Need Advice: Business partner is becoming a workaholic to escape her marital issues [UPDATE: had a long talk w/her]

[ajayjuneja]

Update:

So Tamara and I met for lunch today. First we talked about a lot of psychological stuff relating to emotional unavailability, passive aggressive behavior, and workaholicism. Steve (her hubby) suffers from all these things.

Tamara was really receptive to hearing all this. We made some HUGE progress in both of our understanding of all these issues.

We then spent a few hours talking about our presentation for panasonic on thursday.

We both started getting ancy from sitting still, so I went shopping with her (body shop, sees candies, a furniture store, and clothing shopping) and helped her pick out lots of clothes. This was the first time I ever had fun clothes shopping. I normally dread it.

I now feel like a surrogate husband esp. when doing the clothes shopping with her though. But emotionally she is doing a lot better, she had a huge smile all day after we went through all that stuff, I guess it's like a blessing that she has someone to talk to about this stuff. And our business stuff is ready for Thursday.

So now all is well. Albeit something feels amiss. I NEVER like to go clothes shopping. We joked around a lot and were playful and I ACTUALLY enjoyed clothes shopping. WTF is with that?

 

[imported_Mike]

me thinks you like her

 

[ajayjuneja]

Originally posted by: CheapArse
me thinks you like her

It was her idea to go shopping. She asked me to come along so we could talk some more... I didn't have any other pressing plans so I just went along... how does "going shopping with her" = liking her?

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: ajayjuneja

Originally posted by: CheapArse
me thinks you like her

It was her idea to go shopping. She asked me to come along so we could talk some more... I didn't have any other pressing plans so I just went along... how does "going shopping with her" = liking her?

It's not that you like her, rather it's the other way around; you said it yourself that you're in effect becomming her surrogate husband. This is a very bad place to be in, as she may become emotionally attached to you like she would her own husband, in effect creating an "emotional affair." You need to break this down, you and she are either buisness partners/coworkers or something more; you can't be both, it simply doesn't work that way. If you don't do this you're either going to have business problems due to one(or more) parties being unable to seperate business from emotion, or personal problems if she decides she likes you more than her real husband, which is going to loop back in to the first problem on top of all the other issues this would create.

 

[imported_Mike]

Originally posted by: ajayjuneja

Originally posted by: CheapArse
me thinks you like her

It was her idea to go shopping. She asked me to come along so we could talk some more... I didn't have any other pressing plans so I just went along... how does "going shopping with her" = liking her?

I NEVER like to go clothes shopping. We joked around a lot and were playful and I ACTUALLY enjoyed clothes shopping. WTF is with that?

When you're shopping in "malls" its all about who you're with, not what you're buying...

 

[Maleficus]

Virge speaks the truth!

 

[AndrewR]

So now all is well. Albeit something feels amiss. I NEVER like to go clothes shopping. We joked around a lot and were playful and I ACTUALLY enjoyed clothes shopping. WTF is with that?

Hmm, are you taking this poster's advice:

hit it.

 

[tallest1]

Originally posted by: Maleficus
Virge speaks the truth!

 

[HardcoreRobot]

you pretty much just did the worst thing possible:

became her cry guy, AND you are getting attached

WTG

 

[conjur]

The more receptive you are to her ranting, the more you will actually damage their relationship.

And clothes shopping w/her?? WTF?


Keep your relationship purely a business one, unless you want your business to fail.

 

[bozack]

Originally posted by: conjur
The more receptive you are to her ranting, the more you will actually damage their relationship.

And clothes shopping w/her?? WTF?


Keep your relationship purely a business one, unless you want your business to fail.

yup, I see an office affair comming along nicely....

 

[ajayjuneja]

Originally posted by: conjur
The more receptive you are to her ranting, the more you will actually damage their relationship.

And clothes shopping w/her?? WTF?


Keep your relationship purely a business one, unless you want your business to fail.

Thanks conjur and everyone else. I thought yesterday felt a little weird. So doing what I did before yesterday (which is put a wall there and tell her to seek therapy from elsewhere) seems to be the right thing to do. Ok, the wall goes back up today.

(with regards to all these people saying "I like her" or "she likes me" -- I see your point). I have, however. been hitting it off again with my old high school sweetheart (Amy) really well, and since *I like Amy a lot* and Amy is moving back to SF in 1-1.5 years, and I have like 7 years of history with her (we've known each other since we were 17) -- yeah, I don't want to be causing any sort of emotional affair with my business partner.

Come to think of it... Tamara did get mad at me once a few months ago when Amy called me and we talked for an hour and a half and I ended up cooking dinner an hour late. I assumed Tamara was mad at me cause she was hungry, not cause she was jealous. I just said, "What's the big deal? You take calls from Steve when I'm around. This is no different."

 

[Hammer]

hmmm... how to best explain this...

she was a ticking TNT time bomb before. and with this latest shopping crap, you just added RDX into the mix.

 

[ajayjuneja]

Originally posted by: Hammer
hmmm... how to best explain this...

she was a ticking TNT time bomb before. and with this latest shopping crap, you just added RDX into the mix.

So will putting the wall back up today tame the explosion? As I pointed out in the post above yours, I see what I did wrong. Being receptive/nice = bad idea.

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: ajayjuneja

Originally posted by: conjur
The more receptive you are to her ranting, the more you will actually damage their relationship.

And clothes shopping w/her?? WTF?


Keep your relationship purely a business one, unless you want your business to fail.

Thanks conjur and everyone else. I thought yesterday felt a little weird. So doing what I did before yesterday (which is put a wall there and tell her to seek therapy from elsewhere) seems to be the right thing to do. Ok, the wall goes back up today.

(with regards to all these people saying "I like her" or "she likes me" -- I see your point). I have, however. been hitting it off again with my old high school sweetheart (Amy) really well, and since *I like Amy a lot* and Amy is moving back to SF in 1-1.5 years, and I have like 7 years of history with her (we've known each other since we were 17) -- yeah, I don't want to be causing any sort of emotional affair with my business partner.

Come to think of it... Tamara did get mad at me once a few months ago when Amy called me and we talked for an hour and a half and I ended up cooking dinner an hour late. I assumed Tamara was mad at me cause she was hungry, not cause she was jealous. I just said, "What's the big deal? You take calls from Steve when I'm around. This is no different."

It's a classic case. I've seen it happen time and time again and I've seen people post about it quite a bit over at YAGT.ORG.

Keep the wall up. :beer:

 

[StageLeft]

Given her marriage and your being in business with her and the fact that you went shopping and enjoyed it and everything else I'd say you're quickly heading down a really catastrophic path. Distance yourself from her emotionally.

 

[Hammer]

Originally posted by: ajayjuneja

Originally posted by: Hammer
hmmm... how to best explain this...

she was a ticking TNT time bomb before. and with this latest shopping crap, you just added RDX into the mix.

So will putting the wall back up today tame the explosion? As I pointed out in the post above yours, I see what I did wrong. Being receptive/nice = bad idea.

hopefully it will contain it. problem is, putting the wall up to quickly may trigger the explosion. do you best though to get it back up as quick as you can, before its too late. the last thing you need is to replace her husband for her emotional needs. cause when you break it off, it will be that much worse.

 

[MrDudeMan]

i think you probably did something really good for her by going shopping, but also really bad for you. it was a nice gesture no doubt, but further emotional involvement could harbor bad sentiment later on when the whole thing falls apart.

im just curious, though...is tamara a girl you could see yourself marrying? i know you said amy is moving back there and you are hitting it off with her, but which of these women do you feel like you have a future with?

im definitely not telling you to date your partner or even think about that...it was just a question. i would say dont even get emotionally closer than a few thousand miles of her if she is still married and your partner.

 

[maziwanka]

just keep it strictly in the friend zone. you know it, we all know it.