Tessa*, 29, has had an exciting but stressful year planning her wedding, and now the big day is just a few months away.
But there’s one person ‘casting a shadow over everything’ — her 31-year-old fiancé’s ‘work wife’, Lily. Tessa’s fiancé has been working with Lily, 30, for five years, and their relationship has become increasingly difficult for Tessa to take. She says her future husband constantly texts his colleague, and that she often feels like a third wheel in the relationship.
However the final straw came at the engagement party, where Tessa overheard Lily telling her fiancé: ‘You could always marry me instead.’
She was stunned, and made it clear to her future husband that she didn’t want Lily to come to their wedding.
After he became ‘defensive’ and accused her of being jealous and overreacting, Tessa shared her experience on Reddit to see what other people thought.
‘At first, I was honestly relieved he had a good friend at work, especially since his job can be demanding and a bit isolating,’ she wrote on a viral thread Am I The A*****e. ‘I tried to be the cool, understanding partner who wasn’t bothered by how close they were.
‘But over time, their bond became… well, it became something I just don’t know how to handle.’
Tessa isn’t alone. The vast majority of British workers have a ‘work wife’ or ‘work husband’, with 73% saying they have a ‘special, platonic friendship with a work colleague characterised by a close emotional bond’.
But Lily appears to be a huge part of Tessa’s fiancé’s life. ‘They text constantly, often late into the night about everything from work issues to little jokes,’ she explained.
‘She knows things about him that I sometimes don’t, and it stings to realise how much he turns to her for advice and laughs instead of me. My fiancé reassures me that they’re just friends, that she’s his “work wife,” and that it’s no big deal.
‘But it feels like she’s gotten so close that I’m sometimes the one on the outside looking in.’
Tessa’s experience isn’t uncommon, with almost half of those with a work spouse (43%) admitting they’re more likely to confide in them than their actual husband or wife.
And that can raise major problems if you’re planning a wedding. Lily had plenty of opinions on the big day, claiming the venue ‘doesn’t feel like him’ and that the flowers weren’t going to work because ‘he’s never liked bright colours’.
Lily even took issue with Tessa’s dress, saying she ‘knew his style’ and could help her pick something her future husband would love.
‘I tried to laugh it off, but it hurt more than I wanted to admit. Here I am planning my wedding, and I felt like I had to measure up to her view of who my fiancé is,’ Tessa said.
All this is enough to upset anyone but then came the engagement party.
‘It was supposed to be such a happy day but I kept noticing Lily glued to his side,’ the bride explained. ‘I tried to join their conversations, but every time, she’d bring up a work story or inside joke that left me feeling like a third wheel at my own engagement.
‘Then, in one of the worst moments, I walked up just as she was saying, “You know, if you change your mind, you could always marry me instead.”’
Tessa understandably couldn’t let the comment go and confronted her partner about it later in the evening.
Instead of validating her feelings, her husband-to-be said she was ‘taking it too seriously’ and that Lily was ‘just playing around’.
She said: ‘I felt like I was going crazy, like maybe I was seeing something that wasn’t there, but… how would anyone be okay hearing that from someone so close to their fiancé?’
And the drama didn’t stop there. Tessa’s breaking point came at the end of the night when she came face-to-face with Lily.
‘She came up to me, asking if I was “really okay” with how close they were,’ Tessa recalled. ‘She said something like, “I mean, I can’t imagine him with anyone else.”
‘I wanted to scream, but instead, I just walked away. Later, I told my fiancé I didn’t want her at our wedding, that it was too painful to have someone there who clearly saw herself as part of our relationship.’
But Tessa’s man didn’t give her the reaction she expected.
‘He even implied that uninviting her would “damage his reputation” at work, and now he’s barely talking to me because he says I’m “making him choose” between his best friend and [me],’ she added.
‘I feel hurt, small, and like my feelings don’t matter.’
People had strong feelings about the issue on Reddit, with one anonymous user pointing out that it sounded like Lily and her husband-to-be were having an ‘emotional affair’.
They wrote: ‘Her comments are completely inappropriate and your fiancé‘s willingness to side with her and choose her over you is hugely concerning. I can absolutely predict on the day of the wedding she is going to try to insert herself into everything.
‘It sounds like there’s a level of jealousy here and based on what she did at your engagement party, this is going to escalate on the day you get married.
‘And then you can likely look forward to a future of her inserting yourself into your relationship: the home you buy, your children, and your husband is going to keep allowing this to happen. You need to ask yourself if you can live with the throuple.’
Another said: ‘He sees the situation as having to choose between the two women. He already puts his co-worker on the same plane as his fiancée; which means he is not committed to the fundamental premise of marriage, which is to forsake all others. He has zero concept of emotional boundaries and needs some schooling.’
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.