My Wife Applied for the Same Promotion as Me Without Telling Me

According to specialists, there is some correlation between how good you get along with your manager and how successful you are at your job. But that boss-worker relationship can become tricky when you’re married to your higher up, since personal affairs might mix with work.

Bright Side received a letter from David, a concerned husband, asking for advice. So we wanted to give our 2 cents to try to help him.

Thank you for writing to us, David! Our Bright Side team gathered to keep the conversation on relationships within the workplace going and to try to help you navigate through this.

• This is a very tricky situation since your wife not only hid information from you, but she actually lied to you about her application. According to some psychologists, lies and secrets can destroy a relationship since they damage the ability to trust your partner.

• At first glance, it sounds like your wife didn’t apologize for not telling you what she was planning to do. Things like that can hurt your feelings even more if the other person doesn’t own up to being wrong.

• Express all your feelings to your wife and set boundaries in your relationship. It might be good to explain to your spouse exactly why you are hurt while also expressing that, in the future, lying is something you won’t be tolerating anymore. Boundaries are a very important part in healthy relationships, since they try to avoid these kinds of situations.

• Seek a couples counselor if your wife still doesn’t accept her wrong doing. Having an intermediary might help her realize the gravity of her choices, since it’s not only you telling her that she did something wrong.

• Set boundaries in the workplace. It’s not an easy task to work for someone you really care about because it’s almost impossible to not have feelings of resentment. If you plan to stay in your current job, have a long conversation with your wife about how you want all your interactions in the office to happen. Don’t leave anything out.

• Look for another position. If you don’t feel like working with your wife anymore, you can try to talk to the HR department to seek for a different position, or look for other job opportunities in a company with a policy that forbids working with a significant other, so that it won’t happen again.

We hope that everything is resolved and that you can find peace at your workplace, and we are confident that you’ll make the best choice for yourself.

Would you be able to work for your significant other? What are some boundaries that you have in your relationship? If you have any other pieces of advice you want to add, tell us in the comments, we would love to read them.