A dad-to-be has been left outraged after his 'work wife' showed up to his baby shower and started telling guests she's the 'second mum' to his child. He explained how his 20-year-old coworker started referring to herself as his 'work wife' all because she has a crush on him.
Wanting to keep things "more professional", he asked her to stop as he is a happily married man with a baby on the way. Taking to Reddit, the 29-year-old said: "We have about nine of us in my department and it's a pretty even split between men and women.
"There's one coworker, Eva, who started working here a few months back. She's really good at her job and seems to get along with everyone. We get along well as we work on projects together and are usually in the group of people that are the last to leave most days.
"I learned some weeks ago that she was calling herself my 'work wife'. I knew what the term meant, the sentiment wasn't shared and I've expressed as much.
"I don't think I've been rude about it, I just let her know that I'd prefer for her to keep things a bit more professional.
"There's no real harm in the term, but for someone who doesn't understand the joke, it just looks and sounds wrong. I'm also a happily married man, and my coworkers including Eva know this."
Believing he'd done a "pretty good job of nipping things in the bud", he saw no harm in inviting Eva and his other colleagues to his wife's baby shower.
He added: "Eva comes in and immediately starts back up with the jokes - 'You're his home wife? Nice to meet you!', 'It's so nice to see who takes care of my hubby when I send him home!'
"My wife is a very sweet and patient woman so she just laughed it off, albeit uncomfortably and moved on.
"However the jokes got worse and wouldn't let up. At one point Eva was telling people she would be our baby's second mom.
"My wife's friends and family were annoyed and my wife looked very uncomfortable."
Fed up, the man took Eva aside and asked her to either apologise to his wife for "acting inappropriately" or leave.
"She chose to leave. Word got around to our coworkers what happened and while they agree that she was acting inappropriately, that I should have let her down a little easier, as it was 'Obvious she likes you'," he said.
Wanting to know whether he took things too far, he has asked Reddit users if he was wrong to kick her out the party.
One user said: "I don't think 'work wife' is cute, especially in that situation.
"Your wife was probably mortified, but I am sure it helped that you handled the situation and stood up for her.
"She must be very patient and sweet because I'm not sure I would have been able to keep my mouth shut.
"You have addressed this with Eva before... I'd borderline say it's harassment at this point.
"It's not cute, it's not funny and Eva needs to be a mature adult and act like a professional.
"Completely inappropriate, but especially at you and your actual wife's baby shower."
Another user added: "Send HR an email about this behaviour to get it on the record."
A third user said: "You already asked her to stop once before. Forcing the 'work wife' thing outside of work is creepy and super unprofessional.
"She chose to leave, rather than stop like you asked. How dare she say such things in front of your wife at her baby shower? Gross."
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