Partner’s colleague

My partner started a new job 12 months ago. She initially made friends with girls, but didn’t mention any males in case I got the wrong end of the stick. 6 months in, segment mentioned that she is now friends with two guys. One in particular she would call a ‘good friend’ now. She says it’s all work based and would have nothing to say to him outside of work. He’s married with two kids (we have three between us). And we leave it there. She doesn’t make any mention of him again.

Another 6 months later and after a separate issue, and her not being very open, I discover that her WhatsApp chat with this colleague is ‘archived’ in her phone. This is a bone of contention for 24hrs where she says they are friends and get on and talk out of work sometimes and message and it’s not a big deal because she doesn’t see him like that (he’s no oil painting) but then, she says it was because he has now become a little too intense and annoying in how much he is messaging her. She says he has been changing his breaks at work so that they have their breaks together (not standard practise but he’s a supervisor so he can). And has asked her to meet for coffee before he starts work, on days when he knows she isn’t working (she lives nearby to work). A week later I spot that he has sent a normal text msg to her. She says this is probably because she has ignored all his WhatsApp messages.

Two weeks later she says he’s messaged a few more times and she still hasn’t read them. She says it all seems a bit uncomfortable now. She’s said we can think about writing a reply together, as she doesn’t know what to say but doesn’t want to be rude as she still has to work with him. I encourage us to read the messages he’s sent, but she refuses. Later she agrees and they are somewhat more detailed than I’d expected.

He notes that she hasn’t been replying, and wonders why. He says she’s been MIA previously but this time it’s different. He says he wants them to get ‘back on track’. He says he values what they have a lot and she has been very important and helpful to him when he’s needed her. He said he liked their recent phone conversation. One message said he had an idea for them that he wanted to raise. Another was saying he didn’t want to keep messaging her without reply and that h the is would be his last message to her if she didn’t reply. A week later he messaged again to announce the death of his father in law. Saying he didn’t want her to find out from someone else - which she says was odd and wouldn’t have been a talking point at work anyway. He then messaged again a few days later and said he was free for a few hours if she wanted to give him a call. She had deleted all messages from him prior to a month ago - she said this was because there was an issue with his messages not being delivered.

It was then 4 days since that message when we read/listened to them together. She said she felt very uncomfortable with the messages, wishes she had just left them unread and had nothing to hide but felt it was all either very weird or he just has no social skills and no other friends. At this stage, she doesn’t want to reply to him, but he will now have seen that she’s read them.

It seems odd. She said she didn’t mind chatting to him at work but it’s become too much. She said he was nice but it’s now too much. I’m almost 100% sure she’s being as up front with me as she needs to be. Even though some parts seem like they could have been suspicious (deleted messages, archived messages, not mentioning him for 6 months, saying they get on well and then not wanting to read or reply to him). On the messages he sounded fairly normal, if a little keen. He sounded like he could have been legitimately responding to reciprocal, warm, friendly actions from my partner (which she was somewhat denying to me).

So I just wondered if this might bear many hallmarks of stalker like situations? And what better place to come to find out right?!

Thanks in advance.