I have a crush, I think it's mutual. We're both married.

[idontwantthiscrush]

Namechanged as known on here in RL.

Looking for genuine practical advice here.

Started a new job 3 months ago and was instantly attracted to a colleague. I expected at the time that he felt the same. Over the past 3 months we have had to work closely together and the sexual tension is crazy. I cannot remember such intense physical attraction with such physical effects, in fact I think I have only had it with 2 or 3 guys In my life (dh is not one of them).

The last month with the work colleague has been the worst. Nothing has been said but I am pretty sure we both feel the same. It's ridiculous crazy chemistry and I just want to do things to him that I know I shouldn't want to.

We are both married and both have 2 young DCs.

So far I have handled this by being totally professional all the time, only going on work events which I really have to (I.e. not seeing him outside work) and when I have had to go I've driven so I wouldn't let any inhibititions go and end up flirting or suchlike. I am trying to invest my sexual and flirtatious energy into my marriage (which has become a bit stale) and also remember that this guy from work has a family, a wife, and probably farts and leaves his cups on top of the dishwasher just like mine does.

The problem is I cannot stop thinking about him. I DO NOT want to act on it. Well, I do in my sexual fantasies but its not a road I want to go down in RL AT ALL.

I've been telling myself for weeks just to get him out of my head and focus on the DCs and DH and how lucky I am with them. I feel like such a teenage fool being a married woman who fancies a colleague.

I know I sound like a muppet but I wondered if anyone has ever experienced this, and what you did to get rid of the crush/tension.

The obvious answer is to leave my job but I was looking for 8months for this job and opportunities in my industry are rare where I live. We can't pay the mortgage without my salary. I also can't work any less with this guy.

Even reading this back I am embarrassed by myself.

I someone going to come and help me out here?
The posts to me, have been really quite full on. And to me specifically.
I have to go now, to take ds2 to a party. will come back later.

Oh come on now Oblomov... were you not just a teensy tad bit full on yourself above?? Live by the sword.....

Enjoy the party :)

Anyway back to the OP. How's that crush going OP?

I must say I have really appreciated reading this post. I will,post my own thread later. I have recently become involved with a man at work.

I have fallen head over heels and haven't felt like this for 20 years. We are now taking steps to give the relationship the chance to work and wrecking two families.

Be wary - my life is a mess

Hellto I do think you've been rather harsh on Oblomov - she was only giving her view on how things should be in a relationship, which is as valid as anyone else's.

Discretion - of course you haven't felt like it for 20 years, if that is how long you've been married. That teenage-adrenaline rush-stomach churning stuff doesn't go on forever you know.

Tell me your story discretion....

I'm not getting into oblomov's "no tell me, tell me" game! Each to their own when in the bedroom is all I will say....

she was only giving her view on how things should be in a relationship, which is as valid as anyone else's

Actually I felt she was being prescriptive about relationships generally and how they should be. But maybe that's just how I read it. I think if people make absolute statements about things, other people will react.

So dh and I have been together for 14 years and married for 5. We have three young children. We have always got along but always felt more like companions. The thunderbolts and lightening have never been there. Our sex life has not been good for years. To be honest whilst I dreamt of something more I always thought this was enough. Until last year when my baby daughter was involved in a dreadful accident (50%) burns. She very nearly died, has dreadful scarring and will be in and out of hospital throughout Her childhood. Dh was also injured. I have posted here before unr my normal name about the impact of the accident on our marriage. My husband was at fault for the accident (but of course not deliberate). We have tried counselling etc but I have come to the realisation that I no longer love him, at least not in the way I should. We carried along whilst I continued to dream. We haven't had sex for 18 months. I guess I have just been terrified of life on my own with three small kids and a full on full time job.

Whilst on a business trip I became close to a work colleague who is also in a failing relationship that he wants out of. One thing has lead to another and we are now desperately wanting to make a go of it. I have made more steps than he has which scares me. Dh and I are starting the process of separation. He is very hurt and whilst suspicious doesn't know. Now I feel very vulnerable. If all works out with my colleague then great, I do believe it has a chance despite it being early days. If it doesn't I will have been hurt dreadfully as I have completely fallen for him. Having to see him every day at work will be hard. His desk is only a few metres from mine. I also hate the lying and hope that that will stop soon and it can come out.

So alibaba... There is more to every story. The stomach churning was never there with Dh. In fact this is only the second time in my life I have felt it.

I felt the same hellto but I think you can tel, a lot by the way someone posts... Don't let it get to you :)

Been lurking with interest as I will be heading back to work one day. I do feel although I am married I am not suddenly unable to find people attractive. I try to laugh at myself for this and remember my cs tummy my dh kindly ignores, and the thought of a new person seeing me naked isn't quite as appealing as my younger self. In fact, that thought is enough for me.

Can you avoid him or meet his wife which should be enough frankly to enable you to look to home, put some pics of you and dh and dc up in the office?

And don't think him during sex.that is unfair, and the thin end of the wedge. Some very wise posters on here btw.

Abitwobblynow - in my case the affair lasted on/off for 18 months but we had sex on 3 different occasions - it was only very intense for about 4 months (this was when we slept together) - over a year after it began. My husband found out about it about 3 months after this "intense period" had finished. By that time the OM and I were mainly texting and having occasional drinks after work, mostly chatting about work stuff, but we would talk about our relationships and hypothesise about what it would be like to be together properly.

In the beginning, it was flirtation and an EA. Time spent with OM was thrilling and exciting and I enjoyed the sexual chemistry. But I do remember vividly the guilt and feeling wretched that I had turned into someone I did not know I could be. And the lying was endless. I was utterly miserable for long periods of time and was trying to get out of it without hurting anyone. I fell in love with him. I was crazy jealous of his wife. But I also wasn't blind to his faults. The sex was amazing. There is no denying that. My husband and I did not have sex like that, although things are much better in that department now.

I am waffling. It's hard to put into words just what it was like as I am so ashamed of my behaviour. I was following the "script" and detaching from my marriage. I just didn't know it at the time. Of course it ended very badly. My husband found out and the OM begged me to leave my marriage and get together with him. I chose my husband, as I felt that despite it all, we had to give it another chance (been together 10 years in all and had mostly been very happy) and I fought for him. He decided to give me another chance and I'm very glad he did. We are mostly okay now.

Anyway. While I deeply, deeply regret causing my husband so much pain, I am glad he knows the truth. I can look him in the eye again. But I wish more than anything that the affair never happened in the first place.

I've been thinking about the OW at the end of the appalling stories one reads on MN. By the law of averages, there are bound to be many of them on MN, but one doesn't often hear from them. Then along you came OP, giving me some good insights into the rank selfishness that is often involved in the steps that lead to being the OW. re this is my life, I'll do what I like, I'll jeer with derision at anyone who thinks otherwise, I'll patronise detractors, no-one has the right to judge me ...

You'd think that (so-say) judging is a far worse crime than cheating. OP you sound selfish and you also sound like a bully re your treatment of anyone who doesn't fall in with gushing about your sordid fancy. the OM sounds like a shit, moaning about his wife at the first opportunity. The pair of you flashing your eyes at one another. Please, what a carry on - my turn to jeer. You deserve one another and your husband deserves better.

You started off in an angst about your crush but that soon dropped the minute someone came along and talked about their crush and you gushed with excitement, desperate to talk about it. You're a fake OP. If there weren't kids involved I'd advice you get off with one another and be done.

If only life were that simple springy

what do you mean Discretion? Do you think I haven't been in OPs (and your) position? It's selfish, yes, but we can all be selfish without realising it. It's the bullying and sneering that has finally got my goat. I'm disappointed in myself that my goat wasn't got before now - I've been trying to understand, even trying to step over the galloping selfishness (aware how easy it is to be selfish when your head/heart is being powerfully dragged in a particular direction). I don't think OP is serious about getting out of this situation. It looks like she wants posters to agree that it's woh so exciting and ooh tell us about him and mmmm yummy and no harm done.

and, ultimately, that she has the control - how dare anyone suggest otherwise! - that she can pull back should the need arise. I'm sure you and others like you will agree, Discretion, that it's not as simple as that.

Anon, thank you so much for your honesty. I really appreciate it. You know, the awful thing about affairs is being LIED to - but the truth hurts just as fucking much...

And to tie your story into Crush:

"Sometimes its intimate and loving and tender and all about love making an other times I just want a good hard fuck. In the case of the latter it's not about intimacy - its about the amazing feeling I get from being shagged."

is something I gave a raunchy laugh and something I absolutely agree with. It is something I THOUGHT we had in our marriage. I absolutely loved a bit of it and Never Knowingly Said No (because I always knew whatever mood or level of energy I started off I would always end up laughing and happy). I loved the purple lollipop, and I loved dressing up. He did not have an affair because he was frustrated.

But she - even though a slight prude - could make him come in ways I never could. She was new and exotic, and he was into her.

And the pain of that, the blow straight to my sense of lovemaking being special, and me being a sexy person, is just killing. What we had is all gone and I am humiliated that I wasn't worth caring about, that the love life most husbands say they want, wasn't valued.

Fair enough

springy nobody is forced into an affair. Having an affair requires making a conscious decision that you're going to be with someon else even though you're married etc. Everyone has their own free will. That's one of the reasons it annoys me so much when women blame OWs for affairs... sorry but the men in those cases chose to have the affairs, therefore to me the lion's share of the blames lies with them.

The OP hasn't said she's going to have an affair, she's just said she has a crush on someone which imo is not at all unusual. Hopefully she won't have an affair, with a DH and children in the background and all the hurt that would be caused to them, but the only one who'll unilaterally make that decision is her. Personally I haven't seen too many posts telling her to go for it.. have I missed those ones?

The digression in the thread was about what goes on in a LTR between two people, which imo is completely up to a couple themselves and can involve fantasising about whomever the hell each of them wants during sex or otherwise.... as long as that works for them.

Two different issues above imo.

The danger in fantasizing about somebody else RL (rather than capt Jack Sparrow, f ex) is that you are keeping your fire alive, kindling it rather than trying to extinguish it.

The danger in fantasizing about somebody else RL

Fantasising represents no danger to me, in fact it spices things up in our relationship ... like I said, different things work for different people.

We're back to the whole thing of free will: fantasies or not, the OP will have an affair if she makes a decision to have an affair. Please stop looking at the OP as though she's some weak-willed creature who'll give in to her baser desires at the drop of a hat. That sort of thinking is annoying. We're not all dogs on heat.

Helltotheno,

1. Your second paragraph reads as if you think I am addressing you specifically rather than the OP. I am not.

The op wants advice on how to refocus her efforts on her marriage.
I merely suggest that fantasizing about another person may fan the flames rather than extinguishing them. My apologies if this was not entirely clear.

1. Your third paragraph is assuming I have made one heck of a lot of assumptions about the OP and her intentions. I dont see the basis for making any such assumptions based on my post.

Discretion, please start your own thread and tell us your story.

You are making an enormous mistake, which will end up in a lot of pain all round, but like everyone else you will find out the hard way when what is done cannot be undone.

Caution: addiction is NOT love. You CANNOT love a fantasy, you don't know a fantasy. Unravel the trauma of your D and the damage to your M without involving a self-obsessed fuckwit.

And I really don't mean to say that horribly.

Thanks for clarifying quint :)

notquint - for my personal situation you make a REALLY good point which is extremely relevant. I had been looking at thinking of my colleague in bed as a safe way to unleash the sexual energy i feel for him but I understand what you're saying about it kindling the fire.... That's given me food for thought.

springy no real comment for your torrent (i could sit here and requote, explain etc etc but i doubt it would be worth it as you give the impression of being a very 'black &white' person). I did however think it was somewhat ironic that in all your verbal abuse of me you've called me a bully.

Again - my thread wasn't about wanting to have an affair.... It was about dealing with a crush. And I have had lots and lots of quality practical advice so thank you for that. I don't want to have an affair. I do have a choice here. Like hellto I haven't seen anyone telling me to go for it, who would? All some posters have said is that I shouldn't beat myself up for feeling attracted to someone else - its about how I deal with it that counts. Clearly the issue of fantasies was pretty divisive but as with most relationship things people will always have different views.

The thing which has become apparent is quite clearly I need to re-focus on my Husband and I am taking steps to do this.

Thanks ladies

discretion I have read your other thread so will head over there to post

I had my other thread deleted. Too much rl info on there there involved others

Oops having changed her name back