Some cheaters lead such double-lives that they have a ‘work wife’ or husband. This person functions as their main squeeze or affair partner at work. By calling them ‘work wife’ or husband, it takes the sting out of lover or homewrecker. It also creates a sense of normalcy at work.
Dealing with Work Wives & Husbands <<– listen to the audio here
Hi, this is Jeff Murrah with Affair Recovery Radio. I’m glad that you’re here today. We’re going to be dealing with a fascinating topic today that is very timely, and that topic is dealing with work wives and husbands.
I bring this up because some cheaters lead such a double life that they actually have what they call a work wife, or work husband. What’s strange about that, is that the whole idea of the work wife/work husband is gaining in popularity.
Not only is it growing in popularity, it’s also being encouraged, with claims that it makes you happier. It’s occurring with much more frequency and being accepted in some work circles.
Work Wives/Husbands are growing in popularity
The work wife, or work husband, is actually a surrogate spouse for the cheater while they are there at work. Many times their cohorts at work go along with it and are accepting of this situation.
It’s almost like it’s a whole separate world that the cheater lives in.
This surrogate spouse, or work wife/work husband, functions as their main squeeze, or affair partner, at work. By calling them a work wife or work husband this label takes the sting out of the lover label, or the traditional label of home-wrecker. Besides taking the sting out of the label, it also creates a new sense of normalcy at work. It redefines what’s okay or what’s acceptable.
This work wife/husband allows a cheater to play games with their conscience, because they call it a work wife or a work husband. They still have that appearance of maintaining a relationship, even though they’re cheating, and they know in their heart and their mind that they are cheating.
When you find this kind of situation, what do you do? Well, the solution is going to be you’ve got to get in the game. You’ve got to get involved.
There’s no two ways about it. This is not something that you can ignore that’s going to go away.
What do you do about work husbands/wives?
And by getting involved, there’s several things that you can do to essentially nip this situation in the bud.
1. Remove the opportunities. Many times the cheaters find a gray area or an opportunity and they take advantage of it. You’re going to have to make sure that they don’t have those gray areas, that they don’t have those opportunities.
Don’t give permission, either actively or passively. I know it sounds strange to say well, gee, I don’t recall giving permission for my spouse to have an affair.
Well, you may have. If you have made comments like I don’t care what you do at work, or I don’t care, or just go out and do whatever you want to do, some cheaters latch on to that and they take it as permission that well, my spouse is okay with it so that’s what I’m going to do.
You want to make sure that you’re not giving opportunities, that you’re not giving permission.
2. Be consistent with boundaries at home and work. Often times couples will make the mistake of okay, these are the boundaries of acceptable behavior at home, and then you give them permission to do things differently when they’re at the workplace.
It’s almost like you allow them to create a whole different world with a whole different set of rules for them to operate in.
Especially like on business trips. You give them latitude to do what they want to do. You’ve got to stop that and be consistent. If you don’t allow them to go out for drinks with members of the opposite sex alone at home, why should you allow them to do it at work? You’ve got to be consistent.
Because cheaters, they live in this world where they want to modify the rules at work and they want to believe that they are an exception. They’re “special.” And since they are special or an exception to the rules, normal boundaries, they don’t feel like they apply to them. You’re going to have to do that.
3. Talk to your spouse about their business. It’s going to be much harder for them to hide the affair if you’re talking to them about the people at work. Many times what happens when spouses don’t ask questions about what’s going on at work or who you work with, they see that as a passive way of giving permission.
When you show an interest it means that you care about what’s going on at work. By not showing an interest that’s almost like one of those ways that you give permission, where you say I don’t care what you do. No, you need to care what they do. You need to show an interest and know what’s going on.
Accountability
Because the cheater knows if they’re being held accountable and you’re keeping track of what’s going on, there’s going to be fewer and fewer opportunities for them to engage in wrong activities.
If you know their work mates and you have a decent working relationship, then you can get straight information as to whether or not there is a work husband or a work wife situation developing.
When you don’t, it’s almost like you encounter this wall of silence that keeps you from knowing what’s really going on in the workplace. That’s not a situation that you want to happen.
This is a scenario that’s happening at more and more workplaces. In all likelihood I probably see this more in workplaces where there’s a lot of travel.
Because a lot of times when teams have to go to cities out of state, or even within the same state or out of the country, to share costs they often bunk up together. Those situations lead to relationships developing.
So if you’ve got a scenario where your spouse is going out of town a lot, works a lot of late hours with a “team”, you may want to especially stay on top of what’s going on at work, knowing the members of the team, and asking questions of your spouse.
rking on now, wherever you’re listening to the podcast. Because you can start getting involved, you can start by taking stands and no longer giving permission. Remove those opportunities, and also be consistent with the boundaries at home and work.
When the work spouse situation spins out of control, the download, “Affair Recovery Workshop” guides you in repairing your marriage.
Best Regards,
Jeff
