A Pearl Drop Neclace

My wife, Linda, thirty-one, and I, Sam, thirty-four, met at the wedding of my friends Greg and Angie eleven years ago. Linda and I married six years ago. Happily married. Or so I thought.

Linda is a supervisor in the customer service department of a multinational corporation. Greg and I license and operate four coffee shops associated with a large national chain. Angie is a lawyer specializing in family law. Linda and I don't have children but plan to in the next few years.

Customer service calls at Linda's company initially go to a call center overseas. If the call is escalated, it goes first to a lead service person overseas and then, if the customer is still unhappy, to one of Linda's team or a similar team back here in the U.S. She says the overseas call center people are trained to be sympathetic but to get callers off the phone as quickly as possible. The people overseas can't really do anything to help solve the problems people call in about. Customers are beginning to understand that so more and more calls are escalated to Linda's team, or one like hers, in the U.S.

For the past three or four months, Linda has been working a lot of late nights and Saturdays. She says a lot more calls are being routed to the U.S. from overseas and she doesn't have enough people to handle the call volume. Her company takes customer service calls until 9pm weekdays and until 5pm on Saturdays. Someone has to be there to answer the phone. She has been getting home some weeknights at 10 and has been working all day some Saturdays. At least one night a week and one or two Saturdays a month.

She's a salaried employee so she doesn't get overtime. I told her she should find another job or she could just quit and get pregnant. She could be a stay at home mom. We don't need her income. Linda says she's not ready to have kids. She likes her job and the people she works with. Also, the late nights are temporary until they hire and train new people. She says they are hiring people but they're having these new hires take calls without proper training. She has to be there so she can answer their questions about what to say to customers. I wasn't suspicious of her late nights. We were also having problems hiring people for our coffee shops and Greg and I have been putting in some late nights and weekends too. Not like Linda though.

Last Thursday, Linda called me to tell me that she'd be working late again. She'll be home by 10pm. But she got home at about 6:30pm. She'd been beaten up. She had bruises on her face and her eye was almost swollen shut. I got her seated in the living room and asked her, "What happened?

She said," I left work before the others because I wasn't feeling well. I was mugged in the parking garage. The guy tried to grab my pocketbook but the strap was over my head and around my opposite shoulder. The mugger punched me and knocked me down making it harder for him to get the bag over my head. The mugger kicked me while I was on the ground and kept pulling at the handbag. Finally, some people entered the garage and the mugger ran off."

"Did you call the police?"

"There's no point. The guy was wearing a ski mask so I'll never be able to identify him. He didn't take anything. There are security guards inside my building. I should have asked one of them to walk me to my car. I will from now on or leave with a group. I'll make sure everyone at work knows about the mugging so they'll be careful. It's useless going to the police. The guy is long gone."

"Let me take you to the emergency room. You're obviously in a lot of pain."

"I don't think anything's broken; I can move all my limbs. I'm just very sore. If we go to the emergency room they'll make me fill out a police report. They'll probably think you beat me up. I don't want to spend all night at the ER. I just want to soak in a bath and go to bed."

She started to get up from the couch and winced. I helped her up the stairs and told her I would draw her bath while she undressed. I started to fill the tub. When I went back into our bedroom Linda was hanging up her dress. I hadn't thought of it before but her dress wasn't ripped or dirty. Her shoes weren't scuffed. If she was fighting this guy from the cement floor in a parking garage, her clothes would be torn, ripped or at least dirty. Unlike her battered body, her dress and shoes were fine. And she wasn't wearing pantyhose. Linda always wears pantyhose to work.

But what she was wearing was the pearl drop necklace a co-worker named Fred gave her earlier that week. The necklace was hidden under her dress when she arrived home so I didn't see it until she removed her dress. This was a necklace that Linda and I had argued about. Linda told me she had returned the gift to Fred. When she finished undressing, Linda went to look at the bruises and cuts on her body in our full-length mirror. She saw she was still wearing the necklace. Alarmed, she quickly turned away from me and put on her robe, holding it shut at the throat to hide the necklace from me. She hurried into the bathroom and shut the door.

I looked in her handbag and found her pantyhose stuffed in there. I pulled her pantyhose out. Linda's knees were in bad shape but her pantyhose were in perfect condition. Evidently, Linda took off all her clothes before getting mugged. There was no way she was wearing those clothes if she was rolling around on the cement floor of a parking garage.

After her bath, she got into bed. The necklace was gone but I asked her about it. "I thought you returned the necklace to Fred."

She said, "You wanted me to return it so I did. But I liked how it looked so I bought a similar necklace for myself. Stop with the questions. I was just mugged. Do you really want to question me about a stupid necklace now? Is there anything else you need to interrogate me about? Any other questions that can't wait until I'm feeling better?" I let her go to sleep.

Fred, like Linda, supervises a group of customer service representatives. He's about my age. About four months ago I suddenly started to hear a lot about co-worker Fred. According to Linda he's smart, funny and a great guy. Everyone likes him. He's always there to help. He helped her sort out one of her employees who was being a jerk. He handled the situation perfectly. I started to hear almost daily about this wonderful Fred.

Last Monday, Linda came home from work wearing a pearl drop necklace. I asked her about it and she told me, "It was a gift from Fred. Fred was having some marital problems and I gave him some advice about how he and his wife can communicate better. He was grateful for the advice so he gave me a necklace as a thank you. No big deal." Linda looked at me to see my reaction.

I asked, "What is going on between you and Fred. Why are you constantly talking about him? Why is he giving you gifts?"

"There's nothing going on. He's just a work friend. Fred loves his wife almost as much as I love you. We're just work mates who help each other out at work. We aren't interested in each other that way. No romantic interest whatsoever. He's just someone I can rely on for help and for occasional work advice. Do you remember when I was trying to figure out how to ask my boss for a raise? Fred knew exactly how I should approach it. Trust me, Fred is nothing to worry about. We never see each other outside of work. There's no need for you to be suspicious of Fred."

I told Linda. "I'm uncomfortable with you having a man as a close friend. Especially one who's giving you necklaces."

"Don't be so insecure. There's no other man in my life but you. Certainly not Fred. No attraction there. He's just a friend. You should not be concerned about him for a second. It's ridiculous to think I have any sort of romantic interest in Fred. Or him in me. Stop being silly."

"I want you to give back the necklace. Tell him you only accept gifts from your husband. That his gift is inappropriate."

Linda was taken aback. "I don't see any need to return the necklace. It would be insulting to Fred. It doesn't mean anything other than he was grateful for my advice. If you're concerned, I'll tell him no more gifts from now on. But there's no need to return the necklace. It's pretty and I like it. I've already accepted it. If I give it back, he'll know it was you who forced me to return it. Do you want Fred to think you're a control freak who's jealous of him and doesn't trust your wife?"

"Give it back. I don't care if Fred is offended. I certainly don't care what Fred thinks. A married woman should only accept gifts from her husband."

Linda was angry now, "Why don't you trust me? I've done nothing wrong." Linda started yelling. "Why are you suddenly being so difficult? It will be hugely embarrassing for me to return Fred's gift. It would strain our friendship. I need work friends to survive at work. I'm not giving the gift back. Period. No more discussion. You're taking something completely innocent and blowing it up into some big deal. I'm not going to let you do that. The gift is just a thank you from a friend. It means nothing."

"If it means nothing, just do as I ask."

"Give me one good reason why I should give it back. Other than to soothe your fragile ego."

I told her, "You should give it back because that's what I want you to do. You need no other reason."

Linda saw I was getting angry. She looked at me for a while and then said, "OK, I'll give the necklace back to Fred tomorrow. But you should work on your insecurities."

She stormed out of the room. We went to bed angry, something we swore we would never do. The next morning she wasn't wearing the necklace but asked me in a huff, "Have you realized how silly you were being? Have you changed your mind about me having to give back the necklace."

I said, "We need to discuss you quitting your job."

She replied, "You're a controlling asshole," and left for work.

When I got to our office, my partner and friend Greg noticed I was out of sorts and asked me about it. I told him, "For the first time I'm worried about what's going on with Linda."

He said, "I'm meeting Angie for lunch. Do you want to join us and talk about it." Angie is a divorce attorney. You bet I wanted to join them for lunch.

Over lunch, I described to Greg and Angie my argument with Linda about Fred and the necklace. Angie asked a few questions about what Linda's been saying about Fred. I told her about how wonderful Linda thought Fred was. Angie said, "Fred is Linda's work husband. Some people develop intense emotional bonds with co-workers. It's so common, there's a name for it: work spouses. It usually begins as a platonic relationship. They're just good friends. Nothing romantic. Maybe some mild flirting. But it's all innocent. At least that's what they tell themselves. And, of course, there's no need to tell their real spouse about any of this. But the work spouses become dependent on one another. And these close work friends, these intense work attachments, are almost always with someone from the opposite sex. Funny how that works.

"The relationship with the work spouse can develop into something more. When Linda is at home, she's your wife. When she's at work, she's Fred's wife. Her emotional attachment to her work husband may be as strong as her emotional attachment to you. Some people refuse to leave their jobs, even for a promotion, if it means having to leave their work spouse."

Angie, the divorce attorney, told Greg and me some statistics on infidelity with co-workers: "About 85% of spouses who start to cheat, begin their infidelity with a co-worker. Somewhere around 40% of married employees begin a sexual relationship with the work spouse they've developed an emotional attachment to. And once she begins to cheat, an unfaithful wife is three times more likely to continue to cheat than it is for someone to begin cheating. They cheat on their current husbands, any future husbands, and even cheat on the guys their cheating with. Cheaters start with a work spouse but move on to others." Angie looked at me and said, "An unfaithful wife eventually falls out of love with her work husband and falls in love with the thrill of cheating. Once they get a taste for cheating, unfaithful wives don't give it up. When she's finished with this one, she just moves on to the next one. It's not the guy as much as the thrill of cheating and the affair sex that she's after. The guys she hooks up with are more or less interchangeable.

"It sounds to me that Fred is Linda's work husband. There's a strong emotional attachment already. I see this progression from a Platonic relationship between co-workers to a sexual one all the time with my clients. It's almost a cliché. Most of the divorces I do result from the husband finding out about what his wife is really up to with her work husband. Or the wife finding out her husband is screwing his work wife."

I said, "Linda would never do that. She'd never go as far as a physical relationship with Fred. She'd never cheat on me."

Angie said, "Even if Linda is only involved in an emotional relationship with this Fred, it's already cheating. During the day when she's with her work husband, she thinks about you only when she needs to plan dinner or do some other marital chore. She thinks about her work husband all the time, day and night. She spends way more time at work with him than she does with you. When she decides what to wear to work, when she does her hair, when she's putting on makeup, when she's having sex with you, she's thinking about him. He gets her juices flowing.

"About 50% of women fantasize about other men when they're having sex with their husband. That's more than husbands think about other women when they're having sex with their wives. And half of those wives fantasize about a co-worker. Linda may make dinner for you but everything else she does for him. Sooner or later, they'll hook up. When the husband finds out about what's going on with the work husband, they end up with divorce attorneys. I'd be out of business if it wasn't for work spouses."

Angie continued, "Linda isn't a statistic, so the 40% of married people who go from an emotional attachment to their work spouse to full blown affairs may not apply to her. But it may. If she's accepting gifts from Fred, she's already pretty far down the rabbit hole. Just think how bizarre that is. A married woman accepting a pearl necklace from a male co-worker? A huge red flag."

Greg said, "If Linda's cheating, why would she be so reckless as to wear the necklace in front of Sam and even tell him it's a gift from a male co-worker? Doesn't that say she's not cheating, just, I don't know, that she's insensitive or clueless or stupid? If she actually is cheating with this guy, why do something that would so obviously put any husband on alert?"

Angie said, "From my experience, there are at least three possibilities. First, Linda is so far gone she doesn't realize how inappropriate it is. So far gone she doesn't even hide the necklace from you. All she thinks about is how wonderful Fred and his gift are. Everyone, including you, should think so too. If that's the reason, this may be her first affair. Has Linda been distant from you, no longer interested in having sex with you, hides her phone, seems irritated with you all the time, starts fights?"

"No, just that she works late and on Saturdays. That's new. As far as the other stuff, not really."

"OK. Another reason she's wearing this gift from another man is that she's ready to move on. You were the backup while she tested the waters with Fred. See if he's serious and wants a long term relationship. She's decided she wants to be with him but instead of telling you outright, she's 'telling you' by flaunting her relationship with this guy. You'll get the message eventually, there will be a blow up, and she'll leave you for him. But she wants you to initiate the blowup and separation. Makes her feel less guilty somehow.

"The third reason is the necklace is a trial balloon. She wants to see your reaction to a gift from her lover. Part of the thrill of cheating is sneaking around. But that gets old and hiding everything from you becomes burdensome. She just wants to see other men and is tired of doing it behind your back. If you don't care about the necklace, maybe you won't care that she goes on dates, stays out all night or has weekends away. She starts with the necklace which she can easily walk back by returning it if you freak out. If the necklace isn't a problem for you, she'll see what else she can get away with. What else you won't care about. She wants to remain married for whatever reason but she wants to see this guy and maybe other guys openly."

"So you're saying either this is her first affair and she's so caught up in it that she doesn't know what she's doing; or she's moving on and doesn't have the courage to tell me outright so she's giving me hints, waiting for me to end our marriage; or she's tired of hiding it and wants an open marriage. At least one that's open for her."

"Yup."

"How do I know which it is? Not that it matters. If she's cheating, we're divorcing."

Angie said, "It does matter if you're divorcing. If she is planning to leave you for this guy, unless her new love is giving her advice about how to stick it to you, it makes the divorce easier. She'll be anxious to get on with her new life. Assuming the guy also wants to be with her and she doesn't find out he's just having some fun.

"If she wants to stay married but wants to open your marriage up it means she finds some value in remaining married and may fight the divorce. Say and promise you all sorts of things to get you to reconcile. Live to cheat another day."

Angie continued, "You said you haven't noticed any red flags. If this were her first rodeo, you'd have noticed something. Guilt, distance, phone calls she has to take out of your presence. Some noticeable change in her behavior. You haven't seen that?"

"No."

"Cheating spouses get better at it, and feel less guilty, the more they do it. She may have gotten a lot of practice cheating on boyfriends way before you met her. Since you haven't noticed any real change in her behavior, except working more, this is probably not her first time. First timers are more likely to get caught because there are so many red flags.

"So maybe she's fallen in love with Fred. Maybe she's been sneaking around looking for your replacement and she's finally settled on Fred for some reason. Or maybe she tells herself she's in love with each of the guys she cheats with and Fred is just her latest. The necklace is a symbol of their love which she proudly wants to display.

"My guess is that's not it. My guess is she's just having fun. Fred is the current one or he's one among many. She wants to remain married but doesn't want the confinement of a marriage so she wants to see how far she can go. How far you're willing to let her go.

"You won't know which it is until you confront her. If you ask her what's going on and she says she wants a divorce, you'll know she thinks she's found your replacement. On the other hand, if she denies, gaslights, deflects, trickle-truths, is more interested in how you found out than that you did find out, then it's more likely this isn't her first time. She'll admit to some minor indiscretions, or to what you have proof of, and makes all sorts of promises about her future fidelity. If that's how she responds to being caught, and she wants to remain in the marriage, she's probably a serial cheater. And will remain one regardless of what she tells you.

"Of course, it's always possible this is her first time. Maybe your confronting her makes her wake up from the fantasy she's been having with the other guy. Or maybe she finds out he's not riding off into the sunset with her after all. So she wants to stay married. She'll make the same promises and say the same things the serial cheater does. Basically that it was one mistake and she won't do it again. And she may even believe that. But once she's cheated, she's more likely to continue to cheat."