Hi Meredith,

I’m struggling to navigate what appears to be an increasingly one-sided, waning friendship with a coworker of the opposite sex. We started working together over two years ago when she joined our company after relocating; we work in different departments but have similar job functions, and started working closely together due to a large company-wide initiative.

Even though we’re in different career levels (I’m in management, she’s an individual contributor) based on age/work experience differences (I’m 15 years older), we quickly developed a great professional rapport. Soon thereafter, this grew into a work friendship which extended outside of work. We’re both married, no kids, introduced our respective spouses to each other, and this budding friendship took off as my wife and I helped acclimate them to where we live/work.

Even as my coworker and I stopped working closely together on this work initiative, our friendship in and outside of work continued to grow. I really appreciated my coworker as someone who viewed me as a mentor and trusted confidante professionally. My wife and I also enjoyed having new couple friends whom we could hang out with regularly.

But then a year-plus later (and about one year ago), things changed. Every time my wife and I would reach out to make plans, they’d decline. Our once-frequent social media banter and group texts became sporadic. While my coworker and I still chatted regularly at work, I felt she was more guarded both professionally and personally. Our coffee and/or lunch walks when in the office together also stopped after she repeatedly declined my invitations/offers to do so.

More recently, I discovered that my coworker’s husband unfriended/unfollowed my wife and I on social media. I also noticed that my coworker changed her social media settings where my wife ad I now no longer see some of her content despite not unfriending nor unfollowing. Even my more recent work interactions with my coworker seem frosty and filled with attitude from her. All of this behavior/actions seem strange; I can say with full confidence that neither my wife nor I ever said, nor did anything that should trigger what’s transpired the past year or so.

The only correlation I can draw is that someone said something to my coworker (and her husband) about our friendship. I think that someone is her (then-new and still-current) manager. All of this seemed to change a few months after she started reporting into this manager, whom she also developed a great work relationship followed by friendship with very quickly. Her manager has taken her and her husband into their circle of friends; it seems like my wife and I have been “kicked to the curb” as if we’re no longer good enough for their friendship. I’ve lost respect for my coworker both professionally and personally seeing how aloof she’s become under her manager’s influence.

– Disappointed, Hurt and Resentful