowed to be upset, even just with the truths she admitted. I’m very wary of any partner who tells the other person they shouldn’t be upset…about pretty much anything.
Personally, as a woman I can understand not wanting to rock the boat when someone in a power position is being sexually inappropriate with you by outright declining them. However, that being said when in similar situations I have done everything I possibly could do to actively avoid those people and make myself unattractive and unavailable to them.
From my perspective, it doesn’t sound like your wife was trying to avoid, it sounds like she was actively participating. For example, if I didn’t want my boss to be touching up on me I would not be shaving my legs or nether region, I would make sure my hair smelled, and I would do thing that were purposefully unattractive.
I don’t know your wife or her background, so maybe she has some past trauma that lead her to go along with this, but the problem is that at no point did she confide in you what was happening. You’re married…You are a team, she should have come to you and either asked for help or asked for perspective.
You don’t actually believe this bullshit story she’s feeding you – do you?
She was 100% having an affair with this man, found out she had competition, and let it all crash down on him.
Unfortunately for her lying ass, HR got involved and she had to scramble a story together because it was all going to have to come out if she wanted to keep her job.
Read what you wrote out loud and see if it sounds plausible.
Better yet: go to any random bar and tell this story to the bartender and some random working class dude. When they get done laughing, go home and have a conversation with that guy in the mirror about your cheating wife.
They fucked and you are a complete moron if you believe her.
Honestly that is a pretty relaxed definition of “forced”.
She cheated.
your wife was not bothered by cheating on you
she went to hr when she found out that the boss was with another girl
cheaters never accept being second and being cheated on.
the rest is her ability to manipulate you
I believe she’s lying and doing the trickle down truth. And there’s an affair going on there when somebody goes to all of that trouble there is something going on. I’m glad that you were kind to her, but I wouldn’t trust her either. Frankly, if not checked, a lot of times people will cheat again. I found a couple of great reconciliation stories on here. You however, in a difficult situation with her because she’s blamed it all on the boss and acted like a victim. So what is going to stop her from opening her mouth and going to HR if this happens again, you have a problem there. This isn’t a 19 year old girl. This is a grown adult woman.
I’m not surprised you’re having a hard time, it’s never easy dealing with someone lying to you. She was full on in that relationship with her boss. The only reason it’s over is because she found out she wasn’t his only option. This isn’t something that “happened to” your wife, it’s something she did.
Coming from a woman who has experienced multiple acts of sexual harassment and sexual assault, while your wife’s boss’s behavior is utterly inappropriate and under no circumstances should he have been engaging in a sexual relationship with a subordinate, this sounds like an emotional and sexual affair, even if it may have started off nonconsensually.
A few facts: yes, fawn responses are a thing. They do exist and are not uncommon trauma responses for survivors of childhood abuse and bullying. Yes, women face extensive rates of workplace sexual harassment and sexual assault in general and oftentimes do not seek help for harassment because of fear of retaliation and economic consequences. Yes, there are power dynamics at play in relationships between employers and employees. All of these things are true. Perhaps some of these components were at play in your wife’s situation, including when her boss initially “relentlessly hit on her.” However, it does not seem like all of these components were at play 100% of the time.
Informing your employer that you have a crush on them, giving them a pet name, and entertaining their advances, as well as waiting for them after work, meeting up with them for dates, shaving for them, etc, are all part of actively facilitating an affair. This is my personal opinion, which no one is obligated to share.
Her participation, of course, doesn’t negate his inappropriate behavior, and he most certainly should have been fired, but participation and facilitation to this level call into question how forcible all of his behavior truly was. In my opinion, there is a difference between acquiescence/submission to mitigate consequences to your safety and economic security, and ongoing facilitation of a sexual and emotional relationship.
You have every right to be wary about this and personally I would consider it a dealbreaker, though it’s obviously not my relationship. I think your wife crossed many, many appropriate relationship boundaries and for many of them, she excused doing so under the guise of pressure and coercion that survivors of abuse and harassment so often face.
The ultimate reality is that not a single one of us here, including you, will ever know which of the dynamics and situations described here involved coercion and pressure, and which did not. It could be a combination of consensual and coerced factors. But in my perspective based solely off this post, the consensual factors appear to share a larger proportion of the overall relationship than any coerced ones. Being hit on by your boss against your will does not cross boundaries; engaging in intentionally curated behaviors to drive forward a sexual and emotional connection with someone who is not your partner, however, does.
I am constantly wary of posts like this, through no fault of the poster, because they present opportunities for people to undermine and discredit survivors’ experiences by extrapolating one woman’s behavior and applying it to all female survivors’ behaviors. I hope that this post will not turn into a place for people to swap rape and harassment myths. Those of us who have been assaulted and harassed suffer the negative outcomes of frameworks like the one your wife has presented you with.
Best of luck.
I have to admit. Your wife is VERY smart and very good at gaslighting.
So she only stopped because she was jealous he had other office girlfriends? Grow a spine and divorce her
You wife is missing something, its called ACCOUNTABILITY. She cheated, she liked it, she got upset that she wasn’t the only one, and now she is denying accountability to minimize her repercussions in her marriage and professional life. She is a liar.
I was pressured to drive drunk one time by my friends. By your wife’s logic it was okay cause I was pressured
This story is why real victims aren’t believed. Your wife was not a child, she did everything to encourage his behavior. She did nothing to avoid or put him off. Funny thing though,
she suddenly got the courage to say something once she realized she wasn’t his only girlfriend. Do the math.
She cheated on you for months until she found out he was cheating on HER and got mad. Now she is running damage control. Sorry man.
She’s a cheater.
You wrote a heck of alot of stuff here but **SHE LET HIM FINGER HER.**
Wowwww
You gotta get out of there, man
Just a casual FINGER BANG?!?! Bruh
She had so many other choices and options she could of taken… she chose not to until she found out about the ‘other’ woman?
Jealousy is a great motivator to finally get rid of him ‘allegedly’ sexually assaulting her. I call bullshit.
She emotionally cheated for sure, probably physically cheated, only told anyone when she got jealous that he had another girlfriend.
She cheated OP. If it weren’t for the fact that she found out he was doing it with others she would quite happily of let it continue on to it’s ultimate conclusion.
You have to understand that she was as complicit in her behaviour as he was, she was a willing participant and the most telling part is this;
> This lasted for about ten months before she found out he was doing the same things with another co-worker. She let it slip to one of his peers that he was in relationships with subordinates.
This is not the actions of someone who is being taken advantage of, this is the action of someone who has just realised that she was being duped. She acted exactly as any jealous lover would’ve.
So please understand OP that your wife cheated on you for 10 months and is now painting over her actions to make it seem like she was somehow a “victim”.
Her boss was scum, pure and simple, but she was quite happy to allow him to be scum to her for 10 months because **she enjoyed it!**.
It’s taken you 4 years and you are still questioning it. Please save yourself and start the proceedings to free yourself from this burden. You have a life to lead and this is **not** the way to do it.
She definitely fucked him.
Uhhh i’m still waiting for the “let him down easy” part because all i read was her cheating on you for 10 MONTHS with her boss and you believing her bulls**t excuses….
I’m more than sure that the reason she “let it slip” to one of her AP’s peer is because he was cheating on her with another one of his female workers and got mad about it.
Dude, i don’t mean to sound rude but please stop being a doormat, wake up, smell the coffee and realize that your wife was playing you for a fool those entire 10 months….
Her narrative doesn’t jibe with the fact that she didn’t care enough to report it until she found out Bossman was doing it to someone else and got jealous enough to report it. Nor does any of those bullets at the end. Stop believing the one person who has the most incentive to lie: your wife. She’s full of shit and unfortunately it sounds like you’re eating it up like cake. Her behavior shouldn’t be excused. She cheated willingly.
Dude…. Your wife cheated. Leave
Dude…this was not coercion. She did this of her own volition. Why you’re still with someone who would disrespect you on that level is beyond me. Not to mention the disrespect of ACTUAL victims.
Funny how she only let it slip to his peer when she discovered that she wasn’t the only one. Motivated by jealousy and the desire to punish him. Not by any consideration of morality or fidelity.