My wife is embroiled in a very messy and emotional distressing situation at her workplace. She works for a local medical practice, which is owned by 4 partners, all of whom are physicians. She has worked at the practice for more than 15 years, and has been in her current position as Office Manager for about 18 months.
One of the partners, let's call him Jim, with whom my wife is friendly, is experiencing marital problems. Jim recently asked his wife, let's call her Susan, for a divorce. Susan believes Jim has "feelings" for my wife and that the friendliness of their relationship is inappropriate. She has made my wife the target of her anger. He denies these "feelings" and has told my wife that Susan has been jealous of other female employees he has worked with in the past. It is clear to me that there has been no romantic relationship between my wife and Jim, just mutual respect and a platonic friendship.
Jim has confided his marital problems with my wife and has shared some outrageous things that Susan has been saying, including things like she "feels like a ticking time bomb ready to explode" and that she wants to call my wife and "have a woman-to-woman talk" about the situation. She has also threatened Jim, saying that if my wife is still employed at the practice in two weeks that she will come into the office and confront her in front of her staff and patients and create a nasty scene. She almost did this once before, but was stopped by Jim from entering the building.
It is becoming increasing difficult for my wife to fulfill the obligations of her job. Susan went into a rage recently when my wife called Jim to have him join a business conference call with several other people on the line. She basically won't tolerate any interaction, and has threatened confrontation directly with my wife. I don't know if she would do anything physically violent, but I do know my wife is scared that could happen.
To say the least, this has become more than a distraction. It is impeding my wife's ability to perform her job duties, and it has followed her home, too, disrupting our personal lives. It certainly feels like this is some sort of harassment, although it is being created by the partner's spouse, not directly by an employee of the practice.
At this point, my wife would prefer to just leave her job and move on. I know the partners at the practice value the work she does and wouldn't want her to leave, but if they can't find a way to control this situation, I feel that may be the only tenable solution.
Given the circumstances, I believe it would be fair for my wife to ask for some sort of severance, since this situation was brought upon her. She certainly never asked for any of this and has done nothing to warrant the emotional distress she is going through.
Does my wife have any victim's rights in this situation? Or would she have to wait for Susan to threaten her directly, instead of by proxy through Jim? I know this is not a typical workplace harassment situation, but any advice would be appreciated!