A 35-year-old woman is deeply concerned about her husband’s closeness with his colleague. Though she had always felt secure in their relationship, the woman began to have concerns after her husband highlighted a number of red flags. The distraught lady wrote us a letter in which she described her entire experience and asked our readers for their thoughts on the subject. Her gut instinct tells her something is awry, but she doesn’t want to make mistakes in her relationship and is seeking assistance. Andrea, 35, recently sent us a letter that read like a scream for help.

The woman wondered if she was doing the right thing by being so negative about her husband’s friendship with one of his coworkers. Andrea began her story by saying, “I am 35 years old and work as a beautician.” I’m married to Paul, a 33-year-old engineer. He is a really intelligent and smart man, and I have always been proud of him.

Paul has a coworker who is wonderful in the usual sense; she is natural and attractive. Her name is Alyson, she’s 30, and she’s quite intelligent. Obviously, Paul is quite close to her. He even calls her his ‘work wife.’ Prior to the events that prompted me to seek help online, I had no reason to be concerned about their relationship.

I’ve always felt protected in our relationship. Paul and I are both independent people who would have left if we weren’t content together. We have been together for eight years and married for two years. Andrea is worried about her husband’s increasingly unusual relationship with his “work wife.” Andrea continues her message, adding, “Last month, Paul and I on a three-day trip with his colleagues.

Every year, he takes part in this tradition at work. We got home, and I had a bad taste in my mouth from our vacation. Throughout the trip, I felt as if I and his colleague’s wife were the third wheel in the company of my husband and Alyson. Andrea adds, “A extremely unpleasant circumstance arose over a lunch on the second night of our trip. I was sitting calmly, fiddling with my food, after nearly two days of being ignored by Paul.

Alyson’s husband was similarly silent at first, but we started a casual chat by asking one other about common interests. Meanwhile, Alyson and my husband were having a furious fight. It was a back and forth teasing. She turned around and quietly inquired about what her husband and I were up to. Her spouse said that we were just getting to know each other because they were too busy talking about issues we had no idea about.

Alyson then laughed and asked, ‘What could we talk with you? “Makeup and pop stars?” she asked, nodding towards me. She then remarked, ‘We have more sophisticated things to talk.'” Andrea stated, “I was flabbergasted at that point. She genuinely stated that because I’m a beautician, I can only talk about celebrities and their makeup. It seemed like I was an outsider and simply foolish because I was talking work-related topics.

My husband laughed, and Alyson’s husband thought it was inappropriate. I said nothing since I was disgusted by the entire event. On the last day of our trip, I spent the majority of it with Alyson’s husband. “I ignored the other two.” Andrea seems to be in a really complicated situation.The woman wrote, “Recently, Alyson’s husband texted me and asked to discuss about our SOs.

He also stated that he was concerned about his wife’s relationship with my husband and had read her texts. He sent me screenshots of Paul and Alyson calling me stupid and superficial while laughing about it. Andrea added, “Well, that was largely Alyson shouting horrible things about me, and Paul was just laughing and joining in. Sometimes he’d write, ‘But I adore her,’ and Alyson would respond, ‘You only prefer uneducated women because they’re easy to live with.’

And Paul laughed because he truly accepted it as a joke. When the texts weren’t about my ignorance, they were about work, and one of them contained the phrase ‘I adore your intellect’ to Alyson. Andrea admitted, “I started crying when I saw the screenshots.” I’ve always felt self-conscious about my brain and work. I enjoy my job, and I assumed my spouse did as well, or did not dislike it as much. I’ve been my own boss for more than 12 years and make close to six figures.

I never considered myself a stupid person. I like to think of myself as fairly educated and intelligent, with an interest for history, languages, and civilizations, but I’m not an engineer designing prosthetic arms and hearts. Still, the texts appreciating my colleague wounded me more than the ones mocking me. “I’m not sure what to think.”

Andrea writes, “I approached Paul after all of this. I told him honestly that I had spoken with my coworker’s husband and showed him the messages he had sent me. Paul inquired why her husband was spying on his wife, and I explained that it was because he didn’t like how things were going on the trip. I told him that I, too, was very uncomfortable.

Paul’s response was far from convincing. Andrea added, “He was perplexed and simply told me that my work wife was obviously envious and that I shouldn’t care too much about her. I told him that Alyson didn’t upset me as much as the fact that he tolerated and enjoyed her constant attempts to pull me down. Even her husband was uncomfortable enough to go through her phone.

I also questioned him why he was allowing her to embarrass me through their texts. Again, he argued that he just thought she was petty and jealous, and he didn’t want to be on her level. He stated that I did the same thing when I disregarded her rudeness, and that he felt it was the proper thing to do. I questioned him why she was doing this, but he answered nothing.

Andrea said, “Two days ago, Alyson’s husband phoned me again and we spoke. He said that Alyson confided to him that she had affections for my husband, and she suspected that he had feelings for her as well. She claimed they kissed during the summer work party. I confronted Paul again when he arrived home. He just began to stress out when he informed me that yeah, she kissed him, and he rejected her and told her that he wasn’t interested, and that was it between them.”

The woman added, “I don’t know what to think or do next in this extremely disturbing and nasty scenario. I believe Paul loves me, but I can’t get the feeling that there’s something going on between him and Alyson. I’m so confused, and no one in my family wants to talk to me about it. Everyone thinks I’m being overly dramatic, yet everything hurts so badly. “What should I do?”