[ SECRET POST #4470 ]

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⌈ Secret Post #4470 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 33 secrets from Secret Submission Post #640.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Re: Realizing you have feelings for someone else when you're in a relationship...

[(Anonymous)]

Above anon again.

I'd also like to add that if he's confessing his feelings to someone other than his wife, he is already "that kind of person". His wife would most likely be deeply hurt to know he's declared feelings for someone else. He is in the wrong and he can't claim to be ignorant of the pain his decision to involve you would cause. Whether he says he would cheat or not is irrelevant at this point. He is making choices that show he does not respect his wife or their marriage.

I've tried to be fairly neutral in my response overall, but I don't think this is something you should overlook or support, even if you were a platonic friend.

Re: Realizing you have feelings for someone else when you're in a relationship...

[(Anonymous)]

This is a great comment.

Re: Realizing you have feelings for someone else when you're in a relationship...

[(Anonymous)]

This. Also, if this guy is willing to emotionally cheat on his wife, why do you think he wouldn't also cheat on you too? He clearly doesn't place much value in being faithful, because if he did, he would never have told you he had feelings for you. That right there is a great big red flag that this is NOT the kind of guy you want to go for. Stay far, far away.

Re: Realizing you have feelings for someone else when you're in a relationship...

[(Anonymous)]

OP

Like I said in another comment, I feel like I really have no place to be judging her just because she said out loud the same thing that I was thinking. I get where everyone's coming from, that it doesn't look great to be telling someone else you have feelings for them when you're married, but at the same time...when you develop feelings for someone else when you're married/in a relationship, how are you supposed to handle it? Just not say anything and hope the feelings go away? Probably. (Sorry if I'm being dumb about all this, it's just the first time I've ever been in this kind of situation and it's really screwing with me.)

Re: Realizing you have feelings for someone else when you're in a relationship...

[(Anonymous)]

I think the wisest thing to do is take a hard, hard look at your relationship, and a hard, hard look at your crush. The tricky part is doing this while being brutally honest and realistic, and not letting your judgment get clouded by Romantic Feelings.

I've been married for 15+ years. There have been ups and downs, because healthy relationships require lots of work on both sides. But I can honestly say that I've never crushed on someone so hard I even contemplate leaving my marriage.

Feelings are just feelings. You don't have to DO anything with them, certainly not right away. You do have to think about what kind of life you want, what kind of partner you want (if you want a partner at all) and then figure out what decisions to make to get there.

Re: Realizing you have feelings for someone else when you're in a relationship...

[(Anonymous)]

when you develop feelings for someone else when you're married/in a relationship, how are you supposed to handle it? Just not say anything and hope the feelings go away?


pretty much.

Re: Realizing you have feelings for someone else when you're in a relationship...

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, you don't confess them. You keep them to yourself, because those "feelings" might not even be romantic so much as you may just be bored or looking for something new and hadn't realized it. It might be infatuation. It might just be a bad case of this skewed narrative of "guys and girls can't be friends." Hell, I mistook sibling-like feelings for romantic ones because I was dumb at one point.

Re: Realizing you have feelings for someone else when you're in a relationship...

[(Anonymous)]

He is in the wrong and he can't claim to be ignorant of the pain his decision to involve you would cause. Whether he says he would cheat or not is irrelevant at this point. He is making choices that show he does not respect his wife or their marriage.

Quoted for truth.

Re: Realizing you have feelings for someone else when you're in a relationship...

[(Anonymous)]

OP

(She, actually, and she has a husband. I was trying to be gender-neutral, but I'm not sure why, honestly, and since everyone is assuming it's a guy with a wife, I thought I'd clarify things.)

From your first comment:

I told them (separately) to evaluate their current relationship and figure out why they were looking elsewhere before they made any decisions.

Couples go through rough patches, especially when kids are involved and they can't make the time or have the energy to focus on the relationship. Sometimes people stay together when they think it's easier than being alone or starting again.

If I'm completely honest, I haven't been happy in my current relationship for awhile now. I probably should end things regardless of this situation, but I guess part of me does feel like this gives me a reason when I didn't really have one before.

If you both find yourselves single down the track, then it might be something you decide to pursue. I would caution you to take some time, because jumping into a new relationship directly from the breakdown of a serious relationship has many added pressures and will likely cause tensions because of the expectations you would both be placing on one another, and your need to justify that it was worth ending your current relationships.

That's definitely something I'm worried about. I keep thinking is this actually worth ending a serious relationship, a marriage for? And even if it turns out to eventually be for the best, there's no denying that the kids would be hurt at least temporarily. I don't want to be responsible for that.

I'd also like to add that if he's confessing his feelings to someone other than his wife, he is already "that kind of person". His wife would most likely be deeply hurt to know he's declared feelings for someone else. He is in the wrong and he can't claim to be ignorant of the pain his decision to involve you would cause. Whether he says he would cheat or not is irrelevant at this point. He is making choices that show he does not respect his wife or their marriage.

Since I have feelings too, I find it kind of hard to condemn her, because I feel like I'm to blame as well. But I get where you're coming from because part of me feels like even admitting you have feelings sort of qualifies as cheating already. But again, it's hard to blame her, because I'm guilty of the same thing. She just happened to say it out loud, but it just as easily could've been me. I don't want to feel like she's a bad person here, because like you say, telling someone else you have feelings for them is not exactly respectful of your marriage, but then...when you find yourself having feelings for someone else when you're married, how do you handle it in a way that IS respectful of your marriage? I just sort of feel like there's no right way to behave in this situation, and it sucks.

Re: Realizing you have feelings for someone else when you're in a relationship...

[(Anonymous)]

If you're married and respect the person you're married to, you either try to recommit to the person you married, because you made them a promise. Or, if you think the other person is worth leaving for, you admit the truth and decide it's worth ending the marriage and end it, because you can no longer keep the promises you made.

What you do not do is pretend like you're keeping the promises while you don't.

If you can't think of what to do if this situation happens to you, rethink getting married. To this girl or to another.

Re: Realizing you have feelings for someone else when you're in a relationship...

[(Anonymous)]

OP

(Okay, now I'm regretting not giving more detail. I thought the gender/sexuality stuff shouldn't matter but...of course it does, because it leaves out a lot of context. I'm an idiot.)

She's a woman, with a husband. I am also a woman, with a girlfriend. She (meaning coworker) has also shared with me that she always feels like she's trying to do what everyone expects of her (in the course of being friends, in relation to other stuff, not this situation specifically) so I feel like that definitely complicates things.

It's not that I can't think of what to do, I'm just sure which option is right. I always thought if you're with someone and you find yourself having feelings for someone else, and you both feel the same way, you leave your partners and get together, instead of having an affair. It sort of seems like people are saying having feelings for someone else is automatically wrong, though, which feels unfair because it's not exactly something you can control. The only thing that's making me hesitate in this situation is the fact that there are kids involved, plus her family's fairly religious and although they really like me as her friend I'm not sure how they would react if she were to leave her husband for me.

These comments have made me realize that I probably need to leave my girlfriend, though. Part of me has wanted to for awhile but there was never anything really wrong with the relationship, so I didn't feel like I could really justify it.

Re: Realizing you have feelings for someone else when you're in a relationship...

[(Anonymous)]

Why does gender matter? I'm gay too, idgaf.

If you're married and respect the person you're married to, you either try to recommit to the person you married, because you made them a promise. Or, if you think the other person is worth leaving for, you admit the truth and decide it's worth ending the marriage and end it, because you can no longer keep the promises you made.

What you do not do is pretend like you're keeping the promises while you don't.

Which she's doing right now.

Re: Realizing you have feelings for someone else when you're in a relationship...

[(Anonymous)]

OP

I don't know. At first I thought it didn't matter, that's why I didn't go into the gender stuff initially, then I started thinking, well, maybe it does matter, because it's got to be harder for her to come to terms with having feelings for a woman when she's with a man, and leaving her husband because of that, than if she wanted to leave him for another man. Or maybe it doesn't. I feel like I don't even know anymore.

It has to be hard to recommit to your husband if you actually like women, but I can also see how it might be hard for her to actually leave her husband when she's afraid of disappointing people by not being who they think she should be. (It was completely different for me, my family's not religious, and although I dated guys in the past, I wasn't in a relationship when I realized "wait, I actually like girls" and I've been out ever since. It hasn't been an issue for me, but my situation is different than hers, and I'm a different sort of person than she is. I don't want to judge her too harshly when I haven't been in her situation, and I don't want to think of her as a bad person because I don't feel like she is one.)

But yeah. Like I mentioned below, I guess the ideal situation would've been for her to realize all this and decide she was going to leave her husband first, instead of telling me and then staying with him and not wanting to make up her mind about what to do. I mean, if she'd said she had feelings for me, and then decided that she couldn't leave him, and told me, hey, I can't actually leave him after all, then that would've hurt me, but at least I would know, and move on. As things are, I feel stuck in limbo. Which, I guess objectively is pretty shitty of her to do but I just can't be angry at her. Which probably makes me an idiot.

new anon lol

[(Anonymous)]

lmao come off it OP

Facts first:
1. Having feelings for another person while you are in a relationship is not necessarily indicative of cheating.
2. However, it can be.
3. There is absofuckinglutely a right way to behave in this situation that is respectful of both your relationship and your colleague's marriage.
4. You probably don't want to take 'the right way' or call her bad you because that would also be admitting YOU’RE bad as well by cheating on your SO.

So the first issue we have: when is having feelings ‘cheating’ and when is it ‘not’?

In order to tackle this, we have to first define cheating. How would you define it, OP? I’d see it as ‘when you take an action that you know your partner did not agree to you taking, and then deliberately and wilfully conceal it from them’. It doesn’t matter if they’re happier this way, you went behind their back and are doing things without them knowing.

Therefore, having feelings for someone else while also being in a relationship is NOT cheating if:
- The other partner knows you might and has okayed it, why not? These things happen
- The other partner doesn’t care either way and thinks it’s cool
- The other partner has no idea, it’s never come up before, and you’re going to let them know ASAP so they can have input on it and decide what to do from here

Guess what OP, your situation doesn’t fall into any of these.

Unless you’ve discussed with your partner ‘hey what happens if we have feelings for someone else’ and they’re like, ‘cool, have fun having those feelings, I don’t really care to know either way’ — then that’s fine, and that’s not cheating. But have you? It sure as hell doesn’t sound like it.

Moving on now to issue two: what is ‘the right way to act’ about this situation that respects both relationships?

In order to tackle this, we have to first define what it means to ‘respect a relationship’. Now this is where things start getting iffy.

Some people see it as ‘ensuring the relationship continues on at all costs, even if that means lying, cheating on, betraying or hiding things from the other person in it’. This would be respecting the continuance of the relationship above how people in the relationship might actually feel if they’d know the truth. If you feel like this, OP, then congrats! Don’t do anything, you’re good.

If on the other hand you see respecting a relationship as ‘both partners being open, honest and vulnerable with each other, because a relationship is basically about working together and also respecting the right your partner has to know things and make up their own mind about stuff’ (which is closer to how I view it, personally), then respecting a relationship means to let your partner know and then make a decision on where to go from there, together. It doesn’t mean unilaterally deciding you know better for them.

Here’s an example: Someone is trans and knows it’d be a dealbreaker to their partner if their partner found out. If they defined ‘continuing the relationship and keeping their partner happy’ as the priority, then they’d hide it and sit on it forever and never reveal it. If they saw ‘including and involving their partner as an equal in this’ then they’d reveal it, let the relationship end in a way that respects the honest intentions both people had in entering into it in the first place.

Re: new anon lol

[(Anonymous)]

OP

This comment kind of made me angry at first, but thank you.

I agree with you that the second definition (being open and honest) is more what I want in a relationship. And you're right that I'm wrong in this sitatuion too (and I think I said that elsewhere in this thread), the only difference is she actually said it, and I didn't.

But regardless of what happens with my coworker, I think I need to end things with my girlfriend. It's not fair to her for me to stay with her when I know I have feelings for someone else.

Re: Realizing you have feelings for someone else when you're in a relationship...

[(Anonymous)]

IMO, gender matters a little bit. But only in the sense that... is this the first time your co-worker has found herself experiencing these feelings for another woman? Because if so, things got a little more complicated because she's navigating that epiphany + a marriage that isn't working out like she hoped.

Having feelings for someone else isn't automatically wrong. It IS something to be wary of, when you and that person are already in relationships AND you work together.

Re: Realizing you have feelings for someone else when you're in a relationship...

[(Anonymous)]

OP

She hasn't explicitly told me, but I get that feeling it is, given her personality and the way her family is. I feel like she might not have even admitted it to herself if she has. I do know that she's only ever had two other relationships before her husband, and they were both with guys.

It does make me want to go a little easier on her, because like I said in another comment, it was entirely different for me. My family isn't religious and realizing I liked girls wasn't a big deal for me, so I don't know what she's going through and I don't feel right judging her. I mean, I could easily see her just marrying a man and having kids because she felt like she was supposed to and not really thinking there was any other option. I feel like it has to be scary for her to think of letting go of all of that. I do realize now that she should've figured all of that out before telling me she has feelings for her, but I just can't think of her as a bad person.

Re: Realizing you have feelings for someone else when you're in a relationship...

[(Anonymous)]

It sort of seems like people are saying having feelings for someone else is automatically wrong, though, which feels unfair because it's not exactly something you can control.

It's not automatically wrong. But feelings are feelings. They're only an existential crisis if you choose to make them into one, in spite of what all the soap operas and romcoms have to say about it.

Re: Realizing you have feelings for someone else when you're in a relationship...

[(Anonymous)]

Thiiiiiiis. When I was in a long-term relationship and ended up developing feelings for someone else, I realized that was a sign that I needed to end the relationship because his feelings were far stronger than mine and he deserved someone who was as devoted to him as he was to me. It wasn't even that I wanted to be with the other person, it was that I realized that I just wasn't feeling the spark anymore, and that wasn't fair to my partner.

Re: Realizing you have feelings for someone else when you're in a relationship...

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

Sorry for the gender assumption. I'm not sure where my brain got that from, other than thinking of my friend's previous situation.

It is more than okay to end a relationship simply because you don't want to be in it anymore. I think it's better than staying physically when you're emotionally absent from it, because both are painful, but at least one is honest.

I think the decision to tell you about her feelings is a very deliberate action, and it's one that you yourself, wisely chose not to make. You don't choose how you feel, but you do get to choose how you act on your feelings and how you treat others. I do, respectfully, think that she is in the wrong. Her gender and your reciprocation of those feelings don't change my opinion on that point, because it's still a deliberate betrayal of her spouse.

There is absolutely a right way to act, and involving someone outside of your relationship is the wrong way to go about it. If you feel your current relationship is no longer what you want, that is between you and your current partner only. It is not fair or respectful to them for you to start an emotional affair while you are still in a committed monogamous relationship.

You can't control the outcome of her marriage, or the fallout. You can only make your own decisions, and if I were you I would take a step back from this woman who is not only disrespecting her own spouse but involving you in something that you should have no involvement in. She's making you "the other person" in her own marriage and your choice is not between her and your current partner. It's between respecting yourself and your current relationship enough to do the right thing and establish a clear boundary, or being an affair partner to a married person.

Re: Realizing you have feelings for someone else when you're in a relationship...

[(Anonymous)]

OP

Nah, it's okay. I didn't think it mattered when I wrote the original post, but in retrospect I should've been more clear about things because I do feel like it's makes at least somewhat of a difference. I feel like her having a husband, and me being a woman as well makes the situation a bit different, and I don't know why I didn't realize that at first. Or maybe it doesn't, I don't know what to think at this point. I'm not thinking totally clearly because of this whole situation, plus I'm somewhat sleep deprived, so I apologize for leaving things out.

It is more than okay to end a relationship simply because you don't want to be in it anymore. I think it's better than staying physically when you're emotionally absent from it, because both are painful, but at least one is honest.

All of these comments are making me realize that.

I think the decision to tell you about her feelings is a very deliberate action, and it's one that you yourself, wisely chose not to make. You don't choose how you feel, but you do get to choose how you act on your feelings and how you treat others. I do, respectfully, think that she is in the wrong. Her gender and your reciprocation of those feelings don't change my opinion on that point, because it's still a deliberate betrayal of her spouse.

I get that. I always thought leaving your spouse instead of cheating was the right thing to do, and since we're not having an affair, neither of us did anything wrong. But I guess the fact that she told me she had feelings for me is itself not that different from cheating, and yeah, when I think about it, the fact that she told me is what's complicating things so much. I guess if she had decided right off the bat to leave her husband it would be different, but the fact that's she's staying with him so far and he has no idea what's going on and she's seemingly unable or not wanting to make a decision is what makes her actions wrong. That...seems so simple now that I think about it.

nayrt

[(Anonymous)]

I'm kind of glad you seemed to be thinking differently about things now, OP. Good on you, honestly - even if things seem simple on paper sometimes it's much harder to figure out how to act when it happens to you.

>I get that. I always thought leaving your spouse instead of cheating was the right thing to do, and since we're not having an affair, neither of us did anything wrong.

It's not just the fact that she told you, though. Like, imagine if your friend came to you and said 'OP, I'm not sure what to do, I just found out my partner has serious feelings for their colleague but they think that because I don't know and they aren't doing anything that it's fine. Should I just act like it is? Do you think they've done anything wrong?'.

This why it's 'something wrong'; it's not so much the action or inaction as much as the honesty or dishonesty.

same nayrt

[(Anonymous)]

Also just to add, some people might be happier not knowing, but 'are they happy' is not at all really a good measure of whether something is right or wrong, or good or bad.

Re: Realizing you have feelings for someone else when you're in a relationship...

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

I understand that this is a very emotional situation for you. You are not having a physical affair, but what you have told me is the definition of an emotional affair, at least on her part. If you are reciprocating and telling her you have feelings, then you are taking an active part in an emotional affair as well.

For most monogamous couples, there's no real difference between a physical and an emotional affair when it comes to finding out you're being cheated on. Both are hurtful, and both are disrespectful to current partners.

I think an emotional affair can be easier to justify to yourself, because you can think well we haven't done x, y, or z, so it's not cheating, right? Or it's okay to talk about these things because we're friends - which... I doubt your partner and spouse would see it that way considering the content of these talks. You're not a neutral party she's venting to.

If you both have feelings, I can see why you'd both like to justify this behaviour because it's easier than confronting the fact that you've crossed a line, but I think it's healthier in the long term to establish firm boundaries now you're aware of the potential harm you're doing and the guilt you'll feel if you continue trying to justify this.

Re: Realizing you have feelings for someone else when you're in a relationship...

[(Anonymous)]

It is more than okay to end a relationship simply because you don't want to be in it anymore. I think it's better than staying physically when you're emotionally absent from it, because both are painful, but at least one is honest.

Another really good piece of advice. A lot of people stay in relationships that aren't awful, but they aren't great, either. A relationship doesn't have to suck donkey balls for you to leave. A person doesn't have to be shitty or abusive or awful for you to leave. Sometimes a person can be great! But not great for you.