After I retired I continued to meet ex-colleagues regularly for meals and theatre trips, especially one male colleague with whom I had worked with for many years. Even though I knew this friend fancied me, nothing ever happened. He was a good friend and phoned twice a week to check that I was OK. We started e-mailing each other and though we flirted, it was all light-hearted. I met his wife through him and she and I became friends, meeting once a fortnight. My husband worked away and I looked forward to my time out with both of them. Recently his wife found one of the e-mails that he had written to me. She phoned to ask what was going on and although I said there was nothing in it, she didn’t believe me. As a result, I’ve lost both friends. Should I speak to her again to try to convince her? Or should I speak to him and invite him out again? Do I have to suffer in silence?
I hate to be an I-told-you-so, but I could have told you so if only you’d asked earlier. Anyone who receives batches of sentimental correspondence from the public knows that light-hearted office flirtation is one heavily trafficked route to regret. It takes only a couple of drinks over the top in the local pub or a business trip abroad, or a close encounter behind the water cooler for light hearts to become suddenly heavy. And as we all know, heavy hearts are easily shattered.
Strictly speaking, and speaking not so strictly, too, innocent flirtation can be undertaken by only the innocent. When a woman whose husband is often away and a married man who fancies her begin to flirt, it is an endurance test and a power struggle and about as innocent as Russian roulette.
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I must wonder if you two continued your flirtation even after the beginning of your friendship with his wife. Or does the man not know the function of the “delete” button on his keyboard? “Delete” has saved, or at least postponed, the end of probably almost as many relationships as marriage counselling.
Have you wondered why his wife was browsing his e-mails and what made her open one addressed to you? Idle curiosity? Or had your mutual behaviour given her reason to be suspicious? Sometimes two people attracted to each other are never more flirtatious than when they try very hard not to flirt. It takes but one glance or smile, and any mildly intuitive witness can see what is happening.
I am going into all this because if you can repair the relationship with your friends — and that is far from a sure thing — you must not repeat what nearly destroyed it in the first place.
Unless you are kidding yourself and you really fancy the man, to invite him out on his own is a daft idea. If you only laugh together, flirt some more, dine and drink, and reminisce, sex is the one thing that would be hardly surprising to tie the bow on what in every other way would be an extra-marital affair.
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As the harm was done with the written word, I recommend that you use the same medium for an attempted cure. Write to his wife, on paper I mean. Apologise for behaving stupidly, assure her that absolutely nothing but silly words passed between you and her husband. Tell her honestly from your heart how much you miss her friendship. Then wait for a reply.
If you all meet again, may I suggest that your husband is included in the party.