I'm in my mid 30s and have been with my husband since my late teens. Our relationship has always been a bit tempestuous, but I have NEVER had thoughts or feelings for someone outside our marriage... until now. It's not something I've gone looking for and it's knocked me for six that I can feel like this about someone else, so please don't judge me.
Our marriage has been rocky for the last few years, during which time my husband has treated me shoddily (going out on endless boozing sessions after work, not ringing me to tell me where he was - not just a few times, but over and over again, for years). Every time he did this, it would chip away at my trust and love for him, and he wouldn?t change his behaviour, despite me asking him to do so. Then a year ago, I found dodgy emails to a woman he'd met in a bar on a work trip overseas. I don't think anything happened but who knows? I also found other blokey emails sent to colleagues about drunken nights out and girls they'd flirted with. Made me feel sick to my stomach, knocked my self-esteem to pieces, but somehow, with the help of counselling, we got through it and things were shakily back on track.
Then, 5 months ago, I reconnected with an old school friend at a drinks thing organised by a mutual friend. The mutual friend had always teased me about how much this guy had liked me at college, and had intimated that this bloke had been very keen to meet up with me again. Anyway, I felt an instant attraction to him that I wasn't expecting and we ended up emailing each other (I know, after what my husband did this was very hypocritical. I'm not proud of myself). We do similar jobs, and we just spoke about work mainly. He is very witty and intelligent, and before I knew it I was getting massive butterflies every time his name popped into my inbox. He is in a relationship and was never flirtatious in his emails. I have said a few mildly flirtatious things to him, and although he never reciprocated, he continued to email me.
Over the last few months the emails have become more sporadic (from both sides, but more him). We recently met up again with the mutual friends, and I was hoping seeing him again might put me off. It didn't. He was quite flirty - sitting very close, making eye contact and touching me on the knee. Following that meeting, I initiated an email to him, just saying how nice it had been to see him, to which he replied yes it was nice to see me too and we should do it again soon. Then he went a bit quiet and I thought he'd got bored of our conversations or that he'd gone off me after our last meeting. But then a few weeks later, he emailed me and the mutual friends again to suggest another night out. The other two couldn't make it, so it was looking like it would just be the two of us.
But then he pulled out right at the last minute saying he had to work late, and while I tried to be cool about it, I was very upset and felt terribly rejected. I sent him a breezy email, saying no worries about tonight but asked if he had felt odd meeting up with me alone. He replied immediately saying, no he did not feel awkward about meeting up with me at all and that we should definitely go for a drink soon. We've had a few more emails since then, in which I don?t think I said anything that might scare him off. The last email I sent was 10 days ago ? since then, he has totally ignored me. Not knowing why he's giving me the cold shoulder is killing me.
Deep down, I know nothing could ever happen with him - I suppose the attention was giving me a buzz of excitement I haven't felt for years and was the only thing keeping me going in my rather mundane life. Initially, I guess I just wanted confirmation that I'm still attractive to other men, but now it has become more than that, and I'm scared and confused by my depth of feeling for him. I'm sure our emails were just an innocent ego boost for him, but for me, being in such a vulnerable place in my marriage, they had started to mean much more. I just wish he could've been straight with me and asked for the emails to stop rather than completely ignoring me, which my massively damaged ego is finding very hard to deal with.
I know I need to stop being so selfish and forget him, and that all this is a symptom that my marriage is in trouble. My husband has made an effort to change his behaviour, but I'm scared it's all too little too late and that perhaps I don't love him like I used to. Has anyone been in a similar situation and how did you get over the crush? I can't stop thinking about him and feel so upset that he obviously wants nothing more to do with me... Any advice about how to snap out of it much appreciated...