My heart is aching for a man I can't have.

[SecretPirate]

I am prepared to get some grief for this, but I can't be the only person who has ever been through this, surely?

I have become very close friends with a male work colleague. We talk a lot and over the last few months our relationship has got 'inappropriately close', I suppose.

We are both married with children, and we both thought we were quite happy in our marriages.

However, a few weeks ago we ended up kissing and this had changed everything for me. I think I have fallen in love with him and am now, all of a sudden, asking myself big questions of my marriage.

He has said that he doesn't regret what happened at all, but that the thought of hurting his family is unbearable and so it can't happen again.

I have a lot of respect for this decision, but he wants to stay close friends and I really struggling with this.

We can never be together, but the way I feel is destroying my marriage anyway.

read not just friends by shirley glass.

sounds like you're getting caught up in romantic fantasy - that's all it is fantasy remember and lots of people including dcs stand to get hurt here.

don't want to sound cynical or predictable (!) but you know it always seems greener on the other side AND perhaps we all want a bit of what we can't really have.
I'm sure there is a huge amount of attraction between the two of you, but how did you feel when you met or started out with your husband? You know the excitement ALWAYS wears off and the hum-drum bits of running a family, familiarity etc..etc.. can make it all seem terribly boring and you can start questioning a lot of things.
I'm divorced and it's a bloody stressful and damaging route to go down, unless you really have no other choice.
There's much I don't know about your situation and your marriage but assuming you were happy enough beforehand, can't you turn this into a positive thing and try to divert your energies into making things better for the two of you at home?

You cannot be friends with this man. Try to find a way of not working so closely.

Your children will be devastated if you do anything silly. Please stop contact with him.

I feel for you, seriously. There comes a point in many women's lives, even when they are happily married, that they have a yearning.
When we were dating, everything was up in the air, a possibility, a chance.
Once we find the right one, and settle down, the element of fresh excitement slips away.
Some one new lets us see ourselves in a different light, without all of the mundane day to day stuff.
It can be so heady.
Just remember, even someone new will become mundane, given enough time and comfort.
Tell the man you are flattered, but it is a wake up call to look homeward.

Try something new in your life, take up a new hobby, make new connections, reinvent your closet, anything to distract yourself from becoming the woman you know you wouldn't like (the one who poaches).

Very possibly, it is a fantasy thought, yes.

And yes, this feeling is something I haven't felt since I first fell on love with my husband 15 years ago.

I have never looked twice at another bloke in all those years. Now, I'm doing an awful lot more than just 'looking'. What on earth had happened to bring up feelings like this? I cannot get him out of my head. It's awful.

Work wise, I could cut contact with him, but the thought of doing that makes me feel ill

And thank you for all the sensible advice.

I know what I need to do, but if only it was so easy to switch you feeling off.

I've never been much good at letting by head rule my heart.

I'm not sure this is a case of your heart ruling your head though...........I think it's mind tricks! Home is where the heart is.............??

Really? Maybe you're right.

It's a very bloody good trick, if so!

The big problem is that we are very good friends and I know him very well ( faults and all ).

He is very different to my husband. In fact I would go as far as to say that he is everything that my husband is not. He has all the qualities that I would look for in a man now that I'm 35 which is very different to what I though I wanted when I settled down at 21.

I think you have to make a conscious decision whether you want to be fully committed to your marriage or not, and if you do, take the responsibility that goes with this.

there's no point hoping you can just switch your feelings off, you're going to have to go through the pain of ending it and letting him go, and the fastest way to do this is to end the friendship and cut contact. I don't think it's unusual to be attracted to others, and at times feel an incredibly strong connection, but it's really down to how much you value things like your commitment, your view of yourself, your integrity etc.

Go have a look at your children and imagine waking up in the house without them there half the time, have a look at your husband and imagine his face if you told him you were cheating. Imagine those little arms going around another woman's neck and them thinking of her as mummy as well.

And then grow the fuck up.

He doesn't want you in any case, he has skated to the edge himself, had a look over and realised you were not worth his family's happiness.

If you are not happy in your marriage work in that, but this man is not the answer.

Everything that Morloth said

It's your choice and your family's security and happiness is in your hands

Does the fact that he does not want you shock you back to looking at your own family? It's easy to say he does not regret it, and maybe he wants the excitement of you as a friend - but nothing more

Don't degrade yourself anymore by pining after him

You sound Like an intelligent woman and you are worth mire than a guy like that. You should never be an option - you should be the choice.

I know it hurts, but it will get better. Once you cut him out totally you will wish you had done it sooner and in a couple if months you will kick yourself for risking your family x

I'm in the exact same situation as you but we are not friends and are not in contact. I wonder do men just switch off and not have the feelings or do they still think of you??
I hope you can ge thim out of your head but not sure if not being friends makes any difference as I still think of him all the time anyway and wish we were friends at least.
BUT i do know probably i'll get over it eventually and so will you.

Just couldn't agree more with all the other posters.

The grass is extremely unlikely to be greener.

Of course this man seems exciting, of course you think you are in love - feelings you haven't had for years are flooding back. That's heady, it's like a drug.

But it's a silly fantasy. Go cold turkey.

If nothing else will work - think of your children every time you think of him. Think of their innocent faces. Think of having to tell them you and Daddy are splitting up and knowing it's because you wanted a bit of excitement. Think of choosing your yearnings over their stability and right to a happy childhood.

I am so so grateful for the advice here. Obviously, I can't talk about this in real life, so this really helps.

Fourlegged - you make a lot of sense. As for the fact that he diedn't want me though, this is actually making it worse. I think because he has been very open about the fact that he really does want to be with me, but that he has to do the right thing by his kids. This just makes him a nice guy in my eyes, IYSWIM?

The other major problem I am left with is the fact that this 'relationship' has suddenly opened my eyes to all the problems in my marriage which I have ignored for years. I don't know how the hell I am going to fix this when I am now seeing dh in a whole different light and I am not liking what I see. I think I have grown apart from him, and I'm not sure if the OM is a cause or a consequence of this, really.

He dosent want to really be with you though. You are deluding yourself. If he did he'd be with you.

Plenty of men leave their wives and kids everyday, and visa versa. He won't as he dosent want to be with you. Anything else is just hot air and you deluding yourself.

I imagine you've grown apart from your dh, because you've been putting your energies I to OM. Finally finding 100s of problems is classic cheater behaviour to justify your feelings, you know that right?

It's so easy from the outside looking in, but you're going to have to give yourself a swift kick up the arse here. Stop contact, go through the loss and focus on your husband and marriage.

You need some counselling together once you've highlighted you aren't happy in your relationship- relate? You probably need to be honest (not about this other bloke but about your reservations about your marriage) with your husband. Sort that out and either stay for the right reasons or go for the right reasons. Either way an affair with this man isn't the right reason. He's given you his get out clause and you need to LISTEN to what he's saying.

The fact that he can see that you're in love with him and he can still be friends means that he isn't in love with you, else friendship would be out of the question.

Find an exciting new way to live with your husband and put some work into it. Then you'll be able to see clearly.

Sorry, I should have been a bit more clear there.

OM has no idea of my feelings. Obviously, he knows I fancy him a bit, but that's all.

I have told him that we shouldn't keep in touch but he continues to contact me every day and is always asking how I am. This is what is making it do hard for me to be the strong one and cut him off.

I feel like I will always wonder 'what if' and my marriage will never survive it anyway.

What are the problems you now see in your marriage?

But you don't see do you? This isn't someone who was desperately unhappy and sought an exit affair,

All your problems and issues have come to light since OM came on the scene. It's classic cheater behaviour, where the fantasy makes the home fires seem burnt out, 100x worse than it really is. The whole fantasy affair just shines a torch on real life imperfections. Then the cheater magnifies them by 100x which is why it coincides with the OM coming on the scene.

No your marriage won't survive. If you continue to find fault in your husband and home life for your feelings and love sick doe eyes elsewhere. You need to grow up and get over it or split your whole family up.

Ah, ok. I'm sure he's a nice bloke but every one loves an ego massage and by emailing you every day, keeping that little spark, he's having a lovely time whilst you're thinking I could run off into the sunset with you. And you're possibly having a flagging ego massaged too.

Chances are your husband isn't blissfully happy in the marriage if you aren't. I think its very easy in a long term relationship to put the kids first and forget about your own needs and by the time you've remembered that you have needs too, someone else comes along with a tempting carrot.

Devils advocate- tell him how you feel then if there's always going to be a "what if" It will help you move onto your issues to look at in your marriage.

He'll either be relieved that you said something, he's been wanting to say it too in which case you'll have to deal with the fall out or he'll run off into the sunset with his wife and children. My guess is its the latter.

I think most women at our age has had a serious other option and heaved a massive sigh of relief that we didn't peruse it with the benefit of hindsight, I definitely have, even if at the time it feels amazing to feel in love and alive again.

If you are in an abusive marriage or desperately unhappy then get out of there there, but not for some-one who really is enjoying the attention but can see the repercussions of taking it further probably.

Emotions are so hard to control.

There are good pieces of advice on this thread. But this man is intertwined with the OP's work. Can she cut herself off from this man without leaving her career? Is that possible?

You cannot remain friends.

Neither of you are a good catch as far as future partners go, as you have both proven yourself untrustworthy.

You have allowed yourself to become close to a man other than your husband, thus risked the happiness of your own children for the sake of an office flirtation.

Instead of focusing on the colleague, you should have invested time and emotion into your own marriage. It might be a little too late for that, as your fantasy has convinced you that you are in love.

Unless you need to talk to the OM in a professional capacity tell him in no uncertain terms that you WILL not speak to him. You cannot be friends, you can have no relationship AT ALL.

Your poor husband deserves at least that.

Focus on your husband, your children. As Morloth said wisely, imagine life without them all. Could you live with yourself cast as the HOMEWRECKER?

Consider counselling with your husband. It's what you owe him.

It is easy to grow apart when you get with someone at such a young age.

People change in that time. At 30 I was completely different than I was at 21 and at 40 completely different than I was at 30.

Unless couples grow together they will grow apart. It is only the day to day needs of the family that stop people addressing this.

This man has already told you that he won't leave his wife but I bet if pushed he would have an affair. A kiss hardly ever stops there especially if you fancy the other person like mad. Sense tends to go out of the window!

It is also easy to fall for someone you work with because they understand one thing in your life already. You have something in common.

If you didnt have children would you leave?