Jeff Zucker Was Right to Resign. But I Can't Judge Him.

When people ask me how I met my husband, I tend to mumble something about how we met “at work.” If there are follow-up questions, I eventually confess that I was his boss.

In 2011, I was the editor in chief of The New York Observer, the iconic salmon-pink newspaper (now online only), and the editorial director of its parent company. My now-husband, Jotham Sederstrom, ran the company’s commercial real estate trade publication and reported to me.

So when I read the news that Jeff Zucker, president of CNN Worldwide, had resigned because he had failed to disclose a yearslong relationship with a subordinate, I had two thoughts: Mr. Zucker’s resignation was completely appropriate. And I had little room to judge him.

I am not particularly sympathetic to Mr. Zucker generally, in part because I think he and his news channel enabled Donald Trump. I also find the bemoaning of Mr. Zucker’s fate on air and reportedly in company meetings by stars of the network to be somewhat ridiculous. But when the on-air correspondent Dana Bash characterized the company’s move to force Mr. Zucker out as a “punishment” that didn’t fit the “crime,” it underscored for me how badly equipped we are to talk about romance in the workplace and the power dynamics that it may affect.

No matter how many rules and boundaries you put in place, human impulses will sometimes override professional considerations, especially when it comes to love. One of my best friends, a grand-gesture romantic who could find eros in his morning coffee, put it aptly: “They’ll hold back the tides before they end office romances.”

I dealt with my own office romance in a way that I now understand to be unusual: I reported it immediately. (In a 2018 survey of 500 employees by the human resources platform Namely, less than 5 percent said they would willingly report a workplace relationship to the company’s H.R. team.) Jotham and I had worked together for a few months, and while it did not escape me that he was smart and charming, and looked a bit like Matthew Modine circa 1995, up until that point, I did not view him as anything but a colleague, and our interactions had been minimal.

After we crossed a line into romantic territory while having drinks, I panicked and forced him to have the conversation you never want to have before a second date: something along the lines of, are we serious about this, and are we willing to get fired? More to the point, am I willing to get fired? I was potentially a walking sexual harassment lawsuit. It didn’t matter that I had not harassed Jotham; I was his boss and the power differential created the opportunity for it.

So I told the president of the company what had happened in an awkward conversation that made us both squirm and laugh nervously, and I asked him to change the reporting lines so that I wouldn’t be responsible for evaluating Jotham. He shrugged, said he didn’t feel that was necessary because we were both professionals and changed the subject as quickly as possible. The company had a handbook that presumably included rules on situations like ours. I never read it. But I know enough about labor law to be certain that there’s no scenario where you can date your subordinates and not be at risk of a sexual harassment lawsuit — or a discrimination lawsuit if you promote or demote them. Still, Jotham continued to report to me until I left the Observer a year later, in 2012. (We got married in 2014.)

Mr. Zucker appears to have been a popular leader at the news channel, at least among on-air talent, which is treated especially well and handsomely compensated, so it’s no surprise that they would be defensive of him for reasons that may have nothing to do with his workplace affair. But when Ms. Bash implies that what he did — a consensual relationship between two divorced adults — isn’t a crime, there’s an underlying sentiment I agree with, which is that inappropriate workplace romances often happen not because people are evil or abusive, but because they’re human.

Even so, it’s hard to deny that what Mr. Zucker did was a fire-able offense: He waited years to disclose his relationship with Allison Gollust, during which time the two worked closely together.

There are good reasons that both formal and informal boundaries are a necessity in the workplace and academia — as the latest allegations of sexual harassment of graduate students at Harvard show. The actions of leaders and authority figures set the precedent, and even if Mr. Zucker (or I) didn’t harass or abuse anyone, the way a boss behaves can have lasting and harmful effects for others in the company. It seems Mr. Zucker, unlike me, didn’t report his relationship immediately, but the open secret of his flouting of the rules was tolerated. By showing that the rules don’t apply to those with power, he sent the message that lines could be crossed, at the expense of more vulnerable people in the company, with no repercussions.

Still, it’s worth acknowledging that adhering to these necessary rules cuts against some core aspects of human nature. I’m of the opinion that people should not bring their “whole self” to work — no one owes an employer that — but it’s also impossible to bring none of your personal self to work. Sex and power are often intertwined. If you’re the boss, a subordinate’s adoration can be very alluring, and if you’re subordinate, validation from an authority figure might be a turn on. Strong feelings can develop, even within the confines of strong boundaries.

Professional life, especially in a culture as work-obsessed as America’s, forces us into a lot of unnatural postures. As animals, we are not physically well designed to sit at a desk for a minimum of 40 hours a week staring at screens. That so many of our waking hours are devoted to work in the first place is a very modern development that can easily erode our mental health and sense of self. We are a higher species capable of observing restraint, but we are also ambulatory clusters of needs and desires, with which evolution has both protected and sabotaged us. And it’s no surprise, when work occupies so much of our attention, that people sometimes find deep human connections there, even when they don’t intend to, and even when it’s inappropriate.

“Where else are you supposed to meet people?” one of my friends reassured me, half-jokingly, when I sheepishly told her that Jotham had worked for me at the beginning of our relationship. And indeed, the reaction I get to that information tends to be mostly positive, or at least sympathetic. Perhaps this is because the traditional boss-subordinate gender dynamic was reversed. Or maybe I don’t strike anyone as a seductress: My idea of flirting is making a book recommendation.

Jotham and I have a 6-year-old son now, and I still don’t quite know how to talk about how our relationship began. I suppose I’d say that I did something horribly unprofessional, that was definitely a fire-able offense. And that it was a brilliant mistake, one I will forever be grateful and relieved that I made.

Elizabeth Spiers (@espiers) is a writer and digital media strategist. She was the editor in chief of The New York Observer and the founding editor of Gawker.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.