I slept with my boss and now it's awkward

Our letter today comes from Claire, who's in a situation with her boss that she needs some advice on. Here it is, along with my response. Even if you've never been in this situation, read on because there's some underlying themes of power and control I think you'll relate to.

Here's her email:

Hi Jane,

I am a 21-year-old female who like many other women have nowadays got involved with their boss. I have only been in the business for 7 months and I worry I could lose my job over this.

But anyway, when I started working with him I was only 20, it started off as any natural friendly relationship would, although with the casual flirtatious joke or dirty remark at times, but I thought this was part of his personality at times.

Fast forward a few months and we started messaging on Instagram and from there it turned very flirtatious although he had stated he didn't want a relationship and I had said the same thing.

As time went on he would message me saying "Come down to mine and we can f**k all night and you can go to work with a smile on your pretty face."

I never went through until fast forward a few months again to last Saturday. I got drunk and texted him asking to join me in the bar which he refused, but said if I wanted I could go to his after, which I did. When I got to his we talked (more me than him) and we made out.

He kept asking when we were going to have sex and me being the nervous and insecure girl I am said I don't know. I went to the bathroom and when I came back down, I took him by the hand and led him upstairs in my drunken state and we had sex (he lasted 5 minutes and used the excuse you're just so hot that's why I came so quick.)

I thought this was utter bull but didn't say anything.

I tried to initiate we go again and he just brushed me aside got changed and handed me my things. I then joined him downstairs and we sat in silence for a while, then I tried to get comfortable and he kept pushing me away which only made me feel even more insecure about myself.

I then left when my friend came to collect me and I did text him trying to say that I was disappointed with our encounter as he had kept saying about how much more he would do but he apologised and said night.

I left it at that then text him the next day asking if we could talk but he said no cause he was busy then asked me a question. Anyway, it resulted in an argument happening between us and he said some hurtful things which really tore me up.

The next day I was working with him and he completely ignored me. Two days later I messaged him asking if we could talk and he said no then I apologized for having been so bitchy on Sunday and then we argued even more and now I feel horrible and he's managed to make me feel cheap, sleazy and guilty with the whole situation.

What do I do?

- Claire

My Response:

Oh Claire, I'm so glad you reached out to me.

Of course it's awkward. He set this up from the beginning as an alluring fantasy for someone just like you and when you took him up on his offer, he couldn't live up to it and turned it all around on you!

If you had a different story other than one that has you nervous and insecure, you would never have fallen for it. And he wouldn't have offered it to you in the first place.

This entire dynamic depended on you being vulnerable to his overtures and him taking full advantage of you! He exploited those very parts of you that could fall for it because of your belief in that fantasy - and because he had power over you - and he knew it, too.

Get angry, Claire.

Don't turn this on you. You feel horrible because you're feeling how horrible he is and how sleazy and guilty HE should be feeling. But instead, he's projecting that onto you with the hurtful things he's saying to make himself feel better.

But you're the one taking this on, even apologizing for being "bitchy" when you had nothing to apologize for. Claire, this is him trying to absolve himself of any responsibility and projecting it onto you!

Yes, anger is what's called for here.

Not our programmed response when someone calls you "bitchy" to apologize and take it all on you. "Bitchy" is when you stand up for yourself and call him out on what his behavior actually is!

You're his subordinate in your workplace hierarchy and it is on him, not on you, to make sure that there's not even the slightest optic of him using that power to coerce you into something you might not otherwise do!

We're so used to blaming ourselves for a man's bad behavior, we turn on ourselves before we ever turn on him.

Whether or not there actually are so many women sleeping with their bosses these days, or whether that's just a perception we get from our culture or the media, what concerns me is how this is affecting you and that it happened to you in the first place.

Don't be "the nervous and insecure girl that I am.." Don't sell yourself short like that.

What I wouldn't give to go back in time to my 21-year-old self and tell her a thing or two about just how powerful she never knew she was!

Don't get taken in by easily spoken flirtatious jokes or dirty remarks that make you feel so small and inferior because this is exactly his intention when using them!

I'm assuming you got caught up in some fantasy, believing that all kinds of women nowadays get involved with their bosses so it would be the same glamorous, exciting story for you to to get the guy who holds some power over you.

And yet as most women who go down this path find out, it's not what they expected it to be. He turned out to be nothing like what he promised, he couldn't perform, he didn't live up to all his bravado talk, and now he's ignoring you and you're worried about keeping your job.

I do know one thing. As long as you feel as you say "cheap, sleaxy and guilty with the whole situation", you're not going to feel any part of your power and you're certainly not going to be able to be around this man or do your job well.

You're feeling this way because you thought it was going to be different, because of the way he led you to believe it would be. You imagined a fantasy. He couldn't deliver and put it on you instead.

Give it back to him instead.

The reality is he, not you, initiated this. Sure, you took him up on his offer one night when you were drunk but he's the one who invited you over, and it was his invitation from the beginning that had you texting him in the first place. As your boss, as your superior in a power position over you at your place of employment, that's crossing a line.

It's called sexual harrassment, and even if you feel like it was consensual, in a situation like this it never is, because subconsciously you know he's in a position of power over you. This can lead you to do things you wouldn't normally do, even when you don't realize it.

He and every man like him should at the very least be reported to their Human Resources Department, and I think you should in this case.

You have every right to and you absolutely should so that no other women ever has to be put in this position because of him, but I can't make you do that. If you feel like you don't have the power to do it, if you're feeling like this is your fault and you're blaming yourself, it's not easy to muster the power together to report him and especially not knowing what will happen after that. I get that, Claire.

And that's why first, there's something I want you to do for you.

I want you to look at this story you've created about yourself and insecure and see it for what it is, just a story.

You're not nervous and insecure. That's just the story you've bought into that our culture - and some people in your life - sold to you. Someone along the way benefitted from you believing you were nervous and insecure and it served them to have you believe this.

It only benefits them. It doesn't serve you.

I don't know if this is the first time you're hearing this. I don't know how you've come to find yourself here. But if you're here writing to me, I'm going to see your showing up here as an opportunity to get to the underlying root of not just this situation you've found yourself in, but any and all situations you find yourself in going forward.

There's a lot of women reading this who would give anything in this world to be 21 like you with their whole life ahead of them hearing what I'm telling you today at your age instead of finally figuring this out for themselves 10, 20, 30, 40 or more years down the road.

You've got to show up with your own power, Claire.

Don't defer to anyone. You don't have to do anything but be yourself to get a good guy. Powerful guy doesn't mean anything if he's a little immature boy inside. Money and power are nothing without values and morals and ethics and someone who's actually there for you.

Power is in everything. Recognizing who you are and what you're worth simply because you're you is worth more than any other advice you'll ever get.

Adopt the mindset that you are the prize here - because you are!

Fill your life so full of the people and things that love you and accept you and support you as you are, so you won't be so easily taken by men who come long with shiny objects and all the right words but no substance to back them up.

You deserve something real, not a fantasy of something he can never live up to.

I don't have a lot of space here, but I could spend all day talking to you about what I've learned along the way - the hard way - that I wish I'd known at your age.

If you had a different story, if you knew your own value, if you knew your true worth, the answers to so many of your questions would be easy and obvious ones. They're not for most of us because these concepts are new to us, too.

Create that different story, Claire. Give yourself a new one. Hold your head up high. Look this man square in the eye. And don't you dare let him get the best of you.

Either become strong enough with supportive people in your life to keep this job and look him in the eye every time you have to deal with him, meeting him head on, or talk to HR about going to another job within the company so you don't have to deal with this man.

It doesn't matter who knows. You have nothing to be ashamed of!

He's your boss. He knows better. Your company plays a role to educate him as well on this topic in the workplace. And if he doesn't, it's still on him to know better.

I hope this helps.

Love,

Jane

Your turn. What do you think Claire should do? Tell her your thoughts and advice in the comments below. What would YOU say to your 21 year old younger self?