This is a perfect example of how “traditional gender roles” and institutional sexism continue to harm women. Notice that it’s not the OP who is suffering. It’s the paralegal who can’t get experience to help her career because of the sexist attitudes of her husband and the OP’s wife.
The OP can’t do anything about his employee’s husband, but he needs to have a serious talk with his wife about how her jealousy and paranoia shouldn’t be allowed to affect the career of the employee and how she needs to think about how she is helping perpetuate institutional sexism.
Frankly I think both spouses need to be shown that they don’t have a choice in this matter and they need to think hard if they want to let that ruin their relationships.
However . . . I think some of the complication might be that, intentionally or not, you are already more than coworkers. You’ve had what amounts to double dates with the four of you. There’s nothing wrong with this, but it makes the emotions run deeper than they might were this with a random coworker with whom you were not social out of the office.
Also, not to harp on minute phrasing details, but:
. . . doesn’t give me a lot of confidence that you’re actually confident that you will remain faithful to your wife. Cheating is not a “mistake”, and the fact that it is not happening “yet” and you are “hopeful” it won’t happen in the future . . . well, maybe you’re not accurately expressing yourself, but if I were your wife and heard those words, I’d double-down on my uncomfortableness with the situation.
On a professional level, you are handling it as well as can be expected. But you don’t relate to your wife on a professional level, and shouldn’t.
If I were in the same situation, my wife would not care. Mostly because I am old and boring and very obviously clueless when it comes to the opposite sex. I wouldn’t know how to start an affair if I wanted to, which I don’t.
There isn’t anything you can do about your paralegal’s husband. Is there something you can do about your wife’s misgivings? Call her every night when you get there and/or before you go to bed, or something like that. Would separate hotels rather than just separate rooms be possible?
In a way, it doesn’t matter if her concern is reasonable or not. She has a concern.
Perhaps try an approach like “I want you to know that I love you and I don’t want you to worry. What can we do to make that happen?”
I would say that if the paralegal doesn’t travel that also has a negative professional impact on the OP, as it deprives him of valuable assistance. That impact isn’t direct but it’s real.
There have been times I’ve either asked a coworker to come along to a meeting on a subject with which they weren’t familiar, or gone along to one where I officially didn’t “belong”, just to act as an extra set of ears and/or take notes thus leaving the requester free to herd the cats; losing someone who can not only do that but provide subject-specific input and analysis is a large loss.
As a female, I would have a really hard time were I to find out I was prevented from performing some of the functions of the role because a co-worker’s or boss’s wife had issues with her husband interacting in a professional manner with a female co-worker. That’s just crazy and sexist to boot.
I also would never share a room with someone I work with. I need my space.
And I think the spouses are being unreasonable. One of my Wife’s oldest friends is a guy. She sees him once a year and stays at his house.
And one of my oldest friends is a gal. I stay at her house perhaps 2 or three times a year (for a while, it was about once a month, her house was a good stop off place for me and saved me about 100 miles of driving). Both of our friends aren’t married.
We do ‘sleep overs’ because of the distance traveled, and we like to have a few beers when we visit.
Remember the dental worker in a small clinic who, after ten years of hard work, was increasingly sexually harassed? Finally her boss’s wife found out about it, and - made him fire her for being too attractive (WTF??) One month’s severance.
The appallingly execrable part, though, is that this was all perfectly legal.
Whether reasonable or not, it’s a vulnerable position to put yourselves in. This is often how affairs start. Many people don’t intend to have an affair, but little things happen and lines start to get crossed. If you or she start having marriage problems, it will be all too easy to discuss your issues on these long trips and turn to each other for comfort. There’s nothing up-front that is wrong about this kind of trip, but the reality is that this kind of behavior has a high probability of turning into an inappropriate relationship.
In addition, your spouses aren’t here to get our advice. If they are resentful of these trips, it will be a cause for conflict. They won’t be swayed by hearing your internet friends said it was okay. They may have been cheated on the past or have different ideas about working relationships.
Keep in mind also that this board tends to lean more liberal when it comes to marriage relationships. It’s common here for people to espouse the benefits of polyamory, for example.
How would you feel if the situation was reversed where your wife was going on regular business trips with her boss? And let’s assume that her boss is handsome and a smooth talker. Even though you trust your wife, would you feel comfortable with her regularly going on overnight trips with him?
I travel for work and my wife travels for work. We’d have to get new jobs if we weren’t “allowed” to travel with members of the opposite sex. This is Mike Pence level of “mother” nuttery.
There’s a difference between an occasional trip with an opposite-sex coworker versus regular business trips with the same coworker. It’s somewhat common and generally not a problem when it’s one or two trips with the same person. But when it’s over and over with the same person, there is a lot more opportunity to cross over from business talk to more social and intimate discussions.
I feel a lot of people in the thread are responding as if this was a one-time only trip with the coworker. If that was the case, I would feel the spouses are being unreasonable. But this kind of regular business travel will provide many opportunities for socializing and lines to be crossed.
It’s not like there are just cheaters and non-cheaters. While there are people at either extreme, many people have human vulnerabilities and may make bad decisions in a moment of weakness. For example, I’m sure none of us consider ourselves to be thieves, but if we were starving we might steal some food. We would come up with some justification to make it okay in our head, but the reality is that we stole the food. Even if today you are sure you wouldn’t have an affair, you might not have the same resolve later when your wife is upset with you, the kids hate your guts, and you have financial problems. It is very common for people to deal with stress and anxiety in destructive ways. Having someone who you can chat with on the long drives and trips may be too tempting in that moment of weakness.
Yeah…this was a bit of a red flag for me too. Again, maybe this wasn’t intentional, but it looks like you have already conceded that infidelity is a possibility.
No, not when it amounts to workplace discrimination. Would you “honor” your spouse by treating employees differently based on race or religion? This is no different.
Whether the boss’s spouse “trusts” him to go on business trips with a colleague is not the employee’s problem.
Furthermore, the existence or nonexistence of trust doesn’t present infidelity. There’s nothing you can do to guarantee that your spouse won’t cheat on you.
No, he doesn’t. I’m not sure if it is legal (due to it being a small company), but it definitely isn’t moral. It is not okay for him to be sexist in his hiring practices.
I don’t see this in the OP. I took the “asking for …” to be in the words of the spouse. And I took the “not happening, hopefully never” to be referring to marital problems. Of course it makes sense to hope you will never have marital problems—after all it’s rare that a long-term relationship not ever have any problems.
So what if it’s not really up to the spouse? If spouse’s boss says “part of your job is to take once a month business trips. <person of opposite sex> is your partner, the two of you will handle this every month.”
Does spouse “honour” his/her partner and… say no? Does it go so far as they quit the job if the boss says “too bad, this is part of the job and we’re certainly not going to wade into the legal territory of potential gender discrimination.”
Seriously, if the spouse is that dead-set against the idea, the person should quit the job in question and find another job that will accommodate both married partners, not penalize the other employee.