Of office couples, friends with benefits

In every workplace, there are office couples. These are two colleagues who though married, are romantically involved with each other and it is an open secret.

In our office, there are a number of colleagues who play couple, but there is one particular couple that takes the crown.

Let’s call the man Onyango and the woman Njeri. Both are happily married, but they have a clandestine office affair that spices up our office life.

Onyango and Njeri stopped giving a damn about what people say behind their backs and now they just do their own thing with abandon.

Although they live in separate estates, somehow these two lovebirds in the same department many a times arrive at work together, leave together and hang out together in the office. Onyango-Njeri affair is such an open affair, everybody in the office has accepted that fact and moved on. There is even a rumour that Njeri’s lastborn is an Onyango. But why do married colleagues play couple in the office?

Keeps team mafisi away

Women especially married ones are soft targets for mafisi because these mamas are seen as having less baggage and their demands minimal unlike single women. So if you are that wanted species, it saves you a lot when you are ‘taken’ because this will keep the hyenas away. Like for Njeri, though she is a desirable woman, fisis avoid her like a plague because she is Onyango’s ‘property’. But if you are still available, you are easy target.

It comes with benefits: Njeri is that lazy colleague who is always behind when it comes to all things office work. She barely beats her deadline and is always behind when it comes to critical staff requirements like filling in her appraisal forms. But thanks to her relationship with Onyango, these failings are well covered. Onyango virtually does all the dirty work for his office sweetheart.

He helps her fill the appraisal, updates her on new developments in the office like if there’s a new boss etc.

Your office spouse has your back

There are days in the office when you need someone to fill in for you and if you have an office spouse, that’s where he comes in handy.

Compensates where your spouse fails

 For a woman to be in a relationship with a man, most likely there is somewhere the husband is failing her – it could be in the sack, in finances, emotional satisfaction and others, and the spouse fills that gap. If a woman finds herself in that situation she is most likely vulnerable and when a man approaches her, she is likely to fall into the man’s trap.

Adventure and fun

 Most marriages especially those that have lasted past year seven, suffer from routine and boredom. In a marriage, it reaches a point where husband and wife are so used to playing marriage; they start to act as brother and sister. And the fire disappears, one is bound to search for it in the nearest of places which happens to be the place you spend the most time.

The writer is a married working mother of a toddler boy and a pre-school girl. She shares her experience of juggling between career, family and social life.