BestofRedditorUpdates

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The original was posted on /r/bestofredditorupdates by /u/Choice_Evidence1983 on 2025-03-26 04:00:10+00:00.

I am NOT OOP, OOP is u/Hamzeeki

Originally posted to r/AITAH

AITAH for confronting my wife's coworker for being rude

Editor's note: added paragraph breaks for ease of readability

Trigger Warnings: hostile workplace, bullying, sexual harassment, retaliation

Mood Spoilers: positive

Original Post: February 18, 2025

This situation happened in the summer but it got brought back up again recently so I wanted to have unbiased opinions to see if I crossed the line.

There are three important points I want to state for background purposes before I continue:

1. I (30M) have my own business. I've also been very fortunate that it's doing amazing and I'm very thankful and blessed it's growing.
2. My wife (28F) works in a corporate job at a a well known company, which was also her first job out of college, and was recently promoted to Director. She has people that report to her and she reports directly to the Senior Director.
3. My wife and my I bought land and had a custom made forever home built summer of 2023. We were involved in the whole process from designing the house to what furniture we would get.

The whole process from the house being built to having it fully furnished took a little over a year. We're extremely proud of how it turned out. We love to host gatherings so once the house was done, we threw multiple of them throughout the year. My wife wanted to have a BBQ/Pool party in the summer and wanted to invite her coworkers. Because she was inviting a lot of them, I think around 50, we decided to cater food and outdoor activities like a bouncy castle since some of them were bring their families.

Overall, a lot of planning and thought went into this but my wife was happy doing it. A couple days before the party, she gave some background on some coworkers I've never met. She got to a person named Dick (fake but suitable name) and told me she was her old boss, Director of a different department, and always treated her like crap. My wife was moving up the corporate ladder pretty quickly and he wasn't a big fan of it for some reason. She started out in his department but eventually ended up being a Director and becoming his equal in terms of position. I asked her why she's inviting someone like that and she said she doesn't want him to feel left out and make their work relationship even worse. I guess she wanted to try and work it out outside of company hours to see if anything changes.

But regardless, she asked me to be on my best behavior around him, even if he makes any snide remarks, and she'll handle it. I'm already overprotective of my wife because she's extremely nice and can be a punching bag for some people sometimes, but I told her I'd try my best.

On the day of the party, everything was going smooth. Everybody was having a good time by the pool, backyard games, bouncy castle, etc. Dick came around 30 minutes late but I was the one to greet him at the door while my wife was busy with the guests. I introduced myself to him and ushered him to where the guests were. He was actually nice to talk to while we were talking but his whole demeanor changed when my wife walked over. It was literally like a switch flipped. I ignored it but my wife offered the guests who came late a tour of the house. While we were giving the tour, he kept saying something negative about every room we stopped at.

For example, we showed the living room and he said "the ceilings are too high. Why did you guys do that? Kind of pointless to have". Another example, we got the guest/pool house in the backyard, he said "why did you guys build a guest house? Your house is big enough. It's like you want to show off." He kept making comments like that and made the other guests feel so uncomfortable. I just kept my mouth shut at my wife's request and she would just awkwardly laugh and moved the tour along. After the tour was done, we led them to the the backyard where everyone else was.

Everyone except Dick stayed and he started talking to us. He was asking us questions like " How much was the house?" "Who paid for most of it". Pretty invasive questions in my opinion. I told him that's information I'm not comfortable sharing so we moved on. A little bit later, we were eating and talking with other guests, we got into the topic of the house. Someone mentioned they loved the backyard layout and asked who we had design it. My wife answered saying that we designed everything ourselves. While she was talking, Dick interrupted and said in a very sarcastic tone "Woah be careful not to ask them how much it was. Apparently it's private information that only the elite share with each other".

There was an awkward silence. I honestly had enough because at this point, he's just trying to embarrass her for no reason. I responded "Is there a problem here? Ever since you've came here, you've been rude." He just scoffed and said it just something he wanted to know and then he kept silent. I pressed him and asked why he would need to know? He didn't say anything and just stared. I told him next time when people are talking, you don't need to involve yourself. When I said that, then he started going on a rant. " I don't know who you think you're talking to like that but I thought it was odd and wanted to know how "wife" was able to afford this house on her salary. There's no way she makes enough for this house. Let me guess, you paid for most of it." I cut him off mid rant and said "I can talk to you however I want. I don't work for you and neither does wife. This is also my wife and I's house and you don't get to disrespect us here. I don't know what issues you have with my wife but it ends here."

At this point, and I'm not proud of this, I starting getting into his face and continued saying "Just because you're jealous of my wife and how was she progressed in her career while you stayed at the same position for however long doesn't give you the right to be an asshole. You can get the fuck off my property before I have to force you." He looked dumbfounded because I guess he didn't expect me to get this close. He responded by saying something along the lines of that my wife slept her way to her position and she slept her way to an easy life where she doesn't have to pay for anything, and we're just flaunting our money in people's faces. That was my breaking point so I grabbed him by his collar and started dragging/pushing him out of the house. When I came back, my wife's close coworkers were consoling her and the others decided it was time to go.

When everyone eventually left, my wife told me I didn't have to defend her like that. She's more than capable of taking care of her self. She mentioned that because of my outburst, it's going to make everything awkward at work for her now. I told her I know I shouldn't have done what I did but he was crossing the line. There's only so much I can take. Overall, she's upset that I didn't listen to the one request she had for me, that I let one person ruin the party, and concerned there will be issues at work. Not to mention she's worried I'd get arrested for assault. I told her there's nothing to worry about because she did nothing wrong. She just got up and walked away saying that I don't understand corporate culture. So, AITA in this situation.

AITAH has no consensus bot, OOP was NTA

Top Comments

Commenter 1: Your wife needs to go to HR. The comments about her sleeping her way to the top need to addressed. He's proven he's not capable of maintaining a polite and professional relationship with your wife so something needs to be done.

Commenter 2: I am curious though. Old Dick has continuously disrespected your wife. He continued to not only disrespect your home, your finances and your wife’s reputation. At what point will your wife ‘handle him’. I understand she didn’t want to cause a scene, but the more Dick was left unchecked, the worse he became.

Commenter 3: I think Dick wants to sleep with your wife. I'd be willing to bet there were sexual advances made by him and she shut him down leading to his behavior. She just never told you and didn't want you to find out. She's hiding something or why would she specifically tell you to not defend her from him?

Commenter 4: He’s obviously the AH. He was pushing all the buttons he could to try and have what happened happen. I don’t think you were out of line for not taking his shit anymore, however you should have only addressed his rudeness displayed while at your house, you should NOT under any circumstances have brought up the stuff your wife told you about him in confidence. You messed up there and owe her an apology. Good luck!

Update: February 19, 2025 (next day)

Not sure how to update properly so I left a comment and did a new post as well. Sorry if that's overkill. Also, sorry for the rambling on my post lol. I reread my post and agree with you guys, I did add some useless info. I'm a better speaker than writer lol. Also, my wife and I read all the comments and we actually enjoyed reading them. Even though some were kind of mean, she came to the realization that she needed to be more assertive and not be "spineless" as some people so generously called her.

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