Her "wife"

  • Thread starter Thread starter flatlanderjenn
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
F

flatlanderjenn

Guest
I’ve worked with people who’ve been attracted to the same sex and they all referred to their bed partners as “room mates.” Now I work in a new job and a new team lead is a woman who has a “wife” and they have a son together. (It’s kind of funny because she revealed her “wife” gave birth to “their” son yet my co-workers keep asking if he has any of her traits. LOL I want to say he’s not biologically related to her but I don’t know if it’s my place.)

My question is: what term to do I use to refer to the woman who is her “wife?” I don’t want to say “wife” because a real marriage cannot exist between two women and I don’t want to pretend it can.

Also, do you have any recommendations on how I can witness to her?

Thanks.
 
flatlanderjenn said:
I’ve worked with people who’ve been attracted to the same sex and they all referred to their bed partners as “room mates.” Now I work in a new job and a new team lead is a woman who has a “wife” and they have a son together. (It’s kind of funny because she revealed her “wife” gave birth to “their” son yet my co-workers keep asking if he has any of her traits. LOL I want to say he’s not biologically related to her but I don’t know if it’s my place.)

My question is: what term to do I use to refer to the woman who is her “wife?” I don’t want to say “wife” because a real marriage cannot exist between two women and I don’t want to pretend it can.

Also, do you have any recommendations on how I can witness to her?

Thanks.
Click to expand...
Workplaces today have pretty specific guidelines about keeping hot button topics out of there, lest a person perceive another person as contributing to a ‘hostile work environment’, so witnessing to her will probably involve you acting as Christ like as possible --and for that, I think you’ll need to ask for His guidance.

As far as the ‘wife’ is concerned, if you can find out her name (let’s say it’s Susie), I would use simply “Susie” as much as possible if you must refer to her at all. If you are in a position where you must either speak or write the term "wife’, when you do so, you can (metaphorically) put ‘quotes’ around it, just as we’re doing in this communication. Even if you’re speaking face to face you can still mentally ‘quote’ around the term.
 
Can use the term “significant other” as well.

As far as witnessing, just being a friend and caring human being is a start. Trying to engage in conversation and find her story. There is almost always a lot of deep rooted pain. And if the opportunity arises ask about her faith journey. I would caution about being too moralistic (she knows what she is doing is proscibed in God’s eyes) as it will be the Holy Spirit who changes her heart. Finally, pray for her, her partner and the child.

As they say “be the church” but not “one of those church people”.
 
Can use the term “significant other” as well.

As far as witnessing, just being a friend and caring human being is a start. Trying to engage in conversation and find her story. There is almost always a lot of deep rooted pain. And if the opportunity arises ask about her faith journey and gauge how open she is to discussing it. I would caution about being too moralistic (she knows what she is doing is proscibed in God’s eyes) as it will be the Holy Spirit who changes her heart if it is to be changed. Finally, pray for her, her partner and the child.

As they say “be the church” but not “one of those church people”.
 
flatlanderjenn said:
My question is: what term to do I use to refer to the woman who is her “wife?” I don’t want to say “wife” because a real marriage cannot exist between two women and I don’t want to pretend it can.
Click to expand...
How do you deal with heterosexual divorcees who have remarried? Do you use the terms husband and wife, despite that fact that in Catholic eyes they are not truly married? How is the situation you describe any different? There is a legal civil relationship which is not recognised by the Church.
Also, do you have any recommendations on how I can witness to her?
Click to expand...
“Preach always. Use words if you have to.”

$0.02

rossum
 
Neal76 said:
Are you kidding? I can’t tell.
Click to expand...
It is entirely possible that the coworker’s wife was implanted with an embryo created from the coworker’s egg and a donor’s sperm. So her wife may have done the physical carrying and birthing of the child, but it could biologically be the coworker’s. There are female couples who do this.
 
DaddyGirl said:
How do you know he is not biologically related to her? Are you sure?
It doesn’t sound like a laughing-out-loud question to me.

.
Click to expand...
Well unless they used in-vitro for some reason, and used the co-workers egg to implant with some other man’s sperm into her “wife”. It would be pretty clear they are not biologically related.

In this case the child would not be biologically related to the “wife”. She’d merely be a surrogate.

However, It would seem most obvious that the egg came from the co-worker’s wife who was pregnant with the child, and the sperm from a “donor” or the child is from a previous relationship, making the child biologically unrelated to the co-worker.
 
flatlanderjenn said:
Also, do you have any recommendations on how I can witness to her?

Thanks.
Click to expand...
Do not bring religion up in the workplace. This is never a good idea, it’s been discussed on several threads here before, with folk who work in HR advising against it because you could be perceived as the problem.
 
Indigo_Cardinal said:
It is entirely possible that the coworker’s wife was implanted with an embryo created from the coworker’s egg and a donor’s sperm. So her wife may have done the physical carrying and birthing of the child, but it could biologically be the coworker’s. There are female couples who do this.
Click to expand...
OK, that makes better sense (while still being totally ridiculous). I thought DaddyGirl was suggesting the two women were cousins or something.
 
Indigo_Cardinal said:
Do not bring religion up in the workplace. This is never a good idea, it’s been discussed on several threads here before, with folk who work in HR advising against it because you could be perceived as the problem.
Click to expand...
Agreed totally.

It’s not my place in the workplace to tell the gay guy that he’s a sinner or that he’s going to hell.

It’s not telling him anything he hasn’t heard before. It’ll only hurt my standing in the workplace.
 
Unless the person that she is living with has a function in the business or is someone you have to deal with on business related issues you shouldn’t have to deal with it at all. If she is associated with the business just use her first name.
 
I don’t know why we have to hear about other peoples’ personal lives while at work. It never interested me.
 
I have a lesbian friend who entered into a civil same sex marriage. I refer to her significant other by her name or significant other.
 
Why is this a problem? does your team leaders partner work there as well. Why would you be referring to her (an absent person) at all?? I worked for the same company for many years, and my husband was never a topic of conversation, having nothing whatsoever to do with my position. If your team leader is inserting her personal life into the job, I would complain to HR myself. This is totally inappropriate in my opinion. I never went to work and expected to have to listen to any boss talk about his or her personal relationships. 🙂
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top