Dear Prudence,
My coworkers, “Mary” and “Joe,” have been having an affair since before COVID hit.
Both are married, but Joe’s wife “Jane” works for a different department as a supervisor. I had the unfortunate luck to discover Mary and Joe have been using me as a cover to their spouses and our bosses.
On business trips, Mary would disappear at night saying she was meeting up with ‘old friends.” Only I caught her coming out of Joe’s room. They have also told people we were all going out to lunch together as a team when I was eating alone.
I am the youngest and most recent hire at my company. I felt like I had no choice but to ignore it. During the lockdown, we all worked from home and didn’t see each other in person. I thought everything blew over until Jane pulled me aside and told me she didn’t appreciate my flirty tone with her husband even though she knew I was gay and didn’t mean any harm with my texts.
I froze up. I never gave Joe my private number. I apologized to Jane, and now I don’t know what to do. Going to HR feels like blowing everything up to kingdom come; confronting Joe and Mary is a good way to screw over my career; and I don’t feel comfortable going to my bosses. They have made enough off-color jokes that they might know about the affair. What the hell do I do?
— Low Woman on the Pole