Can this emotional affair ever become a relationship?

[Captainfairylights]

I have been in what I suppose is an emotional affair for five years. We met when I was unhappily married and he was recovering from a breakdown. We work together. We had an immediate connection, he clumsily initiated something, when I responded even though married, he brutally backed off. Very bad start, but we were held together by a joint project, and an underlying connection which has never gone away.

In the last year I have left my marriage and am building a new life. He has recovered and is a much more settled person. He takes me to lunch regularly, always nice places, he always insists on paying. We have come to know each other well, , we know about each others kids, lives, pasts. We have mutual friends. We have grown to like each other. During Covid we started to ring each other for support, and met up in the day from time to time in whatever ways were possible. He is still walled off to me in an essential way, but less so.

I feel something has changed but I do not know how to act on it. Recently I screwed up my courage and invited him to see a place I am renovating to live in. (It is an interest of his). He has always said no to any invitation I made before, but he said yes to this and he loved it. He had never seen anything of my life before.

We have never kissed. Please don't flame me for being a fantasist. I want to suggest we meet for dinner but I am afraid of the rejection should he say no. The stakes are very high when we continue to have this project together. The only dinner we ever had was the first one at the beginning where we drank too much and I tried to talk about what was between us and he flipped out. It was awful. So our meetings have always been alcohol free lunches. That was five years ago though, and so much has changed.

I'll stop now and hope there's enough here that you can advise? I feel the relationship (for me) has to become a real one now or stop. But I am afraid of this. I think we both are. Maybe this is why he has kept me at a distance but never let me go.

Honestly, it sounds a bit like you're scared of being yourself around or else he'll "flip out" or reject you. To me this is a massive red flag... it doesn't sound like he makes you feel comfortable or reassured.

The fact that he "brutally" back odd initially and you've grown to like each other... it all just seems like hard work and not a natural connection at all.

Is he married? If yes, he will never make you happy and he will stop you being happy with someone else.

If no and he wanted more from you, I think you'd know that by now. So ditto, you won't be happy while you're hanging onto this.

Talk to him properly if he's single. You've really got nothing to lose.

Is he in a relationship? Either way, it’s not shouting too much interest (romantic) from his side.

No he's not married. Quite long divorced. He lives near his adult children and has quite a quiet private life. I don't think he has had a relationship in the time I have known him. He's closed off with everyone, not just me. He was not in a good way when I met him, has had loads of therapy etc and seems to be much more at ease.

Yes good point to just have the talk. I have tried before, but it was when I was still married and unhappily so and not really available myself.

Yes I see that. I have been very afraid. But I am quite afraid of men generally and I was in a relationship. What he has never wavered on is the devotion to the joint project, and that kept me going. But his admiration for my work isn't enough now.

What’s the rush? Enjoy being friends, learn who you are when not in a relationship, and see how you feel a year or so down the road.

It sounds like a disaster waiting to happen, to be honest.

He's not emotionally safe for you. And he appears emotionally unavailable generally, so trying to make something happen will be very self-destructive.

Instead of pursuing it, drop it right back to a professional relationship.

Concentrate on other friendships and maybe look to start dating and having fun.

A relationship should be fairly straightforward, not confusing, not uncertainty, not second-guessing everything - it should be affirming and basically easy. This is not that.

Yes, I want to do that too! I feel such relief that my marriage is over. I'm only starting to be my own person. I suppose its that our connection is seeming to deepen right at this moment. And I am finally free to do something. And I would like us to spend more time together, without the loaded thing it has had. The thing is that he tends not to be the initiator of us meeting, but responds warmly and with a good idea. This makes it hard for me to know what to do. I would love to be the one responding. I think I am quite confused and do not know if he is stringing me along or if he is genuinely trying to find his own way and protect himself. I used to think the former, now I think more the latter.

Thank you. I do see this, and have thought it many times.

I think the problem is I have never had a relationship like the one you describe.

Maybe you need to do some therapy or other self-help to reset your boundaries and understand why you're drawn to someone closed off from you and find yourself in unhealthy relationship dynamics? It's OK to be single and take some time to change things up for yourself. If you've thought these things, maybe you need to figure out why isn't it enough to make you take care of yourself by stepping away from the landmine?

I think I have always thought of love as exactly that pretty much. A landmine. And I have to deal with the consequences, not avoid it. No wonder I have been so miserable! Oh dear. I sound hopelessly naive.

I did have some therapy when I was trying to leave my husband and my feelings for EA were obsessing me. It helped a bit. She tried to get me to see him as a real person, not a fantasy figure. That part worked, but there was nothing about my own boundaries, which I agree are almost non existent.

He's single, you're single, yet he is still so distanced from you and your life. I'd say you should close the book on this one.

It sounds like you formed a bond over the fact that both of you were in a vulnerable place.

I mean, he's always said no to meeting up with you, so he's either not interested in that way, or he's just not open to a relationship.

Just stay colleagues/friends and leave it at that. In the long run, all that will happen is you will keep having doubts, keep needing reassurance that he probably won't give you, and you will waste your life pining after a guy when you could be happily single or meet the love of your life somewhere else.

You've posted about this chap before, I think, OP?

Don't waste another minute on him.

Or, alternatively, invite him on a date, now you're single too. I suspect your notions about him will then get an abrupt re-set, but at least you can then move on.

You're giving it too much thought. You think you're enwrapped in an EA with this guy. He seems to think that you're someone he chats to at work.

Ask him out & put yourself out of your misery, or accept that it's a nice crush which is unreciprocated & best not acted on.

I would like to try letting it go, but I don't know what that looks like. Do I just not initiate anything, get on with things and that's that? (I genuinely do not know what would happen, as I am almost always the initiator and we are working separately re. the project at the moment). I would need to shut him out completely, as it's the halfway house and endless possibility that does my head in.

Or should I find a way to have a conversation first, so that if things have changed he can say so? If it was really going to nowhere, I would have closure. He never gives me definitive 'no's' on this. Perhaps to spare my feelings so I can work? I have had something that conversation before, he has said he cannot give more, but then straight after he will crank up the lunch invite and grow warmer. I know this is not normal. It's just I have come to wonder if we were getting past this.

Not to drip feed, but I did have a fling with someone right after my marriage ended. EA got quite grumpy that I had a boyfriend, but did not try to talk me out of it. It did help me forget him, but not entirely. My fling was jealous of him, and said he was in love with me. I told him about EA and he saw the effect that receiving a good or bad message could have on me. When it ended a few months later, EA again increased the warmth and the lunches. Oh dear, this is no good is it. Seeing it written out I seem so passive and ridiculous.

No, I've only just joined MN to ask about it.

But it's probably a common story....

Don’t get into a relationship with someone who is emotionally unavailable. If you don’t know how healthy relationships work, find out. I always recommend The Baggage Reclaim Sessions podcast by Natalie Lue. I think she’s absolutely brilliant.

Yes, I do too. I've been able to apply those principles in every other relationship but this one!

Just talk to him openly, lay your cards on the table and see what his position is. Either way you'll get an answer and move on from there. Either he wants to be romantically involved but either doesn't have the courage to iniate or he values your friendship as it stands and is happy to continue. Once you know, then you can move forward. From what you said about the jealously when you had a fling, he seems like he does wanted a romantic relationship but seems to be guarded with lots of barriers up. He's happy to respond positively when you suggest meeting but would never initiate this himself maybe because of fear of rejection.

Has anyone ever had a good result from laying their cards out on the table? Genuine question. I would like to do this, it seems the adult thing to do, then there is the niggle inside that says, if you have to do that, isn't that your answer?
And what if I did that, he said YES and we are in a relationship! I wonder if I am as unavailable as he is, he knows it, and that's why this dance has gone on so long.
It's possible I don't know what I want and I am trying to make him decide for me (by wanting me more vigorously). If I were him I would be worried about that.
I am overthinking -- but this is really helping me. Thank you so much for your replies! I have literally never spoken about this meaningfully in all these years.
Do you all have a sense of what you want? I would like to find out with him, by more meaningful dating, if there's something there. I don't want to leap into a mega relationship. I've just left one and am renovating my dream little place to live! I'm not quite certain what the cards are that I'm laying out.

Five years is an awfully long time to be in love with a man without a return of affection.

You must have asked what his reticence is, during his brutal back off for example or after dinner when he flipped. He must have given reason for these outbursts.
You sound obsessed by him and that must be intoxicating for him to see but it doesn't sound very healthy for you, in fact it sounds heartbreaking.

It sounds like you're more interested than he is.

In all honesty, it sounds like you are not quite sure on what you want either. On one hand you want there to be more but on the other you quite like things the way they are. I think you need to decide before making any big decision about talking to him about there being more. It sounds like you may indeed regret it if suddenly he wants a relationship and of course this would confuse him and matters even more. From your last post, I would say take some more time, continue meeting as friends, enjoy each others company, go about your renovations and life and re-assess further down the line.

I think Cat12 is right.

You can only be yourself and what you need is reasurance that he wants you, and you appear frightened to get your answer and to ask honestly.

This relationship sounds anx ridden and frankly scary, not relaxed and organic.
You have to trust one another to reveal your innermost and there is a shield preventing both of you being honest.

Could I ask this project, does it include him earning monies from you ? could this be the reason why he is being polite or interested.

I understand your fear, love can be very scary.

YES. It is. Heartbreaking. It has been a painful obsession. The obsession has reduced now that I m not unhappy in my life, but exactly this, five years is a long time. It has caused me so much pain. I don't want it to be five more. I think he has definitely played his part in keeping it alive, and he does have feelings for me, but I don't really know what they are.

After the Awful Dinner, he was absolutely mortified with himself. He apologised, blamed the drink, and said that in a relationship he would disappoint me. But that he was desperate to preserve our work together. If we had not been deep in this quite public work thing I would no longer have had anything to do with him.

That was when I hardly knew him. And I was still married.

We discussed it again a couple of years after that when it came to a head. We literally sat in a conference room and tried to sort it out. He said he had been hurt before and had walls a mile high. He said he also had to work very hard to keep his emotions in check, and that I was very emotional. If I wondered if he had feelings for me, he said, could I not see from the amount of time he spent on my work which eclipsed everyone else? Could I not read between the lines? I said I didn't know what to do with this relationship and I didn't know how to handle it. He said he felt the same. He said, I know what I can do, and that's take you to lunch. And that's what we did. Others at the office knew there was something between us, some would tell me that he would talk about me all the time etc.

All this only served to feed the obsession.

He has behaved hurtfully at other times, in general it has been when I have pushed too hard to be closer to him.

Every time I have said, I want more from this (perhaps two other times), it's like he just does not have the words to express why he can't. At times it's like he's in pain to try. It is true there's an inadequacy there, a lack, perhaps caused by his breakdown. I think he and his therapist have created a way for him to build himself up and keep himself safe. And that does not include wild flings with intense people like me, which is what it would have been if it had happened at the start.

And because of the work it was impossible for either of us to just go I've had enough of this. And when I would pull away, he would not let it go too far, he would bring me back. I read up about narcissists, remain undecided. And overall I am glad, because aside from all this, the work we have done together has been outstanding. I wish I could have had more control over it all.

And so fast forward to now, our lives both improved, and I'd like to resolve it. Somehow. I think we are both more sane. I am, definitely. Which is why I'm here and not firing off emails to him.

No he doesn't earn from me exactly. A way to think of it is as if I am the playwright, he is the Director and we are both contractually committed to putting on the production. Hope that makes sense.