Have there been any 3rd party witnesses to this behavior?
I also suggest you look into the legality of her recording one of these exchanges – with a little recorder in her purse or a desk drawer.
If I were her, I would find another job, quit this one and then sue, in that order.
She should take care of it on her own in that her husband should not get directly involved in her workplace. He should encourage her to report it through the proper channels at work, via documentation; maybe she just needs to hear a few times that it CAN get better, she is empowered to take action and get justice. She probably thinks nothing will come of her complains and it’ll get worse. Maybe Skald, with his experience, can convince her otherwise.
IMO, however, he should not talk to her co-workers or do else that would more properly be done by her for herself. It’s her career, and she is an adult. I think he should support her to the fullest extent, but that’s all he can do personally.
I would say to talk to her, and together try to figure out what would be the worst case scenario if she were to formally complain and/or quit. For example, if she is staying for the money then run the numbers and figure out how you two could get buy on one paycheck, at least until she found another job. I’m not saying that you should tell her to up and quit, just to try to get her to quantify what is the worst that could happen if she did something other than what she is doing now. Hopefully she will see that the worst case is not that bad and this will her her get ready to consider other ways of handling the situation.
Pixilated makes a very good point and one you might point out to your wife. Chances are she’s not the first woman he’s harassed and she won’t be the last.
Years ago, I worked with a guy who tried to sexually harass me. I say “tried” because I outranked him and I worked in a different department. I brought the matter to his supervisor’s attention when I was asked to help out in his department which meant I would be working directly for him. HR talked to him and he apologized to them (not to me, though). That didn’t stop him, though. After I left the company, he turned his attentions to a 19 year old girl who worked directly for him. The last I heard, she decided not to sue, either.
I don’t know why men do this or what they get out of it. I also understad being reluctant to wreck your own career or somebody else’s. You can’t make your wife stand up for herself, and, while I understand and appreciate the urge to stand up for one’s poor, down-trodden spouse, there are unpleasant legal implications to taking action against the guy which involve the use of a baseball bat. Ask your wife, though, how she’ll feel if she hears about some other woman crying in her car because of what this guy’s done.
If that’s too much, Ms. Manners has a marvelous suggestion for dealing with unwanted conduct. It amounts to becoming very easy to startle, especially if witnesses are around. Next time he touches her, jumping, yelling, and saying, “Oh! You startled me!” may have a deterrent effect. Good luck to both of you!
You should not talk to her co-workers. You are probably not knowledgeable enough to know who is trustworthy or not. You should certainly encourage her to talk to others at work that she trusts.
This is important and it indicates she does want to do something about it. The guy is clearly a pig, I think you need to make it clear to her that you support her and whatever she decides to do.
You’re not doing nothing if you’re supporting her while she handles it. The question is what she will do about it. Why didn’t she bring it up rather than her co-worker? I think you need to earn her trust on this by letting her handle it her way. Make it clear she’s not standing alone, but don’t take over.
This is what I’m suggesting. I’m not saying the OP should take matters into his own hands and discuss her situation with her co-workers. But it’s clear from the OP that one co-worker already knows - one that Mrs. R considers a friend. A simple “Could you talk to her about it?” would be fine and not crossing any lines, IMO. I don’t see how this is “infantilizing” her; sometimes someone close to you has problems that they would rather discuss with someone else.
If my wife was in a scenario like that where she was effectively agreeing to be continuously sexually harassed every day in exchange for a paycheck, I’d kind of have to stand back and take stock of the situation. This is not a unilateral scenario where your wife is tied to the railroad track by Simon Legree. You wife is not a child, not is she retarded. She has the ability to get another job. She has made the calculation that she is willing to put up with this disgusting behavior in exchange for continued employment. By not taking action she is becoming complicit in this situation.
If this job were the only thing between you and homelessness I could possibly understand her motivations somewhat more clearly, but it’s not, and this passive nonsense where she doesn’t want to do anything, but will tell you so that you are completely, and utterly spun up is insane. To me this is a relationship deal breaker. If my wife refused to handle the problem like an adult, or otherwise take herself out of a situation where a co-worker or manager was being sexually inappropriate and aggressive with her, I could not exist in a scenario like that. The frustration between wanting to intervene in an extremely direct fashion with the harasser, and her insistence to do nothing would be impossible to tolerate.
In every relationship there are times of crisis where you need to decide if a disagreement on a principle is of sufficient import that it’s “the hill you want to die on” re being a make or break issue. For me (if she were my wife) her quitting this job, or reporting this behavior vs doing nothing would be such a hill. The situation you describe is utterly intolerable and needs to be addressed directly.
As an example flip it around. Imagine you were being continuously sexually harassed by a female manager with porn, comments etc. etc., and this made you sad and depressed. You tell your wife about this, and when she urges you to take action you tell her that you were not going to do anything because you really liked the job, and besides you really just didn’t want to handle a confrontation.
I’ll leave it to you to decide how many wives would put up with that insanity for more than one minute.
If her coworker is coming to you to tell you about this, then you can suggest to the coworker to try and convince your wife to do something about it, because it’s the advice you’d give anyone, isn’t it? In that case it doesn’t matter that it’s your wife; someone has come to you as a witness to harassment, and you encourage them to get the victim to act on it.
Can the coworker report the harassment herself? If she’s seeing this on a daily basis, and she’s feeling uncomfortable about the porn and comments the pig makes, then she can make a complaint on her own behalf, and hopefully that will help. Frankly, if I knew a coworker was bringing in porn to work, regardless of his motivations, I’d report him anyways! It’s just inappropriate, and he deserves a reprimand.
In the meantime, if I was you, I’d certainly mention it to your wife every time her coworker talks to you about it, because I think that might help her realise that this isn’t only about her. Other people are being affected, and are worried, and it will perhaps convince her that it’s time to do something about it. Tell her you aren’t trying to force her to do anything, but that Coworker talked to you again, and you hope that she’s doing what she needs to deal with it, and leave it at that.
Good luck! I hope something happens to get this asshole to harassing your wife!
I would strongly urge my wife to step up, and do the right thing. If he’s doing it to her, he’s probably doing it or done it to others.
If that didn’t work, I would make some phone calls, and dudes car would get destroyed.
If that didn’t work, more phone calls.
I have to agree with everyone who said all you can do is support her. I was trying to imagine how I would feel in your wife’s shoes, and I think the best thing my husband could do would be to tell me that he 100% supports whatever I want to do about the situation - if I want to quit, if I want to go to HR, or if I want to just let it go on for whatever reason I think I have to. I think if you tell your wife why you want her to do something about it (because you hate the thought of someone hurting her), and then tell her you completely support her decision and will help her any way you can, you might win her over eventually if you don’t push.
Let her know that it’s safe to talk to you about it, that you won’t tell her what to do, you won’t try to fix it. At some point soon you can tell her what you think she should do. “Honey, I’m going to say this, this one time. Then I’m going to shut up and let you do what you need to do. I’m here to listen, I have hugs and support here for you.” If she knows you won’t keep trying to fix it for her she may be able to share it with you and that might help her figure it out. It may be that she’s gearing up for the fight, and you taking things into your own hands is like letting her know you don’t think she can handle it. Not a good way to build her confidence.
If you see it really hurting her, like keeping her from sleeping, or she says it’s affecting her work, or she’s getting way overstressed, then you might have to rethink, but it’s still her decision what to do, and when.
Standard disclaimer: I’m not your wife, but this is how I would like things to go.
I’m sorry, I can’t get with letting something like this alone. I can only imagine if it was my wife and someone was violating her in this manner. I would find out his name and make it very clear to him that I would crack his fucking skull if ever speaks a single inappropriate word to her again. This would piss my wife off no end, I’m sure, but I would have to risk sparking her anger and disappointment. No job, no nothing, would let me tolerate something like that.
You mention that she wants to handle it her own way. Has she mentioned what this way is? Does she have a plan, or is her way to just absorb it each day and hope it stops?
Maybe if she could share with you what the plan is and/or the reasons why, you could feel less powerless?
Sorry to read you’re both going through this.
At that point, if you were my husband, you’ve just guaranteed I never tell you about a problem again. If I can’t trust you to trust me and treat me like an adult, you don’t get to know what’s going on with me.
I know. I’m not a macho idiot that doesn’t know better.
It’s the nature of the situation.
On top of which, there is some aspect of racial hatred? I’m sorry, it’s just beyond the pale. I’m only being honest in saying that I wouldn’t be able not to act unless there was an immediate remedy to the situation.
Everyone’s relationship is different of course, but in my relationship, accepting a situation in which my wife is being terrorized without any action is NOT “trusting and treating” her “like an adult.” Trusting and treating her like an adult is something that comes into play when it comes to decisions about whether she should have her own credit card, or whether she should have the discretion to sign up for a semester of grad school, not whether or not she should let herself be victimized without action. That is Bullsh#t that should not be going down.
I doubt that in my relationship, my wife would tell me that I don’t get to know what is going on with her just because I am trying to help her fight off something that she does not seem to have the tools (at the present time) to handle (YMMV, of course). If she had the tools, the problem would have been dealt with before the repetitive crying in the car stage.
Sometimes the people we love get in over their heads with things and they are too proud to admit, blind to see, or have some other blockage to deal with effectively. It is up to you, as a loving spouse who knows your partner as well as anyone else in the world, who cares for that person more than anyone else in the world, to step in when you think that it is appropriate. If there is some employer who is putting porn mags on a person’s desk, and the victim doesn’t show action and it affects them to the point of tears, and the harrassment is continuing on, then I think that it is perfectly reasonable for the person who cares for that other person to step in and do what they can to assist.
I say do everything you can to convince her to stand up for herself and go through the proper procedures for her to protect herself. Let her know that you are there for her, no matter what can o’ sh#t gets opened up, even if she loses her job. I would explore the resistance, what is she so afraid of that is worse than being victimized? Life is too short to put up with a job with an A-hole harrasing her and possibly others.
How long would any husband with a backbone allow his wife to be harassed like that? Porn? Dirty comments? It fascinates me that some otherwise sane women in this thread somehow think that they are going to tell their husband this stuff, and that if they choose to do nothing, and continue to subject themselves to harrassment because they like the job, and/or are scared to rock the boat, his reaction should be “I’ll support whatever you decide dear, and we’ll hope for the best.”
That’s not being an adult, that’s being a complicit doormat, and to expect a decent, protective husband to go along with that insanity is not a reasonable or rational expectation.
What a horrible situation for your wife to be in.
I’m not really sure what advice to offer and you’ve already had great advice posted above.
What I did just want to mention is to take care how you react when she talks to you about this. It’s very easy to go into ‘solve the problem’ mode and start making suggestions about what she could and should do. What she probably needs is someone ‘neutral’ who will listen and sympathise without going into ‘well you need to do x, y, and z’ mode.
So ask her how she’s feeling. Ask her what options she’s considered. Ask her what you can do to help. Let her make the decisions and take the actions.
I’m not saying you’re not doing all these things already, of course! Just thought it would be worth raising.