need to stop a work crush now...

[slapandtickly]

right so i am holding my hands up and confessing a secret work crush which has been going on for a few months but now potentially is getting out of hand.

man in quesition is (like me????) on the face of it happily married with 2 dc. but we have worked together on projects over the last year and i have developed a real crush whilst he has become borderline flirtatious - this may be my imagination running away with me - but things like noticing i had changed my perfume on commenting on it... i dont know, probably just me over analysing.

anyway - this hasnt ebbed away as one would normally expect and last week i found out i was going to report through to him, albeit eventually through another manager - and in the same team.

i dont have the option to move myself out of the team so need to stop this now but i just cant stop thinking about him. so its more than a crush - possibly borderline obsession. I have found myself checking his diary to see when he'll next be in the office which is tantamount to stalking.

i know quite a few of you may well bring up issues in my own marriage but i am committed to my marriage and love my husband very very much. i'm not unhappy but am knackered with the general drudgery of running a house, being a mother and working.

any tips on how i stop this now and quickly. namechanged to preserve anonimity

I think firstly ask yourself if you are prepared to 'share' this with your dh? If not why not??
Is it because you do actually know it is wrong?

I know others will say there must be something wrong in your marriage - i dont think that - you can have everythig you want but still yearn after something else.

You are not bad for having these feelings and in fact they are probably making the days exciting.

But you do also know that if you do take it to another level it is a path of destruction - i am sure you have read many threads saying just that.

I suppose you can make him seem less atractive if you find out about him - is he likely to cheat on his partner - that is not a very nice trait - however much you may want that now .

Have name changed to preserve my anonymity too.

You sound very like me a few years ago. Did the flirting part as did he and I was expert on online stalking of his work calendar. Nothing happened for a few years partly due to me having children and maternity leave and moving to a different office (to do with work things rather than avoiding him).

Then we met up after work, had alcohol fuelled dinner, and ended up kissing a lot. There followed a couple of months to building up to sleeping with each other which in the end didn't happen as he realised it was a shit idea. If my DH hadn't found out would probably have been OK but he did (after we had "broken" up but still not good).

My marriage was fine before this. Four years on I'm not sure it is and it has definitely wrecked our sex life (my fault I know).

Wish I could turn the clock back - a bit of flirting was OK but why the hell I let things go further I don't know. It's hard to draw away from the situation but easier to draw back now for you I think.

Wish I had some proper advice. All I can say is it is a bad idea. I've been down this road and really wished I hadn't.

Don't partake in any extra curricular activities, don't socialise, don't drink together, don't fool yourself into thinking you can be friends with him. I did all this and it was very bad. I don't know how I could have nipped it in the bud - the stage that you are at now, I saw all the signs, but ignored them. You need to get distance wherever you can.

One of these two scenarios might unfold. i) He might turn out to be a total twunt who would cheat on his wife, cause you to break up your marriage because you believe yourself to be in love with him, perhaps he will break your heart and leave you with nothing and get cold feet about the situation - ie. the grim reality of the fallout of an affair which is that he doesn't want to leave his wife and family and doesn't want to be seen as a marriage wrecker (this realisation seems to occur after this has happened though). It will be seedy and you may feel used. If you have sex with him and it's good, you'll want it again and things will spiral out of control. If you had sex with him and it was bad, you jeopardised your marriage for nothing. Either way, it will haunt you.

ii) He turns out to be a good guy and you decide to persue this - the excitement would be gone anyway - the humdrum of family life, all that drudgery you experience now would be present. This is exciting because it is pure escapism and fantasy. In reality, this man smells and snores the same as the rest.

For what its worth, I can see how you've gotten into this - if he's half decent looking, you have common intellectual interests and he's paying you attention, it's an easy trap to fall into.

I once read an interesting article about marriage and how to protect it. One girl was at the beginning of a crush and developed 'mentionitis' and was having issues in her relationship and her sister spoke to the fella about it which stopped it in its tracks. I don't know how I'd have felt about that.

I wish you luck and strength.

slapandtickly - I agree with other posters. If you are serious about not taking this crush further then just make sure you do not put yourself into any situation with this other guy that could turn your relationship from being colleagues/friends into something more serious. If you can keep it at just a crush then that's fine. Crushes can be great. They can bring a little excitement to an otherwise dull day, they can make you make an effort with yourself, your clothes; they can give you a bounce in your step etc etc.

BUT...it can cross into more damaging territory if you allow it.

I often wish that my "crush" (who I ended up having emotional affair with) had not told me how he felt about me; because from that moment on crush turned into something wonderful but also unbearable and damaging and all-consuming emotionally. It has not been a "good thing" for either of us, nor for my DP, our family etc.

If you love your DH as you say you do and are happy then I think you will be able to keep this as just a crush. And hopefully you can enjoy it!

I think you've been really honest here. Unlike Mabel though, I don't think a happy marriage is anything like enough to stop you taking this further, because affairs can happen in good marriages and very often aren't about the state of the marriage at all. They are about escapism, fantasy and the people involved in the affair. Being happy, does not make any of us immune to temptation.

One of the best ways of stopping this in its tracks, is to have an honest conversation with your H about this. Couples should talk about crushes, because they are normal and happen to lots of people. However, secrecy fuels these things, whereas bringing them out into the open can burst the bubble and reduce their potency.

If you can't bring yourself to do that, apart from asking why that is, then at the very least try and extricate yourself from the situation, as you have suggested and have a different conversation with your H about your feelings of being on a hamster wheel and needing some excitement in your life.

It is to your credit and is a very good sign that you have posted now, because you are on a precipice right now. I expect that a declaration from the OM could send you over the edge and so it's much better to withdraw and take action, before that happens. It's like an insurance policy against your own actions - and his.

Meant to say too, if the object of your crush does flinch first and you find yourself responding, what ever you do, don't pass the responsibility over to him for your own behaviour, because at every stage of these things, both parties make active choices.

While acknowledging that temptation is far more difficult to resist, if feelings appear to be reciprocal (hence act now as per my previous post - and don't engineer the situation so that he might declare his hand) it would be passing the buck and a huge denial to put more blame onto him, because we can all say "no thanks", after all.

And this is precisely the advice I give to posters who put all the blame on to the OW when it was her who made the first approach. She should be blamed, yes, but we all have the word "no" in our vocabulary and the person who says "yes, please" instead, must not be let off the hook for their own choices.