My Husband’s Mistress Showed Up At My Door And Handed Me Her Coat, Thinking I Was “The Help.” She Didn’t Realize I Own The House, The Company Her Father Works For, And The Bank Account Funding Her Vacation. Am I Wrong For Destroying Their Lives?
The Workplace
Back at my office the next morning, I scheduled a private meeting with Corey Brandt, our head of HR. Corey had been with the company for 6 years and I trusted him to handle sensitive situations without spreading gossip through the building. I closed my office door and explained that I was going through a divorce and there might be workplace complications I needed his advice on.
Corey pulled out a notepad and listened without interrupting as I told him my husband had been having an affair with an employee’s daughter. I didn’t use names at first, just laid out the basic situation and asked what I needed to do to protect both myself and the company.
Corey’s face stayed professional, but I could see sympathy in his eyes as he said we needed to be extremely careful about how we handled the employee’s status. He explained that we couldn’t punish someone for their family member’s actions; that would be discrimination and could result in a lawsuit the company would probably lose. Corey said the best approach was to document everything and treat the employee exactly like we would treat anyone else, addressing only actual performance issues if they came up.
I took a breath and told Corey the employee was Knox Marcato in operations. Corey nodded and pulled up Knox’s personnel file on his laptop, scrolling through performance reviews and attendance records. After a few minutes, he looked up and said, “Knox had been a solid employee for four years with no disciplinary issues and consistently good performance ratings.”
Corey explained that this actually made the situation harder because I couldn’t justify firing Knox or moving him to a different position without a legitimate business reason. If I did anything that looked like retaliation for his daughter’s affair with my husband, Knox could sue both me personally and the company.
I felt frustrated because part of me wanted Knox gone so I wouldn’t have to see him every day and be reminded of what his daughter did, but I understood Corey was right about the legal risks. Corey closed Knox’s file and said we should document this conversation and create a plan for how to handle any issues that might come up. He suggested we treat Knox exactly as we would any other employee, evaluating him only on his work performance and behavior at the office.
If Knox’s performance suffered or if he created problems because of the situation with Alexis and Richard, we would address those issues through normal HR channels with everything documented. Corey said we couldn’t preemptively punish Knox for something his adult daughter chose to do, even though I had every right to be angry about the whole situation. I agreed with Corey’s approach even though it felt unsatisfying, and he made notes about our meeting for the HR file in case we ever needed to prove we handled everything properly.
That evening, I was sitting at home going through more financial records when my phone buzzed with a text from Richard. He asked if we could talk because he wanted to explain everything and try to work things out. I stared at the message for a long moment before remembering Palmer’s instruction that all communication should go through her office now. I forwarded Richard’s text to Palmer without responding to him and let her handle whatever he wanted to say.
Palmer texted back 20 minutes later saying she would contact Richard’s lawyer and remind him that direct communication with me was not appropriate during divorce proceedings.
