This article was written by The Zillennial Zine’s summer editorial intern Connor Hanrahan. Find him on Instagram at @hannerhansmh. If you would like to share an article with The Zillennial, send us an email at thezillennialzine@gmail.com.
Everybody has a preferred coworker. It’s that simple. It doesn’t matter how much you actually like your coworkers in general: there is always a favorite. However, sometimes you have a whole best friend at work and sometimes there is a bond between you two that may emotionally make its way out of the office with you as you head home for the day. In some cases, this is your “work bestie”, but in cases where this “work bestie” is of the gender you’re attracted to romantically, they are your “work husband” or “work wife”. Some view this as wrong and others see no issue with this but sometimes things go too far and we have to ask ourselves: “Is having a work spouse cheating?”
The short answer is no. As long as there are only platonic emotions between you and your work spouse, the word “spouse” is just a part of the nomenclature pertaining to that genre of friendship. However, this is a line easily crossed if there is any level of sexual tension. Having a fat crush on a coworker is fairly commonplace, as made known on reality TV series like Below Deck, and is nothing to be afraid of. Heck, I even know people who met their partners at their job.
But if one or both of you are in a relationship and this sexual tension arises, this is where things get way too juicy for either of you and it’s time to:
A) Evaluate your work wedlock and draw a line.
B) Reevaluate your existing relationship.
C) Cheat on your partner, regret it, ruin your work relationship, and when word inevitably spreads through the office, become the black sheep within your company.
D) A and B
E) All of the above?
I’m not here to tell you what to do, but I have seen people choose C in two separate instances and they were: dumped by their partners (duh), their work spouse didn’t want anything to do with them afterwards because “if they cheat with you, they’ll cheat on you,” their work output suffered from the guilt/embarrassment, and they got fired from work for breaking HR policies. Because of the uniformity of these trials, we are going to pretend option C does not exist today.
Now that we are past that, options A and B are far more commonplace and are much more reasonable approaches.
Option A
If you have a happy home life and are in a loving relationship with someone you want to be with in the long run, there is no reason to let a friendship with someone you generally understand very little about, ruin a love like you have at home. Oftentimes, it is easy to get lost in a first impression or cling too tightly to the image you have painted of someone in your head.
The best remedy for this is to remind yourself of why you are in the relationship you are currently in. Maybe this is a physical list if you are impulsive and forgetful. Maybe this is a photo of you two on your desk from one of your favorite memories together. Maybe this is a phone call on lunch break just to remind you that your partner is still real and in love with you.
If this describes your situation and you think these are good ideas, make sure your work spouse understands the way you feel about your partner just so that they understand they shouldn’t be getting too overzealous either. It’s only what’s most fair to the both of you.
In this case, because you verbally set parameters with your work spouse and they understand you’re happy in your relationship, as long as the friendship doesn’t progress into romantic involvement, your relationship IS NOT cheating.
Or, conversely, maybe your home relationship isn’t as great as you want it to be and your work spouse serves as a reminder of how you settled in the first place…
Option B
What is it about your work spouse that you enjoy so much? Are they hot? Are they kind to you? Do they offer something that your partner doesn’t? Maybe they perform the small acts of kindness that you cherished so much about the beginning of your home relationship that your partner has let fizzle out since the honeymoon phase ended?
Let’s take a closer look.
Physical attraction is easy to overlook because we all see people we would swipe right on every single day, but what about the emotional attraction? What is it about them… This is where it’s most important to decide whether they are treating you terrifically and your partner isn’t, or you’re hyper fixating on the work relationship because it has all the novelty of a shiny new toy while your home relationship is just “ol’ reliable”.
In this case, because of the emotional bond between you two and the hypotheticals you’re drawing about what life would be like with them versus your partner at home, your relationship IS cheating.
This isn’t because there has been a tangible end to your affection, but because you haven’t drawn an explicit line between your romantic and work relationships and you are actively considering life with a coworker.
It isn’t literally cheating because nothing has happened… Or is it?
Cheating can be described in a number of ways. If you Google “cheating definition in a relationship,” it gives the following definition:
“Cheating, also known as infidelity, is when someone in a monogamous relationship has an emotional or sexual relationship with someone else without their partner’s consent. Cheating can include physical and emotional acts:
Physical Cheating: Having sex or making out with someone else, dancing with another person in a sexual way, touching that suggests sexual interest, paid sex, or erotic massages.
Emotional Cheating: Forming a close emotional bond with someone other than your partner, which can divert intimacy that would otherwise go to your relationship. This can often develop innocently with a friend or colleague, or by texting someone else.”
If we really take a second to focus on the “Emotional Cheating” description, this scenario we’ve concocted is heavily laced with infidelity. You are daydreaming about your work spouse, their presence is making you question your relationship, you are drawing comparisons between your partner and your work spouse, and you are probably physically attracted to them.
There are many ways one can interpret a work friendship, but only in specific instances is a work friendship considered cheating. The difference is less within the outside appearance of the relationship but more within your thoughts of the person and your intentions for that relationship. So, is having a work spouse cheating? Nope. Not innately, but if you aren’t romantically attracted to them, you will be doing yourself a favor by just calling them your work bestie, and leaving the connotation of “marriage” out of your description of the friendship entirely. Referring to someone as your “work spouse” definitely implies there is some sort of romantic tension there.
What do you think? Did I miss a point of view? I’ve never had a work spouse but I’ve definitely had work besties that were of the gender I’m attracted to but there was never that level of chemistry, so I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences in the comments below!
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