We're so appalled - and - shocked

Parent Cafe
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<p>A group of us - 4 women, two men, do business with a certain ceo, we’ve had a profitable relationship for four-five years. This ceo is a very nice, intelligent, competent man, and we have all enjoyed a very nice professional relationship, with one tiny exception - he has an absolutely nightmarish girlfriend. </p>

<p>To a person, the lot of us dispise her, and find her absolutely embarrassing and disgusting. We haven’t worried about it much though because we rarely have had to have anything to do with her. We have, of course, wondered all along why in the world he dates her - we have always viewed him as more suited to a nice, educated, refined partner, but, we sort of all assumed that sooner or later he’d wake up and she’d be gone. He’s in his mid-40s so we assumed that he’d eventually stumble into someone a little more appropriate…</p>

<p>Just one example out of many about how she behaves, two years ago we hosted a holiday party, and we invited him, and he brought her. The courses were being served a bit too quickly, and so she attacked my staff person - who organized it and made the arrangements with the restaurant by saying “what’s wrong with you - you’re supposed to be in charge of this, why don’t you fix this” etc. Then, the next day, she called my office to complain to my staff about how she didn’t really like the party, it wasn’t very well organized, not enough alcohol, etc. My employee is only 25 years old and this was the first major event she had ever been in charge of, so…anyway, ever since then, no one from my side will ever go anywhere where this woman might be, and none of the rest of the group will, either. </p>

<p>Anyway, I wonder if you can imagine our shock when today we learn that he married her two weeks ago, and they have a baby due in August.</p>

<p>While we scramble to try to figure out what is the law on marriage and community property specific to Florida corporations (important because we have business contracts and we’re worried about how badly our revenues could be harmed, as well as how much legal control the marriage gives her) half the group wants to terminate the relationship. The other half thinks hold on, perhaps this woman won’t torture us because she’ll be more secure, now that she’s married to him. </p>

<p>I’m in the terminate the relationship camp, as it seems like we are connected to her by association (unthinkable in my opinion); I figure the revenue stream can be replaced. We cannot know what flaky thing this person might do next, and I am not a fan of sitting around and reacting to events; getting out in front of events is more my style. </p>

<p>Two of our group say, yes, something ugly is going to happen, but, it’s a good four - five years out before it does - she’ll be too busy having, then raising a baby in the short term, they reason. </p>

<p>At least one of our group thinks wait for an inevitable divorce, but, I think he’s in full flight from reality.</p>

<p>Talking to him is not an option; we tried that today; he swears she will have nothing to do with business and will have no influence on the business, but, the reality is that she already does have influence in some ways, and it is our perception that the influence is growing, and the result is not good. </p>

<p>Meanwhile, none of us can figure out what to do, and we’re just so, so shocked. We are all single, except one of our group who is in Europe where the laws are different, but we think that marriage means equal partner, which in turn means that when we’re contracted with him/his corporation, that also means we’re working with her.</p>

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<p>I should add - I am not a fan of gossiping about people, especially on the internet. And I especially don’t believe in being judgmental about other people’s personal relationship choices. But this person has caused incredible upset to a LOT of people, with every single interaction, going back 2-3 years. Fortunately those interactions have been few and far between. And we could comfortably ignore a person in the position “girlfriend”. We cannot, however, ignore someone who has a (at least from how we understand marriage) a legal position, and we especially cannot handle the vision of introducing him as our strategic partner to others, and oh, by the way, this is is wife…</p>

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<p>I’m trying to figure out how a CEO’s <em>wife</em> has anything to actually do with the business. Is he the business owner of a small business? I’m confused!</p>

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<p>I’m a bit confused: are you saying that she’s a partner in his business, i.e. that she holds a position in his company? If not, just because she’s married to him doesn’t mean she has anything to do, legally, with the business. I can understand you being worried about her influence on him and her unpleasantness to you, but why would her marital status necessarily change anything in that regard? It sounds like she’s unpleasant now, and that she might continue to be that way as his wife, but he’s the CEO, not her.</p>

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<p>cnp, he’s the ceo of a registered corporation that employs maybe 70 people.</p>

<p>We do know that in a broad sense, the corporation isn’t really supposed to be considered a “marital asset”, since it pre-dates the marriage, however, I think that’s irrelevant. I think what matters is how the association may impact business, and reputation. </p>

<p>One of our group - upon hearing him explain he got married - was so shocked and stunned that instead of managing to summon and force out “congratulations” as the rest of us did, instead, blurted out “did you sign a prenuptual agreement”? LOL.</p>

<p>Booklady, we’re very worried about business continuity, contractual matters, etc.</p>

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<p>Not being a business person, maybe I’m at a disadvantage understanding this problem, since I am also confused about what the problem actually is.</p>

<p>How is her behavior going to impact the business and reputation?</p>

<p>Can’t you just deal with this CEO business-wise, and ignore his wife’s social behavior?</p>

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<p>If I understand this correctly, you are a contractor to his organization? If this is so, and I were him, I’d prefer that you quit. It makes no sense for you to let an opinion on the personal relationships of a CEO whose company you work for impact business in any way.</p>

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<p>Hmmm…galwaymom, I’d have to write this long post of explanation, and it would sound horrible, I’d end up being some mean-spirited gossipy person - all of us have tried very, very hard, the last year especially, to block her influence from business affairs - we’ve had some degree of success, but, it’s meant some sacrifice - for example we did not have a holiday party this year at all, just so that we didn’t have to invite him, and suffer her presence. Even worse, we each invented reasons and deliberately signed ourselves up for conferences, etc. so that we would all be on travel most of December, and made sure we were all in different cities at different times so that we did not have to explain to him why there would be no party, etc. </p>

<p>Can you imagine six adults going to that extreme to avoid one person for a couple of hours? That’s how extraordinary this is for us…</p>

<p>Kirmum, it’s a peer relationship, each company contracts to the others in various ways - anyway, if the relationship stayed personal, fine. But it isn’t. She held a job at McDonalds, and got fired. She has had no employment for over a year. She has nothing else to do and somehow keeps creeping into our affairs and business arrangements, when we least expect it. I’m not kidding. We cannot seem to manage to avoid her entirely…</p>

<p>Last year, when she lost her job at McDonalds, the ceo took pity on her and brought her into his office to “help out”. She harrassed his long time executive assistant to the point where the poor woman was beside herself. So she went to talk to the ceo to express her concerns about how his then-girlfriend was treating her and behaving, counting on her employment of six+ years and their professional relationship to carry some weight. Result = she was fired that very day. We found out about it when we called his office for various schedules, contracts, etc. and suddenly our point of contact was gone.</p>

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<p>latetoschool, as a business owner I can understand your concern. You should consider all the ramifications. Including what would happen if something happens to him. Does she inherit his stake in the business (assuming he has one)?
I would try to confine any business decisions to the strictly business part of the equation. You do not have to socialize with or even like her (or him)
On the business side, are you guys partners? Does this man have an interest/stake in the business? If that is the case, I would want to understand the ramifications. I do know of certain businesses where the partners have an agreement in place that says the business pays for a life insurance policy for each partner. In the event of the death of one of the partners, the life insurance money is used to buy out the spouse of the deceased partner.<br>
I’m not sure if this is clear enough, it’s late here…but I think you get my drift.</p>

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<p>LTS:</p>

<p>It sounds to me that you should sever the relationship. The tipping point for me is not the forced traveling in December you and colleagues have undertaken to avoid inviting them to your holiday party; it’s the firing of a loyal employee because the girl-friend meddled in his office affairs. That suggests extremely poor judgment on his part and a lack of loyalty that is bound to affect how he conducts his business. And a wife is in a better position to meddle than a girld-friend.</p>

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<p>latetoschool- I guess this is a “you’d have to be there” situation.</p>

<p>It sure must be extraordinary to cause this much aversion to any individual, and not just take the tact of concentrating on business. I assume there is much more to the story that may be hard to condense.</p>

<p>The CEO seems to have assured you that his wife won’t be involved in the business. I would take him at his word, and focus on work. I’m always weighing risks and benfits in decision making in my work. The same would hold here, I think. If the risks to your well-being and/or economics outweigh the benefits of your business relationship with this CEO, you have to opt out. If not, hang in.
Good luck.</p>

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<p>ebeeeee, that is precisely what has us so alarmed. He is ceo and holds majority share. We have contracts in place. If something happens to him, I cannot even guess what happens. My other partner who blurted out “is there a prenuptual in place” never got a clear answer. I tried myself, steering more down the road of business continuity, and got some vague answer like “there are contracts in place” but with no explanation of what those contracts are. </p>

<p>I can usually manage to find something to like about just about everyone, and I have to say, this person might be the singular exception. Once, I let her use a computer/work station in my office when the ceo was there and we were all having a meeting. My employee who usually sits there was out at a client site - anyway, this woman not only downloaded music onto the computer, changed all the settings, went through all the files, but actually left piles of dirty, used kleenex all over my employee’s desk. My person came in the next day and was absolutely livid. The girlfriend had asked to use the computer to work on her resume, and I said fine. Never did I imagine she would do what she did…ugh…</p>

<p>Another time, she asked my assistant if one of my male employees was homosexual. She wanted to know, she said, because the employee was spending so much time with the ceo…why was that? Were they having an affair, she asked… Can you imagine???</p>

<p>I’m sort of pushing hard to terminate the relationship - even if there is no legal standing, there is still the matter of influence.</p>

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<p>I’m confused, but intrigued, by this thread, but I think you should hold on until August. Once she has the baby, she won’t have the time (nor probably the inclination) to meddle in business affairs or be bothered with all of you. Refusing to have the holiday party, so you don’t have to invite him and his spouse just seems churlish to me. I don’t get it.</p>

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<p>Marite, you know, you sort of hit the nail on the head. His (now former) assistant, right after she was fired, warned us. Being employers ourselves, we thought, well, there’s two sides to every story, and, we sort of convinced ourselves, well, she’s a disgrunted fired employee and who knows what really happened. Plus, it was easier for us to side with the side where the money is…but everything she warned us about has come to pass. And we never, ever imagined he would actually marry this girl - to the extent we thought about it at all, we thought, well, she’s a girlfriend, this will pass. </p>

<p>In our minds, a wife has far more power - absolute power, actually…especially when there is a child on the way…</p>

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<p>Jack, that’s verbatim what one of the male members of our group said - he’s in favor of hold off, she’ll be too busy…plus she’ll be more secure now, being married to him…so she won’t behave so weirdly…</p>

<p>Re the holiday party, one of the staff members of one of the other companies was so upset at how the girlfriend treated her, she burst into tears and left…</p>

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<p>I suppose I’m just thrown by the example you used. Letting restaurant saff have it when a party isn’t being handled right is something I have seen many a spouse do. Take it from someone who have had lots of male partners for twenty odd years, many a wife takes a great interest in events given by their husband’s business. Sonds like she felt he was a stakeholder in the event.</p>

<p>Many wives are actively involved in the business itself too, often at the request of the husband. My first husband called me all the time for business advice.</p>

<p>Take on the wife and you’ll most probably lose, so decide if you NEED to do business with him or not since she bothers you to this degree…</p>

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<p>Kirmum, she didn’t attack restaurant staff. She attacked the staff member of the hosting company, and, her then-“significant other” was a guest of the hosting company. </p>

<p>THEN she called the hosting company the next day, and complained that the party wasn’t enough fun for her.</p>

<p>But, you’re right, taking on ANYONE’s wife is certainly a losing proposition - that’s what has six of us so concerned. </p>

<p>I think we pull out of this…</p>

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<p>Look up and read the definition of a Borderline Personality disorder. Sounds like she has one and they are very destructive. Lots of splitting, seeing things in black and white, and lots and lots and lots of drama. Yuk.</p>

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<p>I can understand the concern, the CEO says, oh she won’t be involved, but he is a wuss, and is letting her treat HIS employees very badly…and as an employee what can you do? she has power and the CEO has given it to her</p>

<p>And while “many a wife (or spouse) takes an interest” most would never call a berate an employee like that</p>

<p>How old is this new wife anyway and how old is the CEO?</p>

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<p>If you’re on the verge of severing the business relationship, and it won’t hurt anything anyway at that point, would someone consider letting the now-wife know that her behavior towards others has gotten so bad that it has soured even the business end of the relationship? It’s unlikely to do any good, I guess, but if no one has actually come out and spoken with <em>her</em> about the repercussions of her actions (rather than trying to go through the CEO), she may not have had the opportunity to reconsider her actions.</p>

<p>Unrealistic, I know, but it might at least be the honorable thing to do to give her a chance to mend her ways.</p>