Linda and the Work Husband: A Cautionary Tale in Business Casual

Let me take you into one of the strangest dynamics of corporate life: the “work spouse.” It’s lighthearted. It’s fun. It’s lowkey therapy in between calendar invites and passive-aggressive emails. Until it’s not.

This is the story of Linda.

Operations manager. 38.

Married. Mom of two.

Ran the department like it was a military unit powered by iced coffee and color-coded spreadsheets. She was the heartbeat of the office, the person you went to when the printer broke, the invoice was late, or your soul just needed validation before a meeting with upper management.

Enter: Chad.

Sales rep.

New guy.

Loud laugh. PowerPoint slides with way too many gifs.

Wore loafers without socks. Referred to himself as “a closer.”

From Day 1, Chad and Linda clicked.

Not romantically.

Not obviously.

But consistently.

They shared a desk corner during meetings.

Tagged each other in memes about Excel rage.

Texted each other inside jokes during long Zoom calls.

And slowly—without either of them realizing—it became a thing.

“You two are like an old married couple,” people would say.

“Chad’s basically your work husband,” someone joked one day.

Linda laughed.

So did Chad.

And so did everyone else.

Except Greg.

Greg was Linda’s actual husband.

Blue collar. Good man.

Could build a deck from scratch and fix a garbage disposal with one hand. Didn’t have a LinkedIn account, didn’t need one.

He loved Linda deeply—he just didn’t get this new version of her.

Because lately, Linda wasn’t sharing stories about the kids or plans for the weekend. She was talking about Chad.

About how Chad “just gets it.”

About how funny he is, and how motivated, and how he “really listens.”

And one night, while they sat on the couch—Linda scrolling through a Slack conversation that made her smile—Greg looked at her and said:

“You used to look at me like that.”

That’s when it hit her.

She hadn’t physically cheated.

But she’d given Chad something sacred: her emotional bandwidth. Her daily energy. Her best self.

She told herself it was harmless—just a joke.

But her home was no longer her first audience.

Greg was getting the leftovers.

The wake-up call came hard.

One Thursday, Greg cooked dinner and asked her about her day.

Linda smiled and said,

“You had to be there. Chad—”

And Greg, quietly, gently, stood up and said,

“Yeah, that’s what I figured.”

She sat there, fork in hand, staring at a man who had spent years showing up for her, only to realize she hadn’t really been showing up for him.

That night, she texted Chad and said,

“Hey, I need a little space. Nothing personal. Just personal.”

She took a step back.

She logged off earlier.

She brought her best stories home again.

And it wasn’t easy.

Because when you’ve gotten used to being admired, even platonically, it’s tempting to chase that validation where it’s easiest.

But Linda realized:

A work spouse can’t replace a real one.

And no amount of inside jokes is worth losing the person who’s been outside the conference room, rooting for you the whole time.

Now, when coworkers joke about office flings or “harmless” work flirtation, Linda just smiles and says:

“Funny how we sometimes give our loyalty to the people who wouldn’t notice if we didn’t show up the next day—and ignore the ones who’d be heartbroken if we didn’t come home.”

So if you’re out there, scrolling through your DMs from Chad, or laughing a little too hard at that “just friends” banter in the break room…

Remember this:

The real ones?

They don’t just get your work stories.

They get your heart.

Don’t give away parts of it by accident.

End scene.

And maybe, just maybe—keep your memes at home.