February 16, 2026 • 27 mins
What exactly does 'work spouse' entail, and should we retire the term altogether? In this classic, we discuss examples, history and problems.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Anna and Smantha stuff Never Told You
prolecture by Heart Radio. And today we have another sort
of Valentine's Day adjacent episode for you, which is the
(00:28):
work Spouse. Yeah yeah, yeah, again, our Valentine's Day episodes
are all over the place.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
It's a loose interpretation.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Yes, but it did make me. It made me remember
how you and I used to spend all of our
Valentine's Day together, not necessarily purposefully, but it just kind
of happened that way. It's true. Yeah, yeah, And it
is interesting, sting when you work with someone on kind
(01:03):
of like a creative team like this where we do.
There is a level of like I need to know
what's going on in your life and I need to understand,
and then we try to help each other.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
We invest a lot in each other.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Yeah yeah, I mean we also are good friends, yes,
but on top of that, our work does require sort
of a level of hey, what's going on? Right?
Speaker 4 (01:33):
Yeah, So please enjoy this classic episode. Hey, this is
An and Samantha and welcome to stephone Never Told You
a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
And and you have a question for you. We haven't
done this in a while, but have you ever had
a work spouse, or would you ever say that you
actually had a work spouse at any point in time
that you called them this.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
I don't think I've ever called anyone that. I would say, Uh,
given the job we do and how it kind of works, Uh,
I've never called you that, but I would say you
Lauren from Safer and before that, Kristen from Stuff. I
(02:31):
never told you the previous pounder nots like and it's
kind of like your whole day is spent somewhat involved
in what they're doing, and you're working together. Then I
would say those those three, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Oh, you can't have two work spouses any that's not
how this notorous? No, Like, this is not a thing.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Well and Lauren have to fight for my hands?
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Is that? And like according to and we're gonna talk
about some of the reasons why you don't want to
have it, this is one of those reasons jealousy within
the workplace because I used to make jokes about this,
and in my job as a bartender slash brewer and
work in the breweries, I had a dude who he
(03:20):
and I we always paired together because we had the
same schedule. So I had two people that I worked
with specifically, and they're both dudes, and one of them
we were just laughing about the fact that we only
see each other and this is so weird whatever, and
he's like, oh, no, are you my work wife, Like
he said that way incredulously, and I was like, what no,
And then the told joke was that he was my
work husband slash the dude. The other dude that I
(03:43):
uh was working with was my boyfriend, my side piece,
is how we joked about it, just because he wasn't
around as much as this one. But like the one
who said it, the original work spouse was like married,
happily with children and all these things, like all all
those things, and I never really thought of it outside
of we see each other at work and we talk
(04:06):
about work, end of story, Like we don't really talk
about personal life. We talk about our other job because
that was a part time job. His job was difficult,
My job was difficult, so we would talk about that,
but never anything else. So it wasn't ever a thing
outside of that. So it was very innocent to me.
And apparently like in my other job, as when I
(04:28):
worked as a social worker, I made really good friends
with this one dude that I thought nothing about. But
according to who is now another good friend of mine
from that workplace, it was like you stole him from me,
And I was like what, Just like, yeah, we used to.
One of the things we would do is go around
and check up on our kids and make school visits
and house visits and make sure that everything was going okay.
(04:49):
And he and I would partner up and do this
every time. Part of the reason is like he is
a six foot seven dude, very big, and I was like,
you know, it's kind of nice having this when I'm
going to see kids who are on the juvenile list
and that I are all bigger than me, So like
this was not a bad thing, but I didn't think
(05:09):
anything about it. But I think someone had told me
at one point that his wife at the time was
not happy that I would be in the car with
him because we would drive together to these places and
he would either mention my name or something like that.
So I was like, oh, oh no, no, no, no, no, no,
back and off real quick, back and off real quick.
Because in my mind, I hung out with married men,
(05:31):
which is not a great sentiment, but because they were safe,
I did not think of them as again, we've had
this conversation of any being available, so therefore we were fine.
There would be no attachments, there would be no feelings
were good. That is my naivety of like, of course
he's married, why would he want to talk to me.
This is silly. We are just friends. Like it just
(05:51):
didn't make sense or co work coworkers because we didn't
hang out outside of work. We didn't talk or text
each other outside of work. That was not a thing,
it was all. And of course he would tell me
a little bit about his wife, but never his problems.
It was more about like, oh, this are somethings that
we're doing. We're building a house, we're moving here, stuff
like that. So in my head it wasn't a big deal. Well, ye'all,
(06:13):
if you can't tell what this Monday Mini is about,
I think you've got a hint. And we are talking
about the work, wife works, spouses now essentially, and we're
going to cling to that side of the story of
like everything is not what it seems. I guess because
I've gotten so many tech talks. Yes, I know, I've
(06:33):
talked about TikTok constantly for the past six years, just
getting have only been on it for a couple of years,
but anyway, and in the tech talks, there's all about
these stories of work wives gone wrong, essentially a lot
of cheating, a lot of infidelity, or a lot of
problems happening, which I'm not surprised, but I didn't think
(06:54):
that as in like I've called people of work spouses
work husbands being called the work wife, and never had
any ill intent. I will say it that way. So
to see it this way, it feels dramatic, like it's
a soap opera. But apparently goes down, Annie goes down.
But of course, yes I did go down this rabbit hole.
(07:16):
But before we talk about it, I'm gonna talk about
the brief history. And this is according to the cut
dot com and Wikipedia, so those are the two sources
I'm pulling from. So according to the cut dot Com.
In a nineteen thirty three story for The New York Times,
the British journalist and British Liberal Party politician Philip Woodwell
Wilson attributed the term office wife to Prime Minister William
(07:38):
Ewart Gladstone, who Parl Wilson used it to describe the
ideal relationship between a prime minister and his secretary, And
by secretary, Gladstone referred not to the person in an
office stereotypically a woman who answers phones and completes other
administrative tasks, but a person stereotypically a man who serves
(08:01):
as an advisor, ghostwriter, schmoozer beneath a prominent politician, and
by osmosis, absorbs some of his political power. According to Gladstone,
the relationship between politician and secretary should mirror that of
husband and wife, except that both should be men. But still,
I guess office wife would be derogatory because he has
(08:26):
less power the office wife, but still wants to be
a man, right well, it goes on to say. The
terms modern connotations are most often attributed to the journalist
David Owen, who wrote a story called work marriage for
the Atlantic in nineteen eighty seven. Like Gladstone's before him,
(08:49):
Owen's definition of work marriage is allegedly platonic, but unlike Gladstone,
as far as I can tell anyway, According to the writer, Owen,
I bplicitly explains that the peal of a work wife
lies in her being very much like your quote home wife,
except she doesn't nag you. Your work wife would never
(09:12):
ask you why you don't just put your dishes right
into the dishwasher instead of leaving them in the sink.
She doesn't know you do it, he writes. Also, she
would never wedge your car between two others in the
parking lot at Bradley's, sign you up to be the
pie auction here at a church bazaar, or grab hold
of your stomach and ask what's this blubber Dan. She
(09:33):
knows you only as you appear between nine and five,
recently bathed, fully dressed, largely awake, and in control of
your life. In other words, your work wife finds you
sexy long after the woman you married does, so you
can already kind of tell the problem here. So from
(10:03):
the Wikipedia page, it says work spouses is a phrase,
mostly in American English, referring to a co worker with
whom one shares a special relationship, having bonds similar to
those of a marriage. Early references suggest that a work
spouse may not just be a coworker, but can also
be someone in a similar field who the individual works
(10:25):
closely with from a partnering company. A work spouse has
been defined as a special platonic friendship with a work
colleague characterized by a close emotional bond, high levels of
disclosure and support, and mutual trust, honesty, loyalty, and respect.
So again, all of these are supposed to be platonic friendships,
(10:48):
and yes, as you can tell, these are more of
the heteronormative ideas. In fact, the Cut article also notes
that it does bring a layer of hetero sexist ideas.
Owen's work marriage and its larger cultural adaptation is also
exclusively exhaustingly heterosexist, close but platonic relationships that can exist
(11:10):
between coworkers of the opposite sex. The woman coworker is
a wife because that's the only way her male superior
can conceive of her presence in his place of work,
no matter her title, Her primary role is to support him,
and she has little to no power in her own right.
(11:31):
So obviously this kind of goes hand in hand in
that conversation we had about weaponized incompetence, especially with sexism
in the workplace. But again that's not necessarily the focus here,
which we should come back to, because that's a whole
different conversation that we need to have and why that's
not as qusy as many of us think, but like
(11:52):
this conversation in itself about what it is and who
it's belonging to and who get is the title, And yeah,
it does seem that it's mainly about the work wise
being a support and that whole Owen's connentation of her
seeing him as sexy right after the many years of
(12:14):
the marriage with his wife, even after that, which makes
me could like, who is this dude? He can't know
if he was married, He wasn't married for long, right,
there's no way he wrote a whole damn article. Come on, yeah,
like at this point the wife was he never was
(12:36):
married or he just recently got divorced, was on the
cuspod of divorce, Like there's no way.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Yeah, yeah, well, I mean so much of this sounds
like what you hear when you hear about cheating anyway, right,
is that you know? The usually in what we hear,
the woman in very aheadin arm of contacts who the
man and it's cheating with. She is seeing the side
(13:04):
of him that is not the side that the wife
is getting, right.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
The disaster of him not being a husband.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Supportive like wanting someone to essentially just be like, Wow,
you're amazing.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
You're so smart. I love your ideas. Oh yeah, and
you know it's it's that question is this title problematic
in the first place? And should partners and spouses be
worried or jealous? And what does that look like? So
there are studies that show that having good relationships and
the workplace can be healthy, even for your personal relationship.
(13:41):
So in a article written by FastCompany dot com, which
we've talked about when it comes to corporate stuff, interestingly,
when you have a strong relationship with colleagues, it tends
to spill over into your life with your real spouse.
An intriguing study published and applied Psychology found when you
have a great relationship with a friend at work, you'll
be more likely to build a strong, positive relationship with
(14:03):
your husband, wife, or partner. So that was interesting to me.
I was like, really, okay, I mean I think like,
as long as you're open, I know, for the most part, yes, Annie,
I would call you my work spouse as well, because
you're the only person pretty much talk to in our workspace.
But in that we also talk about the fact that
(14:25):
you're pretty much in a relationship with myself and my
partner because you fulfill needs for both of us that
aren't given by the other. So like you give the
gaming nerdy conversations that he is dying for all day.
So when y'all talk about the last of us, when
you talk about games, when you talk about D and
D and I just sit at there, sit and stare
(14:47):
at you with blank faces like I don't know what's happening,
but congratulations. I don't mind that at all. I love
that he for you, like he will fulfill the world.
Like I don't know what's going on in Star Wars,
but he loves it it, wants to go with you
to these things. And I love that y'all have fun.
Like I literally tried to send him away with you
to do the Haunted House. His schedule wouldn't allow it,
(15:10):
well because I didn't want to do it, but I
didn't want you to be by yourself. But I ended
up doing it. But like that was one of my plans.
But also with that, like you and I are very
close and we are very like personal. You come over often,
well not as much anymore, but you did come over often,
and we would have Sunday Sunday Sundays and we would
have personal conversations about what's going on. I know about
(15:32):
your family, you know about my family, all these things,
so like that's definitely an open book, as well as
the fact that my partner knows about everything pretty much
we talk about like there's nothing that's really that secretive
and unless it's like a surprise gift or something. And
that's kind of how I think it's a great relationship
because it's open for all of us. Like I don't
(15:52):
hide anything I talked to you about him or you
know all that. Of course, I don't tell you everything
about me and my partner talked about necessarily because that's
a different relationship on that level. But like that's the
same way with his coworkers. He will come and tell
me most of the things that there's nothing really to
like hide, even with the few people that he talks
to constantly because they have to be online with each
(16:15):
other to help each other work from home. But there
are those things that I'm like, Okay, this seems healthy
to me, and I think it brings up better conversations.
The part of that is, like my partner tells me
a lot about work, and that's a great conversation. That's
kind of that common ground that I know nothing about
but I can be supportive, right, So that's different, Like
I can see that as a thing. And again, Fast
(16:38):
Company does make the point that the majority of people,
or majority of the friends that people make is through work.
It's kind of that proximity and all that. That's all
you've got a lot of the times. Unless you are
doing creating new adult hobbies, which is awesome, and are
actually active in getting out there, most likely the only
places that you're able to make friends is through work.
(17:01):
And yeah, I think with the closest first, I bring
out like two or three friends per workplace I've discovered.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
Yeah, which is pretty good. I feel like I would
say probably two thirds of my friends I made through
work that I am in constant like contact, right, Right,
It's true. I mean, if you're spending your time with them,
you have common shared experiences because you have things you
can complain about together.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Right, it makes sense. You're right, we complain a lot too.
But again, this proximity thing can be dangerous, especially when
it's crossing boundaries. According to a Newsweek article, many people
don't think this type of relationship is appropriate, so they say.
According to a poll conducted by red Field and with
(17:46):
Wilton Strategies for Newsweek of US adults, that is okay
to have a work spouse, but forty five percent said
it wasn't appropriate, and the study goes on saying that
it could be a generational thing. Feelings about work spouses
are sharply divided along generational lines. Members of Gen Z
(18:08):
and Baby Boomers, which to me this is a huge gap,
are most likely to approve of work spouse relationships. The
middle cohorts, millennials, and Generation X are more likely to disapprove,
which I found is interesting because technically, again I would
be Gen X slash millennials. I'm an ex millennial is
never that is, I don't have a problem with it necessarily,
(18:31):
This again has an underlying issue not necessarily do you
trust but are they trustworthy? But the fact that like
Gen Z and Baby Boomers was surprising to me. I
feel like those are two different reasons to why.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Yeah, my dy jerk answer would be, I don't know,
maybe I'm totally wrong, but I feel like a lot
of this feels so like Boomer generation right, which is,
you know, women coming into the workplace, she's still going
to be some ordinate to me, but she's in here
(19:04):
and then the woman at home, because that was the
situation at the time. Most of the time, the wife
may be wondering why he's.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Still not home.
Speaker 5 (19:14):
I can't share that part of her life with him.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
I remember once this is such a weird story and
I still don't know what to make of it. But
one time my dad came home late and I kissed him.
I was like eight, I was young. I kissed him
on the cheek and I had I was like wearing
lipstick and it made like a you know, a little
kind of lipstick on his cheek. And he was like, oh, great,
(19:49):
Now your mom's gonna be mad. She's gonna think I'm
having an affair. And you know, as a kid, I
was like, what what Yeah, so I would think it
was it would be much more they would think.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
That, But right, I know, I agree. I find that odd.
I find this like a lot of other than who
did they ask just a bunch of men who was
like hell yeah, yeah, boomers who were like yeah, absolutely,
Like I just think of like a Madman generation of
which is like I feel like that was the not
the startup, but the beginning of the stereotype of like
(20:25):
the secretary of fair thing.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it is a big trope, and
that is true. It is a big trope.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
So I just wonder if I were like the men
of that generation was like, yeah, we loved having work wives.
You know, what does that mean? What does that mean?
Or maybe it's just like back into that conversation of
like having someone who is your subordinate do all your
work for you and you get to take credit. It's
usually a woman like it isn't that due, which is
also part of mad Men. Right. So again, according to
Lovepanky dot com, I didn't make you say that you're welcome.
(20:56):
There are some pros and cons to having work spouses,
and I feel like that was on everything and there's
even like how to like being like you know, they
were great. But some of the pros would be companionship
at work. Obviously it's nice to have a friend there
so it's not an awful day at work being able
to collaborate with someone, and then it boosts your confidence
(21:17):
when you have someone backing you, like I definitely have
really great friends who like we both would come through
and have conversations about ideas and especially if you need
validation of like am I crazy for thinking this was
like off or this way, and they're like no, no, no,
this is this, so having that, But then of course
there's the cons There's jealousy from other coworkers, which I
dealt with and some that I was like wow, and
(21:39):
then we would just joke like I'm I'm just nicer
with than you. Just kidding, but no, like having people
being jealous of other people's bonds, competition from co workers,
and trying to be closer to different people. Maybe it's
closer to the boss who knows, and it can cause
problems with your actual spouse, which again that's that big
(22:01):
question of like who who is being hurt here? Again,
there are things that I've seen on TikTok are far
more dramatic and life changing than what we were talking
about here, especially with the connotations of the conversation, like
kind of joking to me, it's such a joke term
that didn't really think about what that implies. But yeah,
probably not the best to go home to someone and
(22:21):
be like, yeah, my work wife and just keep referencing
them as a work wife, and then if they're too
into the joke, I feel like that's a big red flag,
like they need to stop there's something odd going on.
There's all these warning signs of them, people being too
close to their works, bosses, workwives, where husbands, like the
fact that if they never want you to meet them,
(22:43):
that's a huge red flag. And I would think that too. Yeah,
of course we know when it comes to cheating, there's
so many other things that contribute to cheating. And then
there's a whole underlying factor, not that that it's not
people's faults. It is, but like we know, oftentimes with
the trust issues, commitment issues, we don't know how far
or what's happening in a marriage or a relationship that
(23:03):
could be the catalyst, but this could be the final
nail on the coffin or the beginning. And me again, personally,
it's discussing unnecessary to cheat, especially if you're in a
committed relationship with open conversations of being committed. Of course, again,
if you're a polyamorous and if you have other open
if you have open marriages and such, coco cool. But
(23:24):
for those who are doing these and lying and hurting people,
of course it's gross. Uh Yeah. And for some just
the level of closeness borders on cheating. Uh. And there's
a lot of that conversation. I mean, you would say
that this is emotional cheating, especially if all you do
is confide into that work spouse about the problems that
(23:45):
you're of your marriage or your relationship. That's a reflag.
If you're doing that, that is emotional cheating. If you're
investing in them to get all of your like confidence
and all of your like, there's something wrong with that too.
And then there's this level of conversation that you have
again and the personal information that it's being shared. Again,
there's a few things that I understand, Like for sure,
(24:06):
if I'm upset or something and we have this conversation,
and I guess it really is like, especially if it's
the opposite sex, with you being heterosexual, that's a whole problem.
If you're not and you're having this conversation with someone
that you're a little too attracted to, also like a
big problem too, especially again if it's not agreed upon
(24:28):
to be open or to be polly or whatever whatnot.
That's the whole level of like h red flag. So
definitely some ideals, and then like a lot of conversations
and a lot of articles came to like maybe we
should just retire that phrase all together, and I'm like, yeah,
(24:49):
maybe it's not a bad idea.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Yeah, I mean I think it served. It serves a purpose.
It served a purpose of the person you like, work
really closely with. But maybe there's a better, uh way
to say it, also say, because I wasn't entirely sure
what the meaning actually meant. I was in a situation
once with the guy he's actually gay, but we were
(25:11):
very very close and we worked together. But everyone everyone
was like, oh, you're in love. They would always tell
me that, oh you're in love, or oh you were
trying to get ahead, or you were trying to So
I also think there's like that situation is the whole
thing I could go into. But I also think there
is a layer of whenever women are hanging around men
(25:33):
that maybe have more power than them, it's seen as, oh,
I know what you're trying to do, right right?
Speaker 2 (25:40):
Well, then yeah, again, everybody has as you're talking about
the rumor mill in general, it doesn't matter if they
see that. I was told co repeatedly, everybody's like, y'all
are sleeping together, you know, like, what what are you
talking about? And being very shocked, And yeah, I actually
had a similar incident where my coworker was gay. He
didn't come out at work, came out to a few
(26:01):
of us, and of course so it wasn't our business
to out them. And so people would be like, y'all
are gonna y'all shouldhould date, y'all should do these things,
and I'd just be like, I'm not his type, like
or he's not my type. Like that's just that's just
the end of the conference, right, it wouldn't go well,
(26:21):
but like, but the level of like gossip, which could
be a problem in itself, and that could start some
trouble obviously with your relationships as well, no matter what. Yeah,
it's the whole thing. But seeing I don't know if
we're coming at the end of this term and it's
like downfall. Although again, terms have nothing, no really no
(26:42):
real power. Honestly when it comes to when people do
bad things in general. We know this, but like there
there is something to be like, yeah, maybe that's just
that rhetoric needs to go.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
Yeah, well, listeners, let us know what you should it
say or should it go. You can email us at
Stuffmedia Momstuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You can find us
on Twitter at mamstup podcast or on Instagram and TikTok
at stuff I Never told you. We have a tea
(27:14):
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Thank you, Thanks to you for listening Stuff I Never
told you the production of iHeart Radio. For more podcast
from my Heart Radio, you can check out the heart
Radio app, Apple podcast or where you listen to your
favorite shows
Hey, this is Anna and Smantha stuff Never Told You
prolecture by Heart Radio. And today we have another sort
of Valentine's Day adjacent episode for you, which is the
(00:28):
work Spouse. Yeah yeah, yeah, again, our Valentine's Day episodes
are all over the place.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
It's a loose interpretation.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Yes, but it did make me. It made me remember
how you and I used to spend all of our
Valentine's Day together, not necessarily purposefully, but it just kind
of happened that way. It's true. Yeah, yeah, And it
is interesting, sting when you work with someone on kind
(01:03):
of like a creative team like this where we do.
There is a level of like I need to know
what's going on in your life and I need to understand,
and then we try to help each other.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
We invest a lot in each other.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Yeah yeah, I mean we also are good friends, yes,
but on top of that, our work does require sort
of a level of hey, what's going on? Right?
Speaker 4 (01:33):
Yeah, So please enjoy this classic episode. Hey, this is
An and Samantha and welcome to stephone Never Told You
a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
And and you have a question for you. We haven't
done this in a while, but have you ever had
a work spouse, or would you ever say that you
actually had a work spouse at any point in time
that you called them this.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
I don't think I've ever called anyone that. I would say, Uh,
given the job we do and how it kind of works, Uh,
I've never called you that, but I would say you
Lauren from Safer and before that, Kristen from Stuff. I
(02:31):
never told you the previous pounder nots like and it's
kind of like your whole day is spent somewhat involved
in what they're doing, and you're working together. Then I
would say those those three, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Oh, you can't have two work spouses any that's not
how this notorous? No, Like, this is not a thing.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Well and Lauren have to fight for my hands?
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Is that? And like according to and we're gonna talk
about some of the reasons why you don't want to
have it, this is one of those reasons jealousy within
the workplace because I used to make jokes about this,
and in my job as a bartender slash brewer and
work in the breweries, I had a dude who he
(03:20):
and I we always paired together because we had the
same schedule. So I had two people that I worked
with specifically, and they're both dudes, and one of them
we were just laughing about the fact that we only
see each other and this is so weird whatever, and
he's like, oh, no, are you my work wife, Like
he said that way incredulously, and I was like, what no,
And then the told joke was that he was my
work husband slash the dude. The other dude that I
(03:43):
uh was working with was my boyfriend, my side piece,
is how we joked about it, just because he wasn't
around as much as this one. But like the one
who said it, the original work spouse was like married,
happily with children and all these things, like all all
those things, and I never really thought of it outside
of we see each other at work and we talk
(04:06):
about work, end of story, Like we don't really talk
about personal life. We talk about our other job because
that was a part time job. His job was difficult,
My job was difficult, so we would talk about that,
but never anything else. So it wasn't ever a thing
outside of that. So it was very innocent to me.
And apparently like in my other job, as when I
(04:28):
worked as a social worker, I made really good friends
with this one dude that I thought nothing about. But
according to who is now another good friend of mine
from that workplace, it was like you stole him from me,
And I was like what, Just like, yeah, we used to.
One of the things we would do is go around
and check up on our kids and make school visits
and house visits and make sure that everything was going okay.
(04:49):
And he and I would partner up and do this
every time. Part of the reason is like he is
a six foot seven dude, very big, and I was like,
you know, it's kind of nice having this when I'm
going to see kids who are on the juvenile list
and that I are all bigger than me, So like
this was not a bad thing, but I didn't think
(05:09):
anything about it. But I think someone had told me
at one point that his wife at the time was
not happy that I would be in the car with
him because we would drive together to these places and
he would either mention my name or something like that.
So I was like, oh, oh no, no, no, no, no, no,
back and off real quick, back and off real quick.
Because in my mind, I hung out with married men,
(05:31):
which is not a great sentiment, but because they were safe,
I did not think of them as again, we've had
this conversation of any being available, so therefore we were fine.
There would be no attachments, there would be no feelings
were good. That is my naivety of like, of course
he's married, why would he want to talk to me.
This is silly. We are just friends. Like it just
(05:51):
didn't make sense or co work coworkers because we didn't
hang out outside of work. We didn't talk or text
each other outside of work. That was not a thing,
it was all. And of course he would tell me
a little bit about his wife, but never his problems.
It was more about like, oh, this are somethings that
we're doing. We're building a house, we're moving here, stuff
like that. So in my head it wasn't a big deal. Well, ye'all,
(06:13):
if you can't tell what this Monday Mini is about,
I think you've got a hint. And we are talking
about the work, wife works, spouses now essentially, and we're
going to cling to that side of the story of
like everything is not what it seems. I guess because
I've gotten so many tech talks. Yes, I know, I've
(06:33):
talked about TikTok constantly for the past six years, just
getting have only been on it for a couple of years,
but anyway, and in the tech talks, there's all about
these stories of work wives gone wrong, essentially a lot
of cheating, a lot of infidelity, or a lot of
problems happening, which I'm not surprised, but I didn't think
(06:54):
that as in like I've called people of work spouses
work husbands being called the work wife, and never had
any ill intent. I will say it that way. So
to see it this way, it feels dramatic, like it's
a soap opera. But apparently goes down, Annie goes down.
But of course, yes I did go down this rabbit hole.
(07:16):
But before we talk about it, I'm gonna talk about
the brief history. And this is according to the cut
dot com and Wikipedia, so those are the two sources
I'm pulling from. So according to the cut dot Com.
In a nineteen thirty three story for The New York Times,
the British journalist and British Liberal Party politician Philip Woodwell
Wilson attributed the term office wife to Prime Minister William
(07:38):
Ewart Gladstone, who Parl Wilson used it to describe the
ideal relationship between a prime minister and his secretary, And
by secretary, Gladstone referred not to the person in an
office stereotypically a woman who answers phones and completes other
administrative tasks, but a person stereotypically a man who serves
(08:01):
as an advisor, ghostwriter, schmoozer beneath a prominent politician, and
by osmosis, absorbs some of his political power. According to Gladstone,
the relationship between politician and secretary should mirror that of
husband and wife, except that both should be men. But still,
I guess office wife would be derogatory because he has
(08:26):
less power the office wife, but still wants to be
a man, right well, it goes on to say. The
terms modern connotations are most often attributed to the journalist
David Owen, who wrote a story called work marriage for
the Atlantic in nineteen eighty seven. Like Gladstone's before him,
(08:49):
Owen's definition of work marriage is allegedly platonic, but unlike Gladstone,
as far as I can tell anyway, According to the writer, Owen,
I bplicitly explains that the peal of a work wife
lies in her being very much like your quote home wife,
except she doesn't nag you. Your work wife would never
(09:12):
ask you why you don't just put your dishes right
into the dishwasher instead of leaving them in the sink.
She doesn't know you do it, he writes. Also, she
would never wedge your car between two others in the
parking lot at Bradley's, sign you up to be the
pie auction here at a church bazaar, or grab hold
of your stomach and ask what's this blubber Dan. She
(09:33):
knows you only as you appear between nine and five,
recently bathed, fully dressed, largely awake, and in control of
your life. In other words, your work wife finds you
sexy long after the woman you married does, so you
can already kind of tell the problem here. So from
(10:03):
the Wikipedia page, it says work spouses is a phrase,
mostly in American English, referring to a co worker with
whom one shares a special relationship, having bonds similar to
those of a marriage. Early references suggest that a work
spouse may not just be a coworker, but can also
be someone in a similar field who the individual works
(10:25):
closely with from a partnering company. A work spouse has
been defined as a special platonic friendship with a work
colleague characterized by a close emotional bond, high levels of
disclosure and support, and mutual trust, honesty, loyalty, and respect.
So again, all of these are supposed to be platonic friendships,
(10:48):
and yes, as you can tell, these are more of
the heteronormative ideas. In fact, the Cut article also notes
that it does bring a layer of hetero sexist ideas.
Owen's work marriage and its larger cultural adaptation is also
exclusively exhaustingly heterosexist, close but platonic relationships that can exist
(11:10):
between coworkers of the opposite sex. The woman coworker is
a wife because that's the only way her male superior
can conceive of her presence in his place of work,
no matter her title, Her primary role is to support him,
and she has little to no power in her own right.
(11:31):
So obviously this kind of goes hand in hand in
that conversation we had about weaponized incompetence, especially with sexism
in the workplace. But again that's not necessarily the focus here,
which we should come back to, because that's a whole
different conversation that we need to have and why that's
not as qusy as many of us think, but like
(11:52):
this conversation in itself about what it is and who
it's belonging to and who get is the title, And yeah,
it does seem that it's mainly about the work wise
being a support and that whole Owen's connentation of her
seeing him as sexy right after the many years of
(12:14):
the marriage with his wife, even after that, which makes
me could like, who is this dude? He can't know
if he was married, He wasn't married for long, right,
there's no way he wrote a whole damn article. Come on, yeah,
like at this point the wife was he never was
(12:36):
married or he just recently got divorced, was on the
cuspod of divorce, Like there's no way.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Yeah, yeah, well, I mean so much of this sounds
like what you hear when you hear about cheating anyway, right,
is that you know? The usually in what we hear,
the woman in very aheadin arm of contacts who the
man and it's cheating with. She is seeing the side
(13:04):
of him that is not the side that the wife
is getting, right.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
The disaster of him not being a husband.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Supportive like wanting someone to essentially just be like, Wow,
you're amazing.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
You're so smart. I love your ideas. Oh yeah, and
you know it's it's that question is this title problematic
in the first place? And should partners and spouses be
worried or jealous? And what does that look like? So
there are studies that show that having good relationships and
the workplace can be healthy, even for your personal relationship.
(13:41):
So in a article written by FastCompany dot com, which
we've talked about when it comes to corporate stuff, interestingly,
when you have a strong relationship with colleagues, it tends
to spill over into your life with your real spouse.
An intriguing study published and applied Psychology found when you
have a great relationship with a friend at work, you'll
be more likely to build a strong, positive relationship with
(14:03):
your husband, wife, or partner. So that was interesting to me.
I was like, really, okay, I mean I think like,
as long as you're open, I know, for the most part, yes, Annie,
I would call you my work spouse as well, because
you're the only person pretty much talk to in our workspace.
But in that we also talk about the fact that
(14:25):
you're pretty much in a relationship with myself and my
partner because you fulfill needs for both of us that
aren't given by the other. So like you give the
gaming nerdy conversations that he is dying for all day.
So when y'all talk about the last of us, when
you talk about games, when you talk about D and
D and I just sit at there, sit and stare
(14:47):
at you with blank faces like I don't know what's happening,
but congratulations. I don't mind that at all. I love
that he for you, like he will fulfill the world.
Like I don't know what's going on in Star Wars,
but he loves it it, wants to go with you
to these things. And I love that y'all have fun.
Like I literally tried to send him away with you
to do the Haunted House. His schedule wouldn't allow it,
(15:10):
well because I didn't want to do it, but I
didn't want you to be by yourself. But I ended
up doing it. But like that was one of my plans.
But also with that, like you and I are very
close and we are very like personal. You come over often,
well not as much anymore, but you did come over often,
and we would have Sunday Sunday Sundays and we would
have personal conversations about what's going on. I know about
(15:32):
your family, you know about my family, all these things,
so like that's definitely an open book, as well as
the fact that my partner knows about everything pretty much
we talk about like there's nothing that's really that secretive
and unless it's like a surprise gift or something. And
that's kind of how I think it's a great relationship
because it's open for all of us. Like I don't
(15:52):
hide anything I talked to you about him or you
know all that. Of course, I don't tell you everything
about me and my partner talked about necessarily because that's
a different relationship on that level. But like that's the
same way with his coworkers. He will come and tell
me most of the things that there's nothing really to
like hide, even with the few people that he talks
to constantly because they have to be online with each
(16:15):
other to help each other work from home. But there
are those things that I'm like, Okay, this seems healthy
to me, and I think it brings up better conversations.
The part of that is, like my partner tells me
a lot about work, and that's a great conversation. That's
kind of that common ground that I know nothing about
but I can be supportive, right, So that's different, Like
I can see that as a thing. And again, Fast
(16:38):
Company does make the point that the majority of people,
or majority of the friends that people make is through work.
It's kind of that proximity and all that. That's all
you've got a lot of the times. Unless you are
doing creating new adult hobbies, which is awesome, and are
actually active in getting out there, most likely the only
places that you're able to make friends is through work.
(17:01):
And yeah, I think with the closest first, I bring
out like two or three friends per workplace I've discovered.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
Yeah, which is pretty good. I feel like I would
say probably two thirds of my friends I made through
work that I am in constant like contact, right, Right,
It's true. I mean, if you're spending your time with them,
you have common shared experiences because you have things you
can complain about together.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Right, it makes sense. You're right, we complain a lot too.
But again, this proximity thing can be dangerous, especially when
it's crossing boundaries. According to a Newsweek article, many people
don't think this type of relationship is appropriate, so they say.
According to a poll conducted by red Field and with
(17:46):
Wilton Strategies for Newsweek of US adults, that is okay
to have a work spouse, but forty five percent said
it wasn't appropriate, and the study goes on saying that
it could be a generational thing. Feelings about work spouses
are sharply divided along generational lines. Members of Gen Z
(18:08):
and Baby Boomers, which to me this is a huge gap,
are most likely to approve of work spouse relationships. The
middle cohorts, millennials, and Generation X are more likely to disapprove,
which I found is interesting because technically, again I would
be Gen X slash millennials. I'm an ex millennial is
never that is, I don't have a problem with it necessarily,
(18:31):
This again has an underlying issue not necessarily do you
trust but are they trustworthy? But the fact that like
Gen Z and Baby Boomers was surprising to me. I
feel like those are two different reasons to why.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Yeah, my dy jerk answer would be, I don't know,
maybe I'm totally wrong, but I feel like a lot
of this feels so like Boomer generation right, which is,
you know, women coming into the workplace, she's still going
to be some ordinate to me, but she's in here
(19:04):
and then the woman at home, because that was the
situation at the time. Most of the time, the wife
may be wondering why he's.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Still not home.
Speaker 5 (19:14):
I can't share that part of her life with him.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
I remember once this is such a weird story and
I still don't know what to make of it. But
one time my dad came home late and I kissed him.
I was like eight, I was young. I kissed him
on the cheek and I had I was like wearing
lipstick and it made like a you know, a little
kind of lipstick on his cheek. And he was like, oh, great,
(19:49):
Now your mom's gonna be mad. She's gonna think I'm
having an affair. And you know, as a kid, I
was like, what what Yeah, so I would think it
was it would be much more they would think.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
That, But right, I know, I agree. I find that odd.
I find this like a lot of other than who
did they ask just a bunch of men who was
like hell yeah, yeah, boomers who were like yeah, absolutely,
Like I just think of like a Madman generation of
which is like I feel like that was the not
the startup, but the beginning of the stereotype of like
(20:25):
the secretary of fair thing.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it is a big trope, and
that is true. It is a big trope.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
So I just wonder if I were like the men
of that generation was like, yeah, we loved having work wives.
You know, what does that mean? What does that mean?
Or maybe it's just like back into that conversation of
like having someone who is your subordinate do all your
work for you and you get to take credit. It's
usually a woman like it isn't that due, which is
also part of mad Men. Right. So again, according to
Lovepanky dot com, I didn't make you say that you're welcome.
(20:56):
There are some pros and cons to having work spouses,
and I feel like that was on everything and there's
even like how to like being like you know, they
were great. But some of the pros would be companionship
at work. Obviously it's nice to have a friend there
so it's not an awful day at work being able
to collaborate with someone, and then it boosts your confidence
(21:17):
when you have someone backing you, like I definitely have
really great friends who like we both would come through
and have conversations about ideas and especially if you need
validation of like am I crazy for thinking this was
like off or this way, and they're like no, no, no,
this is this, so having that, But then of course
there's the cons There's jealousy from other coworkers, which I
dealt with and some that I was like wow, and
(21:39):
then we would just joke like I'm I'm just nicer
with than you. Just kidding, but no, like having people
being jealous of other people's bonds, competition from co workers,
and trying to be closer to different people. Maybe it's
closer to the boss who knows, and it can cause
problems with your actual spouse, which again that's that big
(22:01):
question of like who who is being hurt here? Again,
there are things that I've seen on TikTok are far
more dramatic and life changing than what we were talking
about here, especially with the connotations of the conversation, like
kind of joking to me, it's such a joke term
that didn't really think about what that implies. But yeah,
probably not the best to go home to someone and
(22:21):
be like, yeah, my work wife and just keep referencing
them as a work wife, and then if they're too
into the joke, I feel like that's a big red flag,
like they need to stop there's something odd going on.
There's all these warning signs of them, people being too
close to their works, bosses, workwives, where husbands, like the
fact that if they never want you to meet them,
(22:43):
that's a huge red flag. And I would think that too. Yeah,
of course we know when it comes to cheating, there's
so many other things that contribute to cheating. And then
there's a whole underlying factor, not that that it's not
people's faults. It is, but like we know, oftentimes with
the trust issues, commitment issues, we don't know how far
or what's happening in a marriage or a relationship that
(23:03):
could be the catalyst, but this could be the final
nail on the coffin or the beginning. And me again, personally,
it's discussing unnecessary to cheat, especially if you're in a
committed relationship with open conversations of being committed. Of course, again,
if you're a polyamorous and if you have other open
if you have open marriages and such, coco cool. But
(23:24):
for those who are doing these and lying and hurting people,
of course it's gross. Uh Yeah. And for some just
the level of closeness borders on cheating. Uh. And there's
a lot of that conversation. I mean, you would say
that this is emotional cheating, especially if all you do
is confide into that work spouse about the problems that
(23:45):
you're of your marriage or your relationship. That's a reflag.
If you're doing that, that is emotional cheating. If you're
investing in them to get all of your like confidence
and all of your like, there's something wrong with that too.
And then there's this level of conversation that you have
again and the personal information that it's being shared. Again,
there's a few things that I understand, Like for sure,
(24:06):
if I'm upset or something and we have this conversation,
and I guess it really is like, especially if it's
the opposite sex, with you being heterosexual, that's a whole problem.
If you're not and you're having this conversation with someone
that you're a little too attracted to, also like a
big problem too, especially again if it's not agreed upon
(24:28):
to be open or to be polly or whatever whatnot.
That's the whole level of like h red flag. So
definitely some ideals, and then like a lot of conversations
and a lot of articles came to like maybe we
should just retire that phrase all together, and I'm like, yeah,
(24:49):
maybe it's not a bad idea.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Yeah, I mean I think it served. It serves a purpose.
It served a purpose of the person you like, work
really closely with. But maybe there's a better, uh way
to say it, also say, because I wasn't entirely sure
what the meaning actually meant. I was in a situation
once with the guy he's actually gay, but we were
(25:11):
very very close and we worked together. But everyone everyone
was like, oh, you're in love. They would always tell
me that, oh you're in love, or oh you were
trying to get ahead, or you were trying to So
I also think there's like that situation is the whole
thing I could go into. But I also think there
is a layer of whenever women are hanging around men
(25:33):
that maybe have more power than them, it's seen as, oh,
I know what you're trying to do, right right?
Speaker 2 (25:40):
Well, then yeah, again, everybody has as you're talking about
the rumor mill in general, it doesn't matter if they
see that. I was told co repeatedly, everybody's like, y'all
are sleeping together, you know, like, what what are you
talking about? And being very shocked, And yeah, I actually
had a similar incident where my coworker was gay. He
didn't come out at work, came out to a few
(26:01):
of us, and of course so it wasn't our business
to out them. And so people would be like, y'all
are gonna y'all shouldhould date, y'all should do these things,
and I'd just be like, I'm not his type, like
or he's not my type. Like that's just that's just
the end of the conference, right, it wouldn't go well,
(26:21):
but like, but the level of like gossip, which could
be a problem in itself, and that could start some
trouble obviously with your relationships as well, no matter what. Yeah,
it's the whole thing. But seeing I don't know if
we're coming at the end of this term and it's
like downfall. Although again, terms have nothing, no really no
(26:42):
real power. Honestly when it comes to when people do
bad things in general. We know this, but like there
there is something to be like, yeah, maybe that's just
that rhetoric needs to go.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
Yeah, well, listeners, let us know what you should it
say or should it go. You can email us at
Stuffmedia Momstuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You can find us
on Twitter at mamstup podcast or on Instagram and TikTok
at stuff I Never told you. We have a tea
(27:14):
public store, and we have a book you can get
wherever you get your books. Thanks as always to our
super producer Christina or executive producer Maya and your contributor Joey.
Thank you, Thanks to you for listening Stuff I Never
told you the production of iHeart Radio. For more podcast
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