Is my marriage over?

[Lottemarine]

I’ve been married for 12 years and together with my husband for 20 years, since we were both in our early 20s. We have two young children. For ages I’ve thought everything was blissful and have never so much as thought of anyone else. However recently I’ve been really attracted to a coworker which has been building for the past few months and it seems like the feeling is mutual.

Now I’m not looking to cheat, but I’m wondering if this is it for my marriage. I mean of course we can find people attractive, but what about when feelings go beyond that. Yes I’m married, but now I’m questioning if I love my husband enough or if we have just fallen into a habit of being best friends more than anything.

Of course I don’t want to ruin his or my children’s lives, but does mean staying together in what is perhaps a loveless marriage.

The attraction to my coworker is intense and honestly I haven’t ever anything felt like this for anyone else. Is it worth risking or ignoring just to keep the status quo?

Take the co worker completely out of the decision making process. They likely represent a more care free time of your life which is adding to the attraction and clouding your judgement.

If you are unhappy in your marriage, then end it with dignity not by having an affair. 20 years is a long time to flush down the loo for a co worker you cannot possibly know with any real depth.

If your marriage is worth saving (and describing each other as best friends makes it sound like it is), work on getting the relationship back on track. It takes two of you to do that, and at the moment all of the energy you are funnelling into daydreaming about a co worker could be being invested back into your marriage.

Having an affair/jumping from a 20 yr relationship into a new one is probably not going to be the riding off into the sunset movie love story you think.

Is a passing infatuation worth losing your family for? If you want to save your marriage change your job, it is easy to get attracted to a person you spend a lot of time with and don't see the other side of. Are they married, in a relationship, have children? Is it just a bit of fun for them to encourage you with no intention of anything serious? Do something fun with your partner and remember why you have been together so long.

Good lord. You've got the blessing of a long and happy marriage and you want to risk it for a quick buzz of lust and flattery? You'll regret it forever if you actually listen to your hormones. Minimise contact, remove temptation and invest the time mooning over work crush into your marriage instead.

WTAF. Be the grown up. Your first commitment is to your kids and your marriage. Block / massively reduce contact with this person (I once left a job for this reason). Work on your relationship with your husband. There may well be issues there that mean parting is the right thing to do, but don’t muddle it up by allowing yourself to put some other person into the picture. If it helps, think about their gross toenails and farts and smearing toothpaste in the sink.

You need to end the relationship first, have breathing space, and then consider another relationship. Consider if you did so, and then your co-worker rejected you, would it still be worth it?

If it's worth breaking up your marriage over, I'd actually consider leaving your job, finding another, and giving your marriage another shot before you throw it all away. Especially if you've been happy for so long!

I don’t think attraction to a co-worker is a sign that 20 years of happy marriage needs to go down the pan. You would be throwing away a huge commitment, your family life, your children’s best interests and the promises you made for the sake of what might ultimately be a passing emotional pull.

I wouldn’t be considering any final decisions about the marriage until I was confident I had explored every possible means of improving the relationship. If you’ve explored counselling, couples therapy, ways of reconnecting with your husband, date nights etc and you ultimately conclude that it’s a loveless marriage, then you can make a decision then. But do the work first. It’s what you promised you would do when you got married.

As for the co-worker, train yourself out of your crush. It can be done, you are not without agency. Don’t allow yourself to daydream or fantasise about him. Don’t have any conversations with him which aren’t strictly necessary and about work. Don’t communicate outside of work at all. Stop considering him a romantic prospect, consciously turn your thoughts to something else if you think about him. You can’t focus on your relationship with your husband when you’re allowing all your romantic energy to be directed at someone else.

Totally agree. Yes I have occasionally gone slightly weak knee'd with someone who just seemed wonderful and extremely easy in the eye but to blow up your marriage you need to do it for you, not for someone else

Sounds like a passing and unwise infatuation

I wouldn't end what sounds like a perfectly normal marriage which has just got a bit boring for something like this and completely up end and quite frankly fuck up my children's lives for the chance to get my end away with someone new

Try and focus on how you felt when you met your husband and remember your wedding day, when your children were born etc all the good times. This is just some flattery. Imagine your husband having these thoughts and feelings about another woman and most importantly think about respecting him or you would want to be respected.

A marriage isn’t all sunshine and light. Sometimes it’s mundane but we have to work as a team to keep the fire burning. This thing with your coworker could be exciting but once it’s burned bright you’ll be left with nothing but intense regret as you’re picking up his skiddy pants from the bathroom floor and feeling sick at the thought of your husband and his new girlfriend holidaying with your children.

Wake up and appreciate your husband for who he is and the friend he has been to you all these years.

The grass always seems greener on the other side.

That’s usually because there’s more shit over there fertilising it.

Give your head a wobble.

After 20 years together and in the midst of rearing young children its not unexpected for a marriage to become slightly stale. Work on the marriage, maybe you need to spice things up (e.g weekend away without the children), see a marriage counsellor etc but you are going to have accept the days of young love are over. I think you have a long way to go before you need to consider divorce.

If this marriage ends, you will be tied to years of co-parenting and potentially blended families, which is not always easy. Not to mention the financial implications.

I know someone, a man I went to university with, who passes his time at work by getting women he works with to fall for him.

Other people get a vanilla slice on a Friday, he flirts with women to get them to have sex with him. Drops by their desk, catches their eye in meetings. He also just straight up lies so they feel like they have a connection. They say they like Ed Sheeran, then so does he. They want to climb snowden, then so does he.

I'm not saying he sits around planning it like Feathers McGraw but he's doing it for sex and entertainment.

It’s not a loveless marriage, is it? It’s a perfectly good marriage with a 20 year history and commitment. It’s real, a crush on a relative stranger isn’t real. I wonder how you’d feel if your husband had written this? Pretty devastated is my guess.

There's always going to be attractions. We wouldn't be human if there wasn't. And it's going to seem intense because it's new and that might seem exciting. It's normal. But that doesn't mean your marriage is over or make you bad. It's just human.

Acting on it would end your marriage. And would be a bad decision because the fall out would be huge.

You say you thought you were blissfully happy. Is it purely this attraction that's making you question it? Is your DH a good man? Pulls his weight? Good father and husband?

All marriages will go through a "friends" phase anyway, especially when there's kids involved. You're both focused on the kids needs and keeping everything moving day to day. The "romantic" relationship often takes a back seat sometimes.

Think hard.