Attracted to a married man

[Prontehpronto]

I am very attracted to a married man at work, I am married too. We work from home (diff homes!) and talk alot about work over teams but he makes me laugh a lot and makes me feel really nice. In the office he finds every opportunity he can to talk to me, I know he is attracted to me too from his body language and how close he comes towards me. We both have children. I have been unhappy in my marriage for a long time, my husband works late, drinks, is very overweight and makes me feel lonely and sad, he is verbally abusive and dismissive of me. Im sure im not cup of tea either and thats why he is out all the time. Im just his house keeper and look after the kids. Im quite a high achiever at work and think my husband resents me for that, for my age I suppose im still quite attractive. Even now he is out drinking whilst im alone with the kids. I want to continue to talk to this other guy and would like something physical to eventually happen between us, I think about him alot, I haven't been attracted to a man like this for a long time, I don't think I even fancied my husband this much. I want him to pursue me but also feel very bad and sad, we both have young children. Any advice or stories similar stories please.

DM did that and it was always her fault (I do know that it wasn't blameless on the side of DF).

That whole period is an absolute blur, and she can't explain it because it wasn't rational.

Having an affair is like detonating a bomb for children. And where there is drinking involved that's an even more dangerous situation I.e. risk of it escalating into abuse towards or in front of children who become innocent bystanders in a toxic situation. I witnessed things that gave me trauma and anxiety and had PTSD for over 20 years (now treated) from the aftermath, all of which stemmed from the affair, and it affected my self esteem into adulthood. My sibling has a severe mental illness which began around that time which ruined his life in many ways. I wish I could say it all wasn't because of the affair. The unintended devastation can be unimaginable. For something entirely avoidable.

Leave with dignity.

Yay the Old Testament woman haters have reported for duty

To help with lowering the tone / reducing risk with the colleague, you need to do three things.

1. Follow the fantasy through to the next steps - not just the falling into bed bit, but the invariable guilt, the sinking feeling, the fallout, etc. The pay off suddenly seems less good.

1. Find at least one ik about the guy. Concentrate on that when you find yourself flirting.

1. Gradually ease him from being your closest person at work and start looking for another job.

Also, reconsider your marriage.

I feel sorry for the married women on this thread. It must be unsettling to feel that your husband is only faithful because other women don't help themselves to him.

Well, you're pretty flippant about that man's marriage with his wife. Because you're unhappy and your husband treats you badly, you want to have an affair with this married man amd destroy their family?! Sorry, but that's a really cuntish attitude. You sound so selfish and self-pitying.

Agreed.

Don’t go near a married man. it’s wrong . He has made a commitment to his wife.

if he is prepared to cheat on his wife for you - how on earth can you ever trust him to not cheat on you with someone else?

if you are unhappy in your marriage go to marriage counselling, leave or get divorced.

Don’t mess about with a married man - it will end in tears for everyone involved.

You’re not a pathetic cow OP , you’re in a very unhappy marriage & it’s screwing with your head …
Attention then from an attractive male colleague ,who you get on well with , is turning your head & you’re thinking this is my escape, my happiness !
Jesus , it’s not though .. He’s Married !
Only more misery , you’ll never find your happily ever after with a married man …
EVER …..

Thank you. Genuinely a bloke is like a dog sniffing around a bum in view of a quick legover with no long term view.
Look after yourself and use your brain not your heart.

Do you really think that? Is that what you teach your children? That it’s ok to treat someone like absolute shit as long as we’ve made no specific promises not to do so? Surely not.

OP sort out your own marriage or end it. Leave the other man to do the same.

The blame lies with her too. She has ,deliberately.encouraged him whilst.he encourages.her. Each one is as bad as the other.
.They should consider all the.children involved. In the end they are more important.

Separate from your husband and file for divorce. Then date somebody who is single. FFS, it isn't that complicated. Don't do something that could cause your children to lose respect for you. Also, think of what you would be doing to hurt this man's wife, a person who has done nothing to you.
Your husband is abusive, so I don't give a shit if you hurt him, but don't do something that will inevitably hurt that man's wife and kids and your own kids. Be humane and decent.

Bullshit. She would absolutely be enabling it. He would be the primary destroyer and she would be secondary, because without an AP he wouldn't be able to cheat.
We all owe each other kindness. It's called being civilized and no society could function if everyone had a self-serving attitude like yours. It would be chaos.

Move jobs, or choose to destroy a couple of marriages. As you were leaning towards the latter, it's a shame for all the innocent parties involved, but soon you almost certainly be single and free to do as you please.

Alternatively get into counselling with or without your husband (without if he is actually an abuser) and decide if you want to be married at all and if the answer is no, do the right thing and leave without betraying your marriage and degrading yourself and throwing everything into chaos.

She doesn't owe his wife anything because she doesnt know her? What a truly awful way to look at the world. So because you don't know someone, you don't owe them anything? You don't owe them the basic decency to not help play a part in blowing up their life? Ah well I guess my mantra in life going forward is I don't know you, I owe you nothing. Imagine the world was full of people with that attitude...

I'm not sure what you mean? She simply sounds like someone who has morals and finds it pretty abhorrent from both sides (the cheating man and the enabling affair partners). I'm sorry you find morals such an alien concept and find them something to scorn.

He’s not writing here asking for advice, only she is. So the advice is aimed at her not to encourage or start an affair.

Your feelings are telling you something. Look at it as a sign to get out of your marriage and start something new. How much better and nicer would it be to end things properly and start a new life - rather than still being stuck with your husband and deal with the guilt, shame and fallout at work/home for an affair on top.

concentrate on what would really make you and those around you happy.

Aside from all the cheating stuff too... please remember that you don't really know this other man at work - how he is outside of work, whether or not he priorities his family / partner, what he's like under stress, what his expectations are of a relationship etc etc. You are making a lot of assumptions about how you think he would be, and through rose-tinted glasses, because you are unhappy. Until you actually know someone "in real life", you have no idea what they are actually like to be in a relationship with. He could be a total knob, behind closed doors. Don't pin all your ideas of happiness, on someone you don't even know.

Indeed. Many cheaters cannot bear the reality that most people really do look down on them and judge them - as they should - and flock to these sorts of comments to try to denigrate people who behave decently.

It's just the same crew who will pretend that "all men go to strip clubs" or "everyone does..." whatever seedy thing they themselves do. I am pretty sure it is a deliberate attempt to gaslight normal people, try to convince them that being in the gutter is normal and you are the prude for caring about ethics and respect and honesty.

If you are in a relationship by choice and have agreed to monogamy there is never any excuse of any kind for cheating. Absolutely never. You can leave, you can discuss, you can announce your intention of sleeping with other people and give your partner that option but cheating is always off the table if you have any ethics or worth as a partner.

His wife probably finds him equally as attractive. In fact, imagine this notion, his wife may actually love him! Do not destroy her life. Who knows what you could cause to happen to this woman all because you thought your crush was more meaningful than her marriage and the family she has created. She could get depressed, or worse. You could ruin this woman's life. She does not deserve that.
Focus on having that love in your future. Build your own confidence after divorcing your husband and then get yourself out there. But not to the love of someone else's life.

Your wording is interesting. It's awful to want a married man to cheat. Yet you don't seem to be framing your own wanting something physical to happen with a married man as you cheating? I think ultimately you know you need to end your marriage. The irony is once you've done that other men probably won't seem as appealing because this is just an escape for you at the moment because you're so unhappy.

When you cheat, it isn't just on your husband, it is on your children too.

When it is inevitably found out the devastation is like a shock wave ripping through the entire family. It is a thousand times worse than you just getting a divorce.

If you do get divorce you should definitely start putting the children first though. Your taste in men is abhorrent and the last thing they need is the chaos of their mother jumping from one abusive man to another. Cheating is a form of emotional abuse, this new beau of yours is just as abusive and soul destroying as your current one.

This is a super post.

Having a relationship whilst still married will really ruin everything for several reasons: mostly related to the kids; also pouring petrol on the dumpster fire that every divorce is anyway, but it sets up the second relationship as having been done ‘wrong’ from the off, and it means you’ll never know if he actually thought his current marriage was bad enough to end, rather than you unwittingly being pussy fodder to a serial cheat. It also means that you cheating (being A Cheat) will be ‘there’ in every subsequent relationship.

Your marriage is not worth having, so deal with that first.