A
male
age
51-59,
anonymous
writes:My wife hired a new attorney in December based on a recommendation from a friend to help her setup a company. The first time she met him she came home and told me how young he looked (even though he's not too much younger than she is) and that he was so well-dressed that she was pretty sure he must be gay.My wife's best friend is gay and before long she told me that her friend (who also is part of the company with my wife) had a crush on the attorney and wanted her to find out if he was gay or not. It became a running joke with me asking her: "Did you find out if he is gay yet?"Well, eventually the answer was found out and it turns out he is straight and has a girlfriend so my wife's gay friend was bummed. This is all second-hand from my wife. I never talk directly to her friend.However, I think it's really the case that my wife has a crush on the attorney. Back in April I used her computer and noticed that she had searched a lot of web sites with search words like:"falling for my client attorney""in love with my client""advice for lawyers falling for client"and variations thereof along with the more disturbing strings:"make him want you""make him leave his girlfriend"At this point I figured she had talked to her gay friend and was just Googling for advice to give him to help him over his crush or to warn him against trying to take the relationship anywhere that might damage business or even to help out his love life. No big deal.Then, I overheard a phone conversation with her gay friend in which he told her:"Did you dig up any dirt on his (the attorney's) girlfriend?"She laughed in response. I still figured that her gay friend was trying to get her to hook him up with the (obviously straight) attorney. She told me before that her friend thinks EVERYONE is gay even if they don't know it and that the attorney really is handsome and dresses like a gay man.Some time later, she told me that she met the attorney and he told her he loves to jog in a canyon near his office. He is going to be in a race in September. My wife said that he told her: "My girlfriend doesn't really get into running even though I love it. I just can't drag her out there with me." When my wife got home she told me about the canyon and said that she'd like to check it out sometime. I noticed she did a lot of Googling about it and the race he was going to run.Last weekend, I jokingly asked her if they figured out if the attorney is straight or not and whether her gay friend still had a crush on him. She said "Oh, yes he is straight. He has a long-term girlfriend. I even met her once when I stopped by the office and she was there." I asked her if her friend (the gay one) knew that he had a girlfriend and she gave me a puzzling response which was:"Not sure, but no, I don't think so." This is in contradiction to her friend explicitly asking her if she was digging up dirt on the girlfriend. I am not really sure why she'd lie about if he knew about the girlfriend, because clearly he did and it was some sort of inside joke between them. That set off an alarm. Why would she lie?Lately, things have not been going so well with the business relationship and her gay friend has been pushing to fire the lawyer as he missed an important deadline by three weeks which cost the company's reputation. My wife has been the one playing mediator and defending the attorney against her friend, who thinks he should be terminated after some work is finished up. My wife says that he is late because they are paying him less than other clients are and such. Anyway, the point here is that her gay friend has clearly soured on the attorney and I overhear him make disparaging comments about him often now.Well, so far I can hear you yawning and - maybe with the exception of the Google searches - it all seems very innocent and those can be explained by my wife claiming her gay friend likes this guy.What spawned this post is something my wife wrote tonight. I saw this because my wife went to bed without logging out of her e-mail and my curiosity got the better of me.Her gay friend wrote an e-mail bashing the attorney again and in return she wrote him (the gay friend) back and told him that she had a long (over 1 hour) conversation with the attorney tonight while I was at work and that he was very helpful and explained some things to her about the project they were working on and overall was optimistic and defending the attorney. The very last sentence of her e-mail blew me away, however. It said:"I just wish he wasn't so hot...(IMO)"It was completely out of context just like that. I don't really understand why she'd write that to her friend. Rationalizing, I figured that she was talking about her gay friend's feelings for the lawyer interfering with his business decisions, but that just doesn't make sense, because it is my wife always defending the guy. Why would my wife wish the attorney wasn't hot if she likes him and why would she say that he is anyway? Taken with her lie about the girlfriend and her Google searches I am now starting to think it is my wife who has actually had the crush on this guy all along. I have never heard her gay friend ever say anything positive about the guy. I actually searched her Inbox for anything incriminating and there was nothing that I could find, but all I found was an e-mail from her gay friend saying that (the attorney) was incommunicado because "he spent the weekend with his girlfriend." So he definitely knows there is a girlfriend. Is there some other way to read this I am not seeing? The attorney hasn't made any advances on my wife that I know of, but to me this sounds like my wife has a crush on him and is struggling to overcome it. Did her e-mail imply that she is finding it hard to work with the guy because of developing feelings? Why would she lie about her friend knowing that the attorney has a girlfriend and why would he joke about her digging up dirt on the girlfriend? Should I just see how this plays out? Should I confront her with the e-mail? Should I question her in the context of her gay friend like "So, has your friend gotten over his crush on the attorney yet? Did he find out about the girlfriend?" I don't think there is anything fundamentally wrong with my wife thinking this guy is hot. She basically told me that Day One in so many words. (My wife uses the words "looks gay" and "looks like a male model" with me when talking about a guy she thinks is attractive.) She's allowed to do that. However, if these Google searches are for her own benefit then it seems she is taking it too far. Am I way out in left field here based on these limited exchanges? I do know that she talks with and meets with this attorney a lot lately.For what innocent reason could she have written that last line in her e-mail?
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female
reader, So_Very_Confused +, writes (27 May 2011):
 oh dear.. I'm so sorry... I've BTDT on both sides.. as the spouse being lied to I looked the other way and accepted it.
as the spouse doing the lying I felt a bit of guilt but not nearly as much as I should have.
Personally unless she is planning a surprise party for you I don't believe spouses/partners should have any secrets from each other.
the fact that she is horrified and secretive is not a good sign... I'm sorry.
Methinks the lady doth protest too much...
let me tell you my story....
December 21st my lying then husband comes to me and tries to tell me his company Xmas party is Xmas eve. I informed him I was Jewish NOT STUPID and he said "i don't know it's a small family business..."
then he changed his tune and said "ok it's not the party but i have to meet my SIL" and I said "fine I'll come with you" and he got upset... and finally I told him
"no matter what you are doing Xmas eve I am STUCK UP YOUR BUTT"... turns our he wanted to go spend Xmas eve with a girl he knew (and I would have been fine with it had he asked me outright... it's the LIES that are the problem)
As spouses we KNOW in our guts when our partners are lying.
I'm so sorry this is happening for you... I truly think this is the worst part... the fettering out of the truth...
and her telling you that acting the way you are acting is going to cause her to do what you fear is well pardon me but BULLSHIT.
A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (27 May 2011): Update:I asked my wife about her relationship with the attorney this morning and we had a major blow up. She said some variant of: "He's not interested in me and has a girlfriend!" I told her that guys with girlfriends do all kinds of stuff and that it's not so much that I don't trust him, but that I don't trust her. That we can't control what he does or does not do or if he makes advances, but I need to know I can trust her. She said that I was blowing things out of proportion and that it really hurt her that I don't trust her. She said she gets hit on by men almost all of the time and nothing ever happens so why would it happen now? I told her: "I don't know why someone would say yes after saying no 99 times in a row, but it happens. It only takes one yes!" I also told her that instead of saying "He's not interested and has a girlfriend" she should say "I love you and you can trust me no matter what he does or does not do." She said that was implied and I told her it is not implied and I want her to say it. She got really upset and angry, but I told her I wanted her to tell me I can trust her. She angrily said: "You can trust me, but I can't believe this. You are acting crazy. I feel like I can't go anywhere or do anything without phoning in to you or you get upset. You probably have a GPS on me. I don't know where you go or who you are with when you say you are going to work. Why can't I have the same courtesy?"I explained to her that:1. She has no reason to be suspicious of me and if she did then I would completely find it in her rights to question meabout my whereabouts and present company. I asked her if she was suspicious of me and she said she wasn't.2. I mentioned that I am not normally a jealous freak and that (in January) she went away for three days overnight on a work-related trip and that I totally trusted her even though I had no idea what she was up to or who she was with. She said that for that she wore her ugliest, most comfortable clothes because it was for a different sort of work function and she stayed at the Holiday Inn and that the reason I am jealous when she meets with the attorney is because she dresses up really nicely and they go talk over tea at a high end hotel in Beverly Hills, but that she does it to keep up appearances and I shouldn't read into it. (Note: I didn't mention anything other than she went away for 3 days and I never questioned or doubted her. She brought up the subject of her wardrobe (which I couldn't even see as she was away) but it didn't make me feel better now that I know she goes out of her way to dress up when meeting this guy although I get that different attire is required.) She asked me why if I trusted her then I don't trust her now. I told her about what I had read on her computer and she went ballistic. She said that there is very personal, private information on there (I asked for an example and she said something about a friend of hers with a drug problem.) and she had better never ever find out I am doing that again. I asked her what she had to hide and she said that it wasn't anything to hide, but that she doesn't always want to be explaining herself such as if she tells me she is leaving the house for a Mexican lunch and then later an e-mail comes in from a strange guy different from the one she was to meet that says:"I really enjoyed meeting you at the hotel. Maybe we can do that thing we were talking about next time wink wink."That I would get the wrong idea and ask "Who is that guy? I thought you were meeting someone else? Hotel? What is he talking about "that thing"?" while what really happened is that the guy she was to meet brought his friend with him and they switched restaurants at the last minute and "that thing" is telling someone to screw off. She says she doesn't want to have to explain every damned thing to me.I get it and I told her that, but I also told her that she's going to have to get used to me being suspicious for a while based on what I read. She said: "You know, by acting this way you are willing this to happen!"There was more, but basically I was understanding, but unapologetic and she was mostly really angry at me for creating "all this drama" over "nothing." So that went well. Now what?
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A
female
reader, So_Very_Confused +, writes (26 May 2011):
yep it's a crush alright.
but you need to watch your "looks gay" thing.
I told my hubby that I thought my boyfriend was gay and it was primarily to let him relax a bit while we spent time together.
You need to let her know you know about the google searches.
good luck.
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A
male
reader, CaringGuy  +, writes (26 May 2011):
Yep - red flags everywhere. Time to confront her.
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A
female
reader, DanceInTheDark  +, writes (26 May 2011):
 Yeah she has a mega crush on this guy. And she's pretty terrible at covering it up.
Honestly, you should mention the google searches, and mention that she's meeting with him lately. Just ask her if she has a crush.
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A
female
reader, RedAthena +, writes (26 May 2011):
 How many RED FLAGS OF WARNING did you need?You know she finds him physically attractive and communicates with him OUTSIDE a professional realm.She is not addressing him solely in a business manner, which is a bad business choice when setting up a new company.The freind is NOT supportive of the arrangment either!What keeps him in her sights? He is hot.Want to know EXACTLY what your wife is thinking? Ask her.(By the way, I do not think you did anything wrong with peeking at the email. Spouses who hide nothing-have nothing to hide!) If she asks why you question if she has feelings/attraction to the Attorney, speak the truth.Your senses are telling you something is NOT right. TRUST THEM. She may tell you that you are being insecure. Well, your wife is acting inappropriately. Affairs are usually started with "innocent" behaiviors. Rarely do they blaze into roaring fires from sudden brazen behaviors. It is OK to tell her you are NOT comfortable with her NON professional relationship. You have a RIGHT as a husband to say "Keep it professional or find a less hot Attorney to work with". This is a conflict of interests!
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