fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #4470 ]

[ SECRET POST #4470 ]

⌈ Secret Post #4470 ⌋

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

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Notes:

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Well, the first thing you should know is that if you did both leave your respective marriages and start a relationship, the odds of that working out well in the long run are so slim, they'd be like buying a lottery ticket. If your co-worker is male, I'd say those odds are even worse because he's in a relationship with a woman he used to love - someone to whom he promised fidelity and commitment. All of that - his wife, his children - has suddenly gone down the toilet in favor of someone he sees 8-10 hours a day at work. The fact that he's suffering from buyer's remorse now does not look good for his judgment, or his ability to sustain a long term monogamous relationship. You say cheating is not an option... for you. I bet he doesn't feel the same way, should you be inclined.

If he said anything about how his wife "doesn't understand" him or tried to neg her in some way to prove how you are clearly the more worthy candidate for his affections, then please know that he's a lying sack of shit. This is a textbook Cheating Bastard 101 tactic, to groom a prospective side piece.

Good guys who are in unhappy marriages try to fix them first, or they get an amicable divorce. They do not confess their feelings to a co-worker knowing full well that they're jeopardizing both your jobs and his marriage. In light of that, document what he said to you with dates and times in a notebook somewhere, in case things get nasty and HR has to get involved. If it was in a text/PM or something, screenshot and save it.

Also: Please do not damage your career for a random dude, ever. A good guy will never, ever ask or expect or HOPE that you to do this.

The fact that you are considering leaving your current SO for a guy who only know through work is a huge red flag about your current relationship. Please slow your roll, do not get engaged, do not make any further commitments to your SO like moving in together or buying a house. Figure out what's missing from your current relationship that made you think you'd maybe kinda of like to dump him for your co-worker. Consider taking a break to unpack your conflicted thoughts and emotions on the subject and see if you really want to be with the person you're with now. It's not fair to either you or your SO to use him as a placeholder until a more attractive offer comes along. You deserve better. Don't settle.

If you decide that you'd like to take a risk with this co-worker, tell him to call you when his divorce is final and until then, you maintain a professionally detached, civil working relationship that is no more intimate than any other 100% platonic relationship you have with the rest of your co-workers.

Then please prepare yourself for the likelihood that he's not going to get that divorce.

SA - I apologize for the gender assumption. It comes from the sad knowledge that there are some truly terrible men out there. Fortunately, I have no personal/firsthand experience with this, but it's not at all unusual.

None of my advice changes now that I know it's a woman.

OP

She doesn't really put her husband down, she's actually mentioned what a good man he is, but she's also made vague comments that I've interpreted as meaning she's not happy in her marriage (and this was way before admitting she has feelings for me).

And you make a good point about damaging your career. She definitely doesn't expect me to leave or anything like that, that was more just me trying to figure out what to do in the worst case scenario, but hopefully it doesn't come to that.

You are right about my current relationship. At this point I am planning to leave. If I'm completely honest with myself, I haven't been happy in the relationship in awhile, and that's not fair to my girlfriend. She's not a bad person and things aren't awful, and for a long time I thought that because of that I couldn't justify ending things, but I'm realizing more and more that she's not right for me, and not being happy in the relationship is a good enough reason to end it.

That's probably a good idea. Tell her she needs to figure things out for herself, and if she leaves him, let me know, but if/until that happens, things need to be professional.

And yeah, I know there's a good chance she might not leave him. Her family being the way they are, and her random comments about always feeling like she needs to impress everyone around her/make them like her/not disappoint them/be who they want/expect her to be makes that fairly likely. I need to accept that that might be the way things end up.

Anyway, thank you for your comment!

You are right about my current relationship. At this point I am planning to leave. If I'm completely honest with myself, I haven't been happy in the relationship in awhile, and that's not fair to my girlfriend. She's not a bad person and things aren't awful, and for a long time I thought that because of that I couldn't justify ending things, but I'm realizing more and more that she's not right for me, and not being happy in the relationship is a good enough reason to end it.

I think this is a wise move, OP. I think if you were happier in the relationship you had, you wouldn't find yourself pining over a co-worker or wondering about your potential life together. That's a sad and risky situation to find yourself in. If nothing else, this situation has given you some really valuable insight that will leave you better equipped for all your future relationships.

Whatever happens with you, your co-worker has a lot she'll need to work through before she can be a partner for anyone. That includes the possibility of remaining with her husband. If I were you, I'd give her the space and time to do that. She might not want that, especially with her feelings. But I think it's what she needs.

OP

Thanks. Yeah, that's something I'm thinking about. If I was happy in my current relationship, I don't think I'd be having feelings for someone else.

You're right. I'm not sure how she'll react when I tell her, but she has a lot to figure out, and I need to give her the room to do that without adding any more difficulties to the situation.

IDK OP, I think it's pretty common and natural for feelings for people to arise, like ... parents don't go 'I have one kid, if I was truly happy with this child, I don't think I'd be able to have a second child and love them'. That's not how love works! And there are plenty of people in poly relationships or open marriages and things like that who see love as sort of an infinite kind of thing; there isn't a capacity meter for it - just because you love someone doesn't mean you could never love anyone else.

The thing is there's... loving someone, and there's committing to them, and building a life together with them, and sleeping with them, and being vulnerable and intimate with them, and all of these are actually different things that you may or may not experience with the same individual.

Personally, I am of the opinion that you or your colleague shouldn't feel bad about loving or having feelings for each other. But if that love makes either of you lie or go behind the back or betray another person who trusted you, then the problem isn't really the feelings, but how you've acted on them.

For instance, imagine a polyamorous couple married to each other with children, and let's say the husband fell in love with a guy that he met through his art class or something like that. And the other guy loves him too. So he goes home and tells his wife, who thinks that's fantastic - her husband is an amazing man, of course, other people would love him! And she thinks he has equally amazing taste (after all, he married her, didn't he?) so she'd love to meet this new guy that she has so much in common with, like loving and appreciating the same great guy.

The above is a case where two people are happy and fulfilled in their current relationship, and can still have feelings for other people and act on them in a healthy and responsible manner. It's not typical at all, but it's not inconceivable or impossible for it to happen. But you should know that this is also another possibility, or another take on the kind of situation you're in.

just because you love someone doesn't mean you could never love anyone else.

Please read carefully. Nobody is saying that being in a good, healthy relationship means you never have feelings for anyone else, ever. OP's situation is slightly different. She was actually contemplating leaving her partner for this new person. THAT'S the red flag for being unhappy in your current relationship.

Bringing polyamory into this doesn't really seem relevant. If OP and OP's current partner were okay with that, OP probably would've mentioned that.

OP

Reading over the responses after at least a few hours' sleep I'm now seeing a bunch of errors in my other comments that I didn't notice at the time, so hopefully they've made sense!

Anyway, thank you for the comment! I'm definitely a more monogamous type of person and can't imagine myself being happy in a poly situation, but I think it's awesome that it works for some people. Thanks for a different perspective on the situation, it's always interesting to see things from a different point of view.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #4470 ]

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

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

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

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

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

different anon

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Re: different anon