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Well, Eric and Cathy are the definition of a work husband and work wife and they are here with us now, but it definitely begs the question guys. First of all, good morning.
Good morning.
Good morning Janet.
Has it always been Platonic?
Has it always been Platonic, Eric?
Um, there was that one night in Rio, but er, it never really panned out.
I had a dream once. It was quite disturbing actually.
Disturbing?
A little bit,(really, really, that makes me feel pretty good).You are like, you are like my brother.(Right, right.)
Yeah, it's been Platonic since Day One.
Yeah.
Hey, Eric and Cathy, it's Matt in New York, uh, what, inyour obvious married couples, real married couples' fight, so what do you guys fight about?
Usually whether or not we're platonic, Matt.
Yeah.
There it is.
What it comes down to..
It's the only thing we fight about.
Yeah.
You know what, it's, we have an advantage here that er, there, there's not a lot of fighting. A lot of the time we spend er, on the air is having a good time, and though the majority of our morning is spent er, on the air the whole time and once we leave here, we just go homes and fight with our regular spouses as usually.
Oh, we love that.
Yeah, exactly, all right, guys, thank you very much. We appreciate it. Good to see you both, and Janet, thank you as well, and so is an office spouse a good idea, is it a really bad one? Today's contributor Dr.Gail Saltz is a psychiatrist, Gail, good morning to you.
Good morning, Matt
Why do people form these types of, of husband-wife relationships at work?
The same reason that people can get married even though the divorce rate is 50%, because in fact men and women do seek each other out. They bring something different to the table with each other, so you know, a...as opposed to a,a friendship between a woman and a woman, a man and a man, a man brings perhaps directness, honesty, cut to the chase, none of this emotional stuff. A woman brings perhaps more emotionality to it, more of the feeling state. I can really confide her in, men and women want that from each other.
Yeah, yeah, but if you, if you are telling inside jokes, if you are confiding about your personal life, that's really close to the border of an emotional affair, (absolutely), and we talked about that on the show a lot.
Absolutely, so that's the question, you have to be honest, not only with each other, but with yourself about how close you're,you are coming up to the boundary and you have to have clear boundaries.
As you say, it's very important: Meet the real spouse.
Absolutely, if you are being secretive from your real spouse about what's going on with the relationship at work, then you are having an emotional affair, so you have to meet this spouse, you have to have interaction, you have to have openness.
Keep business about business.
That's right, so we are not talking about touching, we are not talking about flirting, dressing provocatively, drinking a lot together. When you do those things, then somebody is gonna have an accident and cross the line.
And,and beware of the emotional red flags, I would imagine one if you are starting to look forward to Mondays more than you are looking forward (oh, yes) to Fridays, you are in big trouble.
Oh yeah, you are in big trouble. And if one of you is having trouble in your own marriage and you are talking a lot about that you are in trouble. If somebody is cheating and they are talking about that, that's a red flag as well.
How do you break up an office marriage?
Well, you know what. Breaking up any relationship is difficult, but if you don't cross these boundaries and you don't get into what's more of an emotional affair, it would be easier to cut off because you'll have more of the business, business, you know, this isn't working out from a business perspective, so keep it back there and it's easier to end.
Someone who's just been through an amical...amicable divorce with a, an office spouse, you know.
You could say that would be true, right?
Exactly right.
You could say that would be true
Gail Saltz, thank you very much
I'd love to.
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