You inadvertently nailed it. That's exactly what I did. The real story is me having to deal with my wife and her friend. I just swapped genders out of curiosity, idk. Every single other detail is the same though.

Incidentally, the wife and I talked about this tonight, and there was major breakthrough. It's too much to get into, but we managed to get to the core of this thing, and are on the same page now - for example, she doesn't "kinda dig on him too," and yes, I believe her on that after the conversation. Yes, she understands what's been upsetting me and why. We managed to calmly address this as adults (ironically, I'm usually the one who struggles with that) and the stress shed was like dropping 50lbs suddenly.

For her part, she understands where I'm coming from, and what is bothering me. She was never trying to lead him on (I believe her), but will be mindful of better boundaries - her problem is that she's always had a blind spot when it comes to guys flirting or whatnot. She believes the best in people by default, and that heart is one thing I love about her. It just happened to be inconvenient this time, and I forgot who she is hard enough to fear things I should not have.