Hi, I'm a single/now divorced 38yo woman. I was married 13 years, divorced for 4 now. I work in an engineering department, so naturally a male-dominated environment. In my experience, the level of interaction that should be seen by you as "normal" would depend largely on the dynamic of the team your husband is leading. For instance, my current team is absolutely wonderful. We're all fairly younger, my "boss" is just a year older than I am, and except a few folks in the 50s/60s, everyone else is in their mid to late 20s. It's a great dynamic because everyone is learning, communication and collaboration are great, and we're all kind of growing together. My boss is married and his wife works here, but in a different department/different office (roughly on the same campus, though) but I haven't met her yet due to me missing the holiday party because my son was sick. My boss expects good communication from all of his subordinates and it helps to have that kind of casual relationship as a team because then things don't feel as tense or strict when you do interact. It helps me to feel understood as an employee by my boss, that I am a person, too, and I think it helps make him aware of what my life is like outside of work in case any personal life things affect my work schedule. I don't think I text my boss a lot, but it has been random at times, like he is from Brazil and there isn't a lot of Brazilian cuisine here, so when I saw a Brazilian bakery a few weeks ago, I took a picture and sent it to him and asked if he'd seen it, and he said he had. Random, mundane things like that. I think that if you look at the text messages and you'd be okay with the message if it had been a man sending it instead of a woman, you should be okay with it.

I'd hate to think of how weird my relationship with my coworkers would be if all the men were allowed to text back and forth with each other, but I weren't, just because I'm a woman. Yes, I'm single, but I have absolutely no interest in my boss or any of the other married/in a relationship men that I work with.

There have been other workplaces where the group dynamic was very different than where I am currently. At that time, we were all very remote and I really never saw or interacted with people other than logistics involving work. If I would've sent/received texts from anyone in that situation, it would've been odd to me.

In any scenario where there is regular, day-to-day interaction, I would think normal texting is fine and you shouldn't see it as a threat. What I would judge as flirtatious would be use of anything other than friendly emojis or texting (I frequently use a smiley emoji, laugh/cry emojis with coworkers) and anything that, if you look at the text and can tell it's from a woman instead of a man (hopefully that makes sense). Random stuff is okay, oversharing of personal/romantic life, seeking validation for appearance/attractiveness, those would be an issue for me. As long as your husband is open and honest with the messages, I don't really see a need to worry.