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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

I fancy a married colleague

175 replies

Feelingbutterflies · 04/12/2021 22:59

OK, 6 months into my new job which I'm really enjoying and we had a managers conference for staff from various locations two weeks ago. There I met a fellow manager who I cannot stop thinking about. We are both married to other people and both have young children.

At the conference I did a one hour presentation. Later in the day whilst working in groups at tables I caught him looking at me. I remember thinking he was very good looking but never actually spoke to him. Turns out he works at the same location as me on another floor but our paths hadn't crossed before.

Last week he comes into my office to speak with someone else and says hello to me. We had a brief polite exchange and he made a comment as if he knew me along the lines of "you would say that". I thought we don't actually know each other to tease or joke yet but having seen him again, I most definitely fancy him.

This week just gone, we've 'bumped' into each other almost every day, on one day twice. Always with other people around. I legitimately walked through his floor with another colleague (I didn't actually know where he sat) and out of the whole floor he was the only one who stopped and waved to say hello to me. My knees literally went weak and heart racing. Other than saying "hi" back I didn't stop to chat.

On another day he came into my office to show a new starter around - not something that anyone from his floor has done in my six months so far! As soon as he entered the room (I looked up when the door opened) he was looking at me. He did introductions around the room and commented on our Christmas decorations being OTT. I said my children made some of the decorations. He then teased me about the decorations but didn't acknowledge my children making them. Again, I've not actually had a full one on one conversation with this guy so it feels a little familiar.

Yesterday I dropped some post off at the post room and he was in the work area moving a cabinet with three other guys. He was the only one to say hello as I walked by (I knew one of the other guys he was with but he was too busy with the cabinet to notice me). I was a little heart in mouth when I saw him and he instantly saw me. I felt like we had a moment. There was a trolley in the way which I moved for them and he teased me for 'helping'. I smiled and left.

This may be all in my head and I'm the only one with a crush, but it feels mutual.

I've been totally blindsided by these feelings. DH and I are in a good place. We got debt free this year, both with good incomes looking to buy our forever home next year. We've had our ups and downs over the 14 years of marriage, but we're financially comfortable, satisying sex life, I'm confident in myself, children both at school now and growing into proper human beings, so life feels good.

I have looked him up on LinkedIn where he says he is married with children which is how I know (but not sent a connection request) and he's the same age as me and coincidentally started at the company this year too. I cannot stop thinking about him now.

Even if he has feelings for me, I know it doesn't me he would act on it, but I am so confused right now. The last time I felt like this I married the guy!! I just feel I had to write this somewhere so I stop replaying everything in my head. What level of crazy am I?

OP posts:
Beefcurtains79 · 05/12/2021 08:41

What do you mean

LizzieSiddal · 05/12/2021 08:42

Sorry but you really sound like a teenager. You’re a nearly 40 year old with a husband and children but you’ve romanticised this into something that sounds like you can’t control yourself.

Give your head a wobble!

Disname · 05/12/2021 08:42

@LadyWithLapdog no it’s not intrusive. I’m trying. There are wider implications at play, at this point I would need to uproot my whole life to end this. I have therapy starting soon.

Jabbawasarollingstone · 05/12/2021 08:44

I was in a bad place, bad marriage, bad time at work, feeling lonely and was seeing the GP about "low moods". Then a male colleague swept in, listened to me, offered advice, and stuck up for me. I regarded him as a colleague before, but his kindness made me develop a crush on him. He's married. He's still my colleague though he now works different hours to me, so there is rarely a meet-up. I am forever grateful for his support but it was a crush. He knows, and we're past it.

LadyWithLapdog · 05/12/2021 08:45

@Disname whatever the rights or wrongs it sounds like it wasn’t worth your emotional health 💐

Kipperlipper · 05/12/2021 08:47

You can’t help the way you feel. However you can control what you do about it.

Imagine handing over your children on Christmas Eve one year because it’s not your turn…..

Imagine your husband going on dates with other women if you split up.

You just need to refocus your thoughts.

It is hard though as I’ve been in your position and can see how it I hadn’t cut the oxygen supply, it could easily have led to an affair.

ErinAoife · 05/12/2021 08:48

Don't think about us. It is a crush don't ruin your family by acting on it.

Original poster
Feelingbutterflies · 05/12/2021 08:49

Thank you. It is not as easy as just turning off my feelings. I know there is a problem but the constant name calling seems OTT.

OP posts:
EmmasMum12 · 05/12/2021 08:49

Blimey. Some of you are being so harsh. Yes it's a crush and yes if the OP took it further it would be foolish unless she's up for her marriage ending.

OP.....you need to find ways to nip it in the bud. Every time you think of Crush Man, imagine the judge deciding 50/50 care for your kids. Imagine every other Christmas without the kids. Imagine Crushes extended family never ever accepting you.

Cold showers for your emotions.

QueenJeanie · 05/12/2021 08:51

He's probably the serial office letch

He focuses on the newbie, flirts, makes a fuss and reels her in. Takes his time because it's all about the chase. Then he says he's never felt like this/behaved like this before. He absolutely doesn't seem to be that kind of man (a creep) but he is. (There won't be much gossip about him because he's good at getting his conquests to keep quiet)

After the chase there follows a couple of blow jobs in his car and he metaphorically adds another notch to his bedpost and moves on to the next one

LadyWithLapdog · 05/12/2021 08:52

If you can’t turn off your feelings at least don’t give them fuel. Stay in your place at work, actively avoid him, don’t flirt. In a couple of months you won’t feel the same.

FourTeaFallOut · 05/12/2021 08:53

Put your feelings for him in a box. Jettison the box. Job done. Carry on with your life minus the self sabotage.

oviraptor21 · 05/12/2021 08:54

^^ Except that he's also new to the office.

Let's not paint this guy as some demon. We know nothing about him and whether he is just friendly or a flirt or something worse.

OP just needs to concentrate, as an earlier PP said, on what the reality would look like if her DH divorced her and she gets 50:50. Is that what she really wants?

FlamingoQueen · 05/12/2021 08:55

I would turn him into the ‘bad guy’. Imagine that if you started something with him and then ended it before anyone found out and then he moved on to someone else.
I know someone that did this (not me), the lady said yes and then after a few weeks said no, so he started creeping up to the next lady in the room. Makes my skin crawl just thinking about it.
Perhaps he has form for this, you say he’s only been in the job for a little while?
There’s no reason why you can’t have a conversation with him, but keep things professional and like you said, if you mentioned the children, he ignores that bit. So mention your children! Makes it real.
Don’t do anything you will regret!

HermioneWeasley · 05/12/2021 08:58

Have more sex with your husband. The chemicals released when you orgasm will bond you with him. Make sure you’re looking at him

dustofneptune · 05/12/2021 09:00

It’s just a crush, OP! It can be totally confusing if you’ve never had one while married before.

I just had an insane 9-month crush on a married person. She kept asking to hang out and I felt mutual chemistry.

I made the mistake of becoming friends with her, which didn’t help! I literally thought I was in love with her or something, and it was driving me mental.

(I would never have acted on it - I don’t date married people unless they are polyamorous.) At some point I just stopped engaging and the crush totally vanished. Now I actually cringe a bit that I felt so strongly when we’re so madly not on the same page in values or worldviews etc.

Crushes in the workplace are normal, because you’re in a bubble that feels like a separate world. Chemistry is totally normal and fades if it’s not leant into. Just keep away. Don’t invite any extra communication. Avoid like the plague! Turn your energy towards yourself and your partner.

sofato5miles · 05/12/2021 09:00

OP. You sound like you have everything. What you are looking at is a total mind fuck with zero happy ending. You will drive yourself crazy and it will get worse and not better.

You are happliy married. Do not indulge yourself as you have a fuck load to lose, which ypu can't even imagine. You will lose ypur family, lots of friends, be judged mercilessly and forever have a stain on your character. If you were very unhappy in your marriage before he cropped up, i would counsel that you feel like being rescued and looking in the wrong place, but this definitely does not sound like that. This sounds like ypu have merely come across someone you are genetically matched with. Recognise that for the science it is and put it in perspective.

Good luck x

PicsInRed · 05/12/2021 09:01

He's negging you, it's part of his routine and this almost certainly isn't his first affair with someone in some way vulnerable. Your vulnerability actually jumps off the page, OP, and these guys can sniff out vulnerability like sharks sniff out blood in the water so he'll have seen it immediately. That's why he's targeted you. As his next victim.

If you had an affair, you would put a bomb under your own kids and family and this guy would then discard you as he will have done to all the rest.

Avoid this man forever.

Notbornwithit · 05/12/2021 09:03

Get.a.grip
If you knew how hard it is when kids live in split situations you wouldn’t even be contemplating this

ManchesterTartwithCustard · 05/12/2021 09:04

You are flattered.
He is flattered.
That's it.
You need to leave it in your head
The grass is always greener until you come to mow it.

Youaremypenguin · 05/12/2021 09:06

You've got a crush! I've had several since being married.

Have lots of sex with your husband and invest your need to flirt and all those chemicals back into your marriage. The carnage of an affair with a colleague is huge so just don't go there. Avoid, avoid, avoid. Not only would you both lose your partner's, your houses, you could both lose your jobs and that's not even covering the level of hurt you'd be responsible for.

I just think of all the disgusting things they must do.....eat their toe nails, eat their belly button fluff, leave skids in the loo etc etc. Trust me, everyone has habits and behaviours that turn you off. Invest in your hubby.

LetHimHaveIt · 05/12/2021 09:07

Blimey Charlie. A poster suggested she'd had had to wade through paragraphs to find out the OP was married. OP quite reasonably pointed out that it was her opening paragraph. Then she was asked her age and accused of being defensive. And she replied that her age was in her second post. She's allowed to defend herself - she's being attacked, after all. Yes - I found myself finding much of the post a bit ho-hum ('Did he wave? Did he?). But people need to lay the fuck off.

waltzingparrot · 05/12/2021 09:12

Well always remember, he's not available, even if he thinks he is.

MrsFin · 05/12/2021 09:16

There I met a fellow manager who I cannot stop thinking about. We are both married to other people and both have young children.

What do you want to happen?
Do you want to ruin the lives of two families?

isthismylifenow · 05/12/2021 09:16

Stop it right now OP.

When he walks by next time, look the other way, just avoid him.

You are flattered by the attention but you are dangerously dangling on the edge of ruining many lives.

He may be a complete charmer who does this all the time. It probably gives him a boost as well.

Take the lead here and stop acting like a school girl.

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