Fancy a colleague. Do I leave my job?

[Elemento]

I've changed my name for this, but I'm a regular poster & don't want this linking to my other posts.

So... I fancy the pants off my colleague. He is the person I work most closest with in the whole organisation. We have a laugh and a joke, but also can produce some brilliant work. We are the same level as each other, and our manager has told each of us she's pleased with how well we work together, that our skills compliment each other and it's great to see us learning from one another.

He is married with children. So am I. Nothing is going to happen, I know it's a crush. I am not sure if he feels the same way. He's not my type in looks, and we've not got a great deal in common.

I spend more time with him than I do my own spouse. We talk (well grumble!) about our own relationships & there's been the odd mention of our own sex lives. We playfully nudge each other. We tease each other. I recently had my appraisal with our manager, he asked how it went, and I told him I his name was mentioned, his face lit up when he asked why, and I explained that our manager was pleased with how well we got on.

I've sometimes come home after having a particularly lovely day with him (some days I fancy him more than others) and had good sex with my spouse. I've had more sex with my spouse recently, because I'm feeling more turned off after spending time with my colleague.

So. I am now pondering, do I look elsewhere for a job? I love what I do, I am good at it. There's a lot in the organisation that I'm working towards changing, and my colleague is instrumental in helping me make this happen. I have lovely colleagues who I care for and who care for me. I don't want to leave. But these feelings are, well, driving me wild.

I've been feeling like this over a year, and it's getting worse, we are getting closer (we now need to work closer than we did a year ago) and I can't see how this feeling will pass.

Apologies for the long post ... TL;DR - I fancy my colleague and it's getting worse.

So please, power of Mumsnet. What do I do? How do I get over him? Or is it time to look for another job?

It's easy to have a work crush when you aren't putting effort into your marriage. You and your DH need to have more date nights and reignite the spark.

Yes, I don't think I love him as much as he loves me, and I don't know what things will be like when our kids are older. We had a child a year into our relationship and found ourselves married with kids without much consciousness, it just sort of happened.

I don't actually think I'd be that bothered if he felt like that about someone else, as long as he didn't do anything about it. Is that because I'm easy with it, or is it because I'm already not feeling as close to him as I used to, I don't know.

Thank you. You've hit the nail on the head. Work husband. Not real life husband material.

It’s just a crush OP it will subside in time.

I can't as we are both department managers who run departments that compliment each other. It's not a big enough an organisation to move elsewhere.

Ok so work crush is a safe place to park feelings you’d like to have for your DH.

This guy could be any guy.

Oh don’t be so bloody ridiculous. She’s not cheated. Married women don’t suddenly go blind and deaf and never find another man attractive ever again. It is possible to find other people attractive without doing anything about it.

Hello MRA, I see you only joined tonight to post a ‘joke’ on a thread about a woman being brutally murdered. What a sad little creature you must be.

Look for another job immediately. So totally unprofessional to be behaving like this, not to mention the fact as you've already stated that you are both married. Something a bit cringe about it all.

That is probably the fastest way to get over the crush.

Know where the grass is greener? Where you water it.

If you can be happy in this situation, and rein it in, not take it seriously, laugh at the cliche of where it's taken you, then you might be ok. But this can also torture you after a while, and it does lay the ground like nothing else, to destroy either your family home, or your job, or both.

Try and picture him on the toilet

Think of the most painful and catastrophic way this can end for you, your career, your husband and your family.

One day you'll look back and wonder what the hell you saw in this man. Will you have destroyed your life, career and family at that point or will you be heaving a huge sigh of relief that you switched the whole thing off in your head before it started.

If that doesn't work...leave your job.

When you only have the 'good' with someone, it's easy to think things are deeper than they are. If you suddenly lived with him for a month you may very well find out he has habits that infuriate you and you aren't compatible - maybe he leaves his clothes everywhere, expects his partner to do the brunt of all childcare and housework. You just don't know. I had a friend admit to me she was very angry and jealous about my dating a friend of hers. She only liked him once I started dating him - this was our early 20's. She started to see him through this perfect lens and jumped when I ended it. Truth was, they weren't compatible at all. She had built him up to something he wasn't and they were mismatched in all sorts of other ways you can't see at 23/24/25 as easily.

Move on. You are playing with fire. Find another role in the company if you really love it. Don't do this to your husband, your kids, his partner/kids (tho in fairness it is him that would be doing it to them as he has the responsibility towards them, not you) but most importantly, don't do it to yourself.

Good luck.

Assuming you can trust yourself to not kiss him (or more) i would start looking around other jobs to see what's out there, but not put in notice just yet. In the meantime I would dial back the chat and keep things more professional and non-intimate. Make a deliberate decision to do more things with your husband that involve reconnecting and having good quality conversation. If he would be open to it, book some marriage counseling. I think its shitty when your partner has their head turned, but equally i know it does happen and that it's what that person chooses to do with those feelings that is the most telling. If after making a deliberate decision to shift the paradigm back towards your marriage being the most important relationship in your life, you can notice your crush dissolving, then maybe it was just a silly crush (but be careful, the colleague may not let things drift away that easily). If not, then yes I would get another job. I think you need to also seriously consider talking to your husband about whats going on and taking his wishes on the matter into consideration.

I don't know whether deep down inside if I want to know if he feels like this too. Because if I knew he didn't I think that would help me to stop feeling like this.

So keep telling yourself he doesn't fancy you. Defo agree with PP who said to dial back the personal chat. He's a work colleague, nothing more. End of!

Stop wondering whether he feels the same way. If your marriage is otherwise happy then put everything you have into improving that. And stop talking about sex at work as well.

Picture yourself telling your children that you are only going to see them half of the week, because you have been having sex with a man at work who you don't even get on with. A man with a family and a partner. Tell them that you have wrecked his marriage as well as your own. Honestly, you are about to completely destroy so many people's lives.

Can you improve your home life by say getting a cleaner or something to reduce the domestic load? What about some weekends away with the two of you if you can get somebody to take the children? Redecorate some annoying room in your house. Take an evening class to learn a language or whatever interests or take up a new sport - even better if you do this with your husband. I think you need to have a new focus of interest rather than sleepwalking into an affair. Also an affair will not only likely destroy your marriage it will not do your career any good at all.

Finally, on a practical note where would you do the deed - not at your respective houses - not very romantic rocking up to some hotel in the middle of the day with no luggage and a huge risk of bumping into somebody you know. Apparently lots of cheating couples do it in cars parked in secluded locations which again just sounds cheap and grubby. Romantic little dinners are also potentially outing if you bump into anybody you know.

Yes.
Oh wait, did you want to talk about the complicated conundrum?🙂
You need to be more honest about yourself. cut the crap.

Was there really any need for that?!

I think there is literally a need

Please come to your senses: workplace affairs never quite work out.

Had a friend falling in love Christmas 2022 with ‘the boss’ by January 2023 they were ram jam butting each other into disaplinaries a go, go. Awful to watch. Only to lucky I was to incapacitated to go to Xmas party, it was a right crime scene/blood bath and of course during disaplinaries nothing nice ever comes out, like there were insulting names for all the team members between the once merry wanna be lovers. Do not get involved in the workplace - it ends in tears and lucky to keep a job.