Just because a married man is good friends with a female co-worker, does that mean he should call her his work-wife? That’s the question in today’s story.

Let’s see how the story unfolds…

AITA for calling my coworker work-sister after she called me work-husband in front of everyone?

I (34M) work in a small office and we have about 30 people working here.

Mary (35F) is one of my coworkers. We have been working together for 6 years now.

We have 6 people in our department, and we have to frequently travel across the state as our work involves overseeing government projects. We always travel in a group of two.

He travels a lot with Mary.

Although my travel partner changes based on the project, Mary and I are generally put on similar projects and enjoy each other’s company.

My wife also likes Mary. Overall, we have a very healthy work relationship.

On to the incident.

Mary roasted him during happy hour.

Yesterday, we had a happy hour in our office, and we were all drinking after work hours and chatting. It was a group of around 10 people that stayed back.

Mary was blabbering about how we both have been travelling together so much in the last year.

She was roasting me for my habits while travelling like always forgetting stuff in my hotel room, being sweaty and stinky when I join her for breakfast in mornings (because I go to hotel gym).

It was all in good fun.

Everyone was laughing and she was making it sound how unbearable I was to tag along (all in good fun).

I also told some funny and sweet stories about her and agreed with her saying that I can be difficult to be with sometimes.

Mary came to me and hugged me tightly and told me that she loves me, and I am her work-husband.

He doesn’t like the terms “work-husband” and “work-wife.”

It was all innocent on surface, but she might have been a bit drunk and just didn’t let go of her tight hug.

Also, I hate that phrase as I do have a wife that I promised to be with forever, and not just in non-working hours.

After a few seconds, I started becoming uncomfortable and also saw few people staring at us. So, to diffuse the situation, I took her hands off my shoulder and told her, she was my work-sister and that is why I love to annoy her so much.

Mary felt embarrassed…

That seemed to have upset Mary, and she left and went back to her desk and was sobbing silently.

I tried to apologize to her, but she told me how embarrassing the whole situation was. She said that she just meant work-husband in platonic way, but me calling her work-sister made her sound like a creep in front of the whole office.

She was also angry that I aggressively removed her hands from my shoulders while hugging.

He tried to explain his side of the story.

I tried to reason with her that I do not like the “work-husband” phrase and also people gave dirty looks when she said it.

So, I was just trying to make sure people do not take her words in the wrong way.

We talked for a few minutes afterwards and Mary calmed down. She hugged me again and left.

He really regrets hurting Mary’s feelings.

I felt really guilty afterwards because I can see Mary’s point.

I made her sound like a creep by implying that she meant something inappropriate when she called me her work-husband.

However, I was a bit uncomfortable in that situation and just did not want people to call us that (or assume something wrong).

Am I the AH for calling Mary my “work-sister”?

I am sitting in my office writing this and a bit worried if I embarrassed Mary in front of everyone.

I don’t really like the terms “work-husband” and “work-wife” either. It seems like Mary overreacted a little bit. She could’ve just called him “work-brother” and laughed it off.

Let’s see what Reddit thought.

This reader hates the terms “work-husband” and “work-wife” too.

This reader thinks alcohol is partly to blame.

This reader also thinks Mary is the one with the problem.

Another readers suggests telling his wife and HR.

Mary clearly regrets what she said, but I agree that she was the one who was out of line.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.