my boyfriend talks on and on about his “work wife”. i can’t decide if i’m jealous or if i just want to say we can share. can you decide for me?
Having never had a “work wife”, I can’t speak to this with much confidence, but my instinct is to ask if they are peers or on different levels of the corporate hierarchy.
If they’re peers, my gut says they’re just fellow travelers stuck on the same socioeconomic hamster wheel, and are determined to have one another’s backs. Such partnerships are survival strategies, not potential romantic endeavors.
If, on the other hand, there’s a significant power and role imbalance, well, that could merit further inquiry. In that case, they’re not simply two people bonding in a foxhole over their shared desire to make it home… they have very different objectives and paths toward them, which can lead to the kind of symbiotic, interpersonal friction that generates unexpected sparks.
In the former case, tell him you’re ready to share. If the latter, let him know that sharing’s gonna cost him.