I’ll see your smiley, and raise you a :dubious: of my own.
Sexual harassment of this type is way beyond “A guy at work is mean to her.” From the OP he leaves pornographic materials on her desk, and makes lewd suggestions to the same. He makes racist comments, and obviously makes her feel horrible.
At minimum, that’s sexual harassment, hate speech, and emotional abuse. I’m pretty damn liberal with what i’ll tolerate, but that behavior fits every definition of the law, without stretching even a teensy bit.
It isn’t a far cry to imagine that someone that obnoxious, and sexually fixated might not content himself with his fun and games and up the ante’. He needs to be reported, and while I agree that Skald doesn’t need to ride to the rescue; he damn sure has a right to ask his wife to explain her lack of response.
Agreed, and she’s gone so far as to conceal the situation from him. At the end of the day, she insists on handling it (or not) in her own way. Certainly you can’t score any points by jumping in with guns blazing, knowing she’s specifically avoided telling you because she fears you’d do just that.
I admit I’d have a hard time overlooking this if it were my wife. I suppose I’d ask frequently “Is it time to do something yet?” and find a way to cool my jets when she said ‘no’. All you can really do is make it clear you’re ready to support 100% for whatever she needs, whenever it’s time, and you encourage her to take some kind of action.
Point of order; she isn’t “bringing home the wreckage”. The OP clearly states that she concealed the problem because she was afraid of him overreacting. It’s not her fault that a friend chose to spread the good cheer.
She isn’t doing any of those things. She has chosed option 4, do nothing and let the stress of the continued situation affect all areas of my life, including my relationship with my husband.
I’m just curious here. There are several people suggesting that Skald take action if his wife doesn’t. What is he supposed to do? File a complaint with HR at her workplace? Where he doesn’t work, and doesn’t have any standing. Take matters into his own hands and threaten or beat the offender? Or push his wife and keep pushing her until she takes the action he wants her to take? The first two of those are going to be either a bigger problem or make her job even more untenable than it already is. At work she needs to be herself, not his wife. She might not be handling this well (actually, I think she isn’t handling it at all), but it’s hers to handle. This isn’t some guy who bothers her in a bar, or attacks her in a parking lot. In a social situation I’m fine if my husband wants to defend me against some jerk. But at work, I’m not his wife, I’m me. I need the people there to know I can do the job.
He needs to be supporting her so she can find or grow the strength to do what she should. That might include gentle suggestions of what she can try at work, and it should also include suggestions that letting this go won’t make it better, but he can’t do it for her. Help her to gain the ability (or backbone) to do this herself. Help her figure out why she doesn’t want to. Make sure she knows that if she wants to leave there it’s okay. But for crying out loud, don’t undermine her at work. That other idiot is already taking care of that part.
That’s also her right. I don’t see why she has less right to make him unhappy than he has to make her unhappy, which she has indicated his interference would do.
This isn’t a business partnership, this is a marriage. You’re supposed to be able to talk to your spouse about anything, to ask for help, to vent, to cry on their shoulder. Mrs. Skald seems to be shutting out her husband, and I’d like to know why. She’s cheating him of the opportunity to be there for her, by not telling him about it in the first place and then telling him she’ll handle it. It’s obviously affecting her in a negative way, and I don’t know about you, but when Ivylad falls flat on his ass, I don’t stand around waiting for him to ask for help…I immediately leap to his side. He may be able to get up on his own, but he knows I’m there should he need to grab onto me.
Now, if I go to his side and he shoves me away (metaphorically speaking of course) then that’s a problem. This isn’t some minor disagreement with a co-worker…this guy is being an ass of the purest water and Mrs. Skald isn’t availing herself of her husband’s expertise to handle it. She doesn’t have to do this by herself. That’s the whole point.
Well, I agree that she should have mentioned it, but maybe she withheld the information because he has a track record of some sort (and I’m not saying he does…just that it’s a valid point for withholding info). But his involvement should be to offer his assistance should she want or need it. Not swooping down like Superman when you really want to handle it on your own.
Because if “the whole point” of marriage is that I never get to make a decision by myself for the rest of my life, thank god I skipped it. Fuck that noise.
I disagree with all the advice that comes down to Skald should try to find some way to work an end run around his wife’s desire to handle this on her own. People have to be allowed to make their own mistakes.
But I also would like to have some sense that she does have a plan that has a hope of working. Ignoring it, and letting the harassment drive her loony is not that. If she’s having to take breaks in the car to cry from this, it’s affecting her mental health.
I think that what Skald should be doing, at this point, is simply listening to his wife, and asking questions about what she thinks she should do. It’s frustrating as Hell, and painful to watch, I know. But, until she decides to do something on her own, it’s going to keep going.
The only way for this plan to work, though, is if Skald can sit patiently until she talks about the situation again - let her bring it up, not for him to keep pressing the issue himself. A lot of people, even when they might begin to think that they’re on a bad road will resist changing direction or tactics if someone is pushing them too hard.
Bolding mine. Give the lady a chance, for pete’s sake! She hasn’t gotten off to a good start, but it sounds to me like she wants to make a change. You refer to something of the sort in her past. Resolving this herself would be a really good thing for her.
Seems like several responders here are forgetting how this kind of problem usually comes with plenty of subtle complexities.
It sounds to me like you know that you can’t do anything on behalf of your wife. It sounds like you’re being realistic and asking what you can do to intervene *with your wife, *not with her workplace or her harasser, for practical reasons (her employer has no reason to listen to a non-employee), legal and ethical reasons (baseball bats = prison, hell, etc.), and personal reasons (she has a right to decide what to do for herself). So are you really asking what you can do, if anything, to change her mind?
Am I right that you and she have talked about this just the one time?
I’m wondering if a different kind of conversation might be more useful – the kind where you emphasize that you think she deserves to be treated with respect, hate knowing she has to deal with this, want her to know you’ll back her no matter what, want to be involved in her life… instead of offering (perfectly reasonable) solutions. None of that Mars/Venus crap, but if offering solutions wasn’t well received, it only make sense to try the alternative.
Also, how much time has gone by since you found out about it, or since it started? When I’ve had to deal with workplace crap, it’s taken a while to make sure I’ve got all the information I need to make a decision – which person at HR is best to go to? Have lawsuits been tried in the past? Did they work? There’s a difference between doing what you have a right to do or what you’re supposed to do, and doing what will actually have the effect you want. Also, if she truly believes there’s nothing she can do that will be effective, it may take a while to reconcile herself with that and choose a path of action.
If she’s going to take steps to resolve the situation on her own (besides of course, trying to ignore the idjit and pretend it’s not happening) then, yes. But if she’s going to sit like a little mouse and cry in the car on the way home, that’s not resolving the situation. This guy is hurting her, and it’s not fair to ask a loved one to stand idly by while someone hurts you.
If you’re not going take steps to fix the situation, you don’t get to bitch about it.
Since Skald just started this yesterday, I’m willing to wait and see if the missus takes proactive steps to get this resolved on her own. But I stand by my point…she can’t sit in the corner with her fingers in her ears singing lalalalalalalala and call that “dealing with it.”
Assuming you don’t get him fired AND he has 2 brain cells. He will weather the storm…and wait. He will never forget what ‘YOU’ did to him (nm that he really deserved it). No…YOU tried to get him fired. YOU publically and professionally tried to embarass him. He won’t want to look like he is trying to retaliate…so he waits…
While he is waiting, he can peck at you a little bit depending on his position of power in the company. Maybe no raises or lesser raise for all in your department (going after just you leaves him open to possibility of accusation of retaliation).
He may get promoted and even have more power in the future. Even so, he will remember…and will remember forever.
Eventually you will make a mistake…a serious one that everyone does at least a few times in their career. Others would be scolded and retained. However, YOURS will just be SO TERRIBLE that you just have to be fired. Or - when the company needs to layoff he finds a way to make sure the axe falls on you than someone else. During this whole time he subtley badmouths you to colleagues in the industry (who have no knowledge of the sexual harrassment filed against him) so when you do look for another job you get the feeling something is ‘wrong’.
{why yes…I have seen this happen. To my wife actually. However, I think it makes sense - if it was me who was the scumbag…that’s what I would do.}