I'm not down with my wife's WFH workout buddy.
Dear Prudence,
My wife has been working from home since the pandemic and now that the kids have all left for college, she has a lot of time alone at home. She used to go on daily walks with a female neighbor who moved out about six months ago. The new tenant is a recently divorced man who also works from home. The two of them have started a daily walk together, which I didn’t have an issue with, but now she’s started to bring him a plate for dinner once or twice a week and stay while he eats it. What brought matters to a head happened the other day, when she brought home a bag of new workout clothes so she’d have something new to wear on their walks. When I mentioned I wasn’t comfortable with her going over to his house anymore because I thought it gave the wrong signs to him, she got angry and told me I didn’t understand because I wasn’t home all day as they were. I’ve seen nothing specific that they are having an affair, but it’s making me wonder. He’s a nice guy, he’ll wave when he sees me, but is not someone I have a lot in common with nor really want to hang out with. Should I say something more to her? Am I wrong to be concerned?
—More Than Friends
Re: I'm not down with my wife's WFH workout buddy.
You also need to show her how you appreciate her too. She's likely getting something exciting out of this because it's a new arrangement and that can be OK but you're crossing into a lack of trust territory. So you need to talk about your insecurities rather than put your foot down.
The guy is their neighbor. He's good friends with the LW's wife. Yet it sounds like the three of them have never hung out together. Why not? Why, why, why?
I've known people who had an emotional affair but didn't realize it. Thought they were just being nice.
The new workout clothes are not the red flags LW thinks they are. I had an athleisure addiction when I WFH full-time. It's the WFH uniform. LOL
But seriously, LW needs to be vulnerable with their wife vs. 'telling' her how to conduct the relationship with this guy. I give it the hairy eyeball for sure, but there's not enough information IMO.
Dude needs to be honest vs. act like he can control her.
This looks like it's at least an emotional affair and frankly I think it's not a great way for her to spend meal times if she's going there at least 2 x / week but if this is his attitude maybe it's why the wife is going there in the first place. It doesn't make any improprieties acceptable but it can explain why she may feel less than fulfilled at home.
i’m reading this and going how oblivious is she to her H for him not to like this? Like, I’d never put my SO in this spot because I got respect for whom I’m dating.
None of this is to say that men and women can't be friends, even if one or both is in a relationship. What I find concerning is that wife's friendship with this man very much seems to be to the exclusion of LW. And that's why I think LW has a right to be concerned that there's at least an emotional affair going on.
However, bringing dinner over on a regular basis, as opposed to inviting the neighbor over for a meal, is strange.
But there could also be reasonable explanations for it. Maybe the LW is always invited to walk over with her but doesn't want to go. Maybe the wife has been trying to invite the neighbor over for dinner or a BBQ, but the LW is a curmudgeon who doesn't like hosting people at his house.
That's also what I find weird about this letter. You'd think if the LW was being purposefully excluded, he would have mentioned that also. But he didn't. It's a big missing piece in the story.
IDK, I feel like LW is an unreliable narrator here. From LW's description, yeah the dinners sound odd, but I'm not sure I believe his POV. It's a lot about what he does/doesn't like about his wife's behavior and rather glosses over the link between new workout clothes to wear (which has myriad of reasons for happening that don't have anything to do with affair) into "I think you're giving him the wrong signs". This smells of needing validation for assumptions and giving a skewed view to get it.