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.