Stop listening to greedy colleague

Q I have a temperamental bully colleague who started dating someone about 10 months ago.

She’s very narcissistic, and tells me things that other people would keep quiet. She’s very candid about knowing “who he was” and his financial status when she met him, and she went after him because of it.

She considers him to be her future security so is doing what she can to lock him down. She can’t stand his parents, considers them simple, was unbelievably critical of their house (not opulent enough for her), and hates his ex-wife and kids.

The kids haven’t warmed to her and she doesn’t care. She considers them an afterthought and not relevant to her goal.

She fakes it with all the family and most of their friends.

She says she keeps him drinking when they’re together. It’s so he doesn’t notice her faking her feelings, and so she can’t be annoyed by his non-stop business talk.

She tolerates the sex but convinces him that she loves it all — loves him, and that she’s so happy — so she can secure a life for her and her son.

She’s requesting expensive vacations and jewelry and starting to alienate him from his friends and family by lying and exaggerating situations to make her seem like a victim. She’s called him her golden ticket and it makes me sick.

I don’t know this man, but apparently, he’s very nice.

I’ve listened to her for months. I’ve told her she should end things. She never will because of the wealth. Do I have an obligation to warn him with an anonymous email or letter?

Conflicted

A No. You don’t know him, and your motive just may include getting back at your colleague for her bullying rather than saving her boyfriend.

You’ve “listened for months,” but you didn’t have to. You could’ve told her very early on that you find her duplicity offensive.

It wouldn’t have stopped her, but you wouldn’t have been an enabler by serving as her audience. Back off now. Say you’ve heard enough.