Advice Carolyn Hax Was a friends dinner with her.jpgw1440

Advice | Carolyn Hax: Was a friend’s dinner with her ex-boss the excuse for an affair?

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Dear Carolyn: Recently, my girlfriend found a better position at work thanks to a recommendation from an ex-boss. This is what happened next:

· The ex-boss asked her to leave work early and meet him for dinner since it was his last night in town.

· He asked her to drive and meet at his apartment (his family lives in another city).

· They went to a restaurant with her favorite cuisine (I guess he knew that from working together for ten years) that was within walking distance of his apartment.

In my opinion, this was a textbook affair and/or a power play by the senior manager to test his power over her.

She only shared this setup with me after the fact. She was unaware of my concerns about the possible professional consequences of visiting a senior manager’s apartment and then having dinner right after he got a new job, which he played a critical role in securing.

Did I have the right to be (very) upset about this scenario? She swears it was just business talk and texted me on the drive home.

J.: Angry at who? If that were your girlfriend’s heterosexual ex-boss, we would say: “My goodness, what a thoughtful farewell to a long-time mentor – logically planned, because if we meet and then go for a walk, we don’t have to wait in the restaurant .”

So. If you’re mad at the ex-boss, that’s okay, I guess. The structure unnecessarily aroused suspicion. But if nothing inappropriate actually happened, the harmless end of their dinner seems to have removed any reason for (very) excitement.

If it’s your girlfriend that’s making you so upset, then why? To even leave? For not giving you the details first? For showing interest in your ex-boss, which you find inappropriate? Because she wasn’t credible when she quoted “all business”? Because you are too naive to recognize the affair and power issues? These are very different things – although they all come down to one thing: whether you trust her. And if not, then it’s still time to break up; Dinner has no meaning except as a window to the rest.

Is it possible then that the person who has upset you so much is… you? I can’t be the only one who gets one [mutters a silent prayer of self-loathing] Cuckolded vibe from your question, with anger whispering in your ear that you’ve been publicly made a fool of by a friend (who just happened to be getting ahead in her career). That would indeed be a question of power, just not the one you suggest – and would ultimately be an admission of one’s own vulnerability.

If I’m wrong, and I hope I am, then please apologize, as it’s essentially an accusation of sexism tied to a number of shady cultural threads – and, if you count them, four paragraphs of analysis.

But if I’m right: it wouldn’t change your girlfriend’s trustworthiness. It would change the question of how trustworthy you are – in terms of your ability to accurately identify a potential threat and manage your emotions in response. This dinner may have been a “textbook affair” and a “power play,” but do you know what else those two things are? Life. Daily. The whole time.

It’s normal for your feelings to warn you when something is wrong. It is important. Your feelings are telling you to pay attention so you can recognize whether you have a real problem or a false alarm.

However, if your emotions scream “MAYDAY” in response to a one-time, moderately suspicious scenario that tests your power in a relationship, that means you’re not thinking clearly enough to distinguish between problems and false alarms. It says that you immediately see things as a threat and then figuratively wish that (expected) girlfriends would hide in the bunker with you – which is the beginning of many relationship-destroying and potentially dangerous behaviors such as jealousy, possessiveness, etc. Isolation, control, surveillance.

Or maybe not dangerous, just endless, pointless, soul-sucking: either constant fear or a hamster wheel of battles no one can win, or both.

The best way to deal with these existential emotional threats is to notice less of them and accept life for the crap that it is.

The best way to perceive fewer things as threats is to trust that you will be okay over time, even if the outcome of a relationship is not. Even if you “lose”. Most of us are proof that a person can be deceived, humiliated, abandoned and forgotten more than once and still live a wonderful life.

So the best way to deal with this ex-boss thing is to imagine how you would react if you were such a calm, trusting, confident person – and then do what that person would do.