I don’t really know where to start because I am still just really shocked that this has even taken place.
As a background, me and my boyfriend work for the same company. Without going into detail, there are many “brands” and “makes” that fall under this one company. I work for “brand 1” and my boyfriend works for “brand 2”. I have been working in my job since 2021 and progressed through part time to full-time work.
He had been working at “brand 2” for a while before it was bought out by the same company that we work in now. How we met was through Tinder, purely coincidence that we happen to work for the same company but never crossed paths. Where I am based is a 20 minute drive from where he is based and we also work for different “brands” so the chances of us crossing paths would have been very slim anyway.
His father works for the same brand as my boyfriend does, “brand 2”, but at a different location. He is in a managerial position. Now, usually in companies like this one, they don’t really let family members work in the same departments, unless you get prior approval from someone high up.
When we started seeing each other in November last year, I had asked my own boss if this would be seen as a problem or if it’s okay as we don’t work in the same location, nor the same brand. He said it’s absolutely fine and to not worry about it – we didn’t need to disclose it to HR. I had kept our relationship secret for the first 3/4 months before disclosing to my colleagues. Now, they always ask me how he is or how we’re doing and we even meet up outside of work (my colleague and his girlfriend who works in the same company but different location, and some other people too). My two bosses used to work with his dad, so they had a good friendship over the last 20+ years. My boyfriend didn’t disclose much to his colleagues for like the first month or so, and then everyone in his workplace knew about us. I didn’t really care much because it’s not as if we would get called to HR as we don’t see each other at work at all. There are many couples within the company that work at different locations and brands so I didn’t think anything weird of it.
Things were okay. His dad had moved to a new location and my boyfriend decided he wanted to work there as well. I asked him if HR would be okay as his father would be in a managerial position and my boyfriend would work directly underneath him. He said they would need approval but doesn’t think it would be a problem.
Earlier this week, two guys from my boyfriend’s dad’s previous location had come by to pick something up from our location. I asked them where they’re from and then also asked how are things over there now that my boyfriend’s dad had moved to a different location. They asked me how I knew his dad and I just said “that’s my boyfriends dad, I’m dating \[BF\]”, they all knew my boyfriend because he worked at their location for a bit and also did a couple of years work experience as a teenager. From what my boyfriend told me, they were all quite close there and quite a good team, so I was just being friendly and nice.
Apparently this was the wrong thing to say to them. My boyfriend had a go at me later on after work saying that I should not have told them I’m dating him, as they later texted my boyfriend’s dad asking how he is at new location and mentioned that they met me. I didn’t think anything of it, because I thought it was okay to say. Apparently him and his dad were both weirded out that my boyfriend’s dad got a text through asking how he is at the new location. But it wasn’t a secret as everyone knew he was wanting to get transferred over and even other locations knew about his intentions.
I was very confused and my boyfriend said he “doesn’t want problems with HR”. I felt really strange because this came out of nowhere, he had turned incredibly hostile towards me regarding this situation and said I shouldn’t say to anyone that I’m with him. I was really upset as I wasn’t expecting this reaction from him.
The next day, his reasoning was that he didn’t want me to tell people about us because “not everyone likes him”. Which got me thinking – he can be rude to people or just be really unsympathetic and emotionless, so I told him if he wasn’t rude or an asshole to people, then maybe more people would like him. He is also incapable of finding a work/life balance and I feel like a lot of the time he puts work first rather than us, especially once when he was meant to stay round mine to celebrate my dad’s birthday and he ended up going into work on that day, so at that point I told him to not bother coming round.
I have never felt insecure around him, but since we had that argument, it looked like he was hiding something from me and didn’t want me to find out about it from other people that he used to work with. It really screamed red flags at me.
Now, he’s angry and said he feels “betrayed” that I didn’t listen and respect his “wishes” – his wishes being me not telling people we are together, though I wasn’t aware of this at all and he never said anything about it until our argument. If he wanted us to be a secret, he wouldn’t have told anyone at his workplace, yet he did within the first month of us being together.
I’m not quite sure what to do now – any help? I’d really appreciate an outside person’s opinion on this.
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2 comments
Did your bf get any leeway under his father? From what I’m reading, he wanted to prevent further bad optics (good old fashioned nepotism), and did not want his office from getting more ammo on him.
The fact that he is angry screams red flags to me. Now you have to always be conscious of anything you say so that it won’t get back to dad or boyfriend. You don’t need that in your life.