I am female (35) and am currently separated from my husband. We have been married for seven years and together a total of 10. My marriage was on shaky ground from fairly early on but my emotional affair was the nail on the coffin. I need some help processing my feelings about how and why things went down the way they did.
I started working with this guy back in 2019 where we both new employees and salaried managers at our company. We hit it off and became friendly immediately. He was the same age as me and a single father. He was two years single from a 9 year long relationship in which the love of his life left him. He was totally devastated and still not totally over her when we first met. As time went on he expressed that he was lonely and wanted a girlfriend. In the three years we worked together he never had a girlfriend, only a few dates that did not work out. I think he was gun shy about what happened and did not help that he was reclusive and a loner. I think he got used to his quiet simple life.
However, we grew rather close at work. Initially I was not attracted to him sexually but that grew over time. I began to feel a lot of sexual tension, although I wasn’t sure how much of that was imagined by me. Physical attraction to him grew into a great respect and admiration for him. I had never met anyone so kind. He was also smart and funny. I believe he also thought I possessed the same qualities. Soon we developed a close working relationship. We helped each other out a lot with work stuff. Then we started doing nice things for each other. I would make him baked goods and bring them to him at work. He would clean snow off my car for me after a work day. One time he grabbed my hand getting out of my car to help me across an icy patch in the parking lot. He started complimenting me on my clothing frequently, which led me to start dressing nicer strictly to impress him.
Other things I believe was there like eye contact and non verbal communication. He always stood next to me in a room full of coworkers. When he would come to my office to talk, he would lean on my desk with his face close Eventually I think be both felt like we were someone the other could confide in. I began to tell him about problems in my marriage and how I wanted to divorce my husband. I felt things stayed appropriate and lines were never crossed. We never talked or saw each other outside of work.
We even had a client in one instance who told me she thought me and him were a married couple, but she was surprised when I informed her we weren’t together. When I told him, he said I should have not corrected her, as he would have not minded people thinking we were married. This led us to joke around about getting married to each other for weeks after that. I remember one of the last times we worked together there was a lot of brushing up against one another in tight quarters. Normally instinct is to move away but neither one of us were seemed eager to pull away.
The last time we really spent to together was last year’s work Christmas party. I wore this stunning red dress and I swore he was looking at me. It felt magical. The year before he had wrote me a very sentimental Christmas card about how kind dedicated I was to our clients and how he knew he could come to me about anything. I was disappointed he did not give me a card again. However, when I got back from having two days off for Christmas, I had not only a beautifully written card and a gift on my desk. I knew that they were from him without even looking.
After the new year, things came crashing down when I lost my job. The company wasn’t doing well and we had anticipated lay offs throughout the pandemic. However, we assured over the holidays that we were all keeping our jobs and getting raises. Getting laid off was a huge blow to me. He was the second person I went to tell after it happened. The first was a coworker, I’ll call her B. She is a good friend I hang out with outside of work, and we are still friends now.
Anyway, B saw I was in his office with him and she came in and we all said a tearful goodbye. I hugged him and we exchanged phone numbers and promised to stay in touch. He texted me a giant heart emoji thing before I left that day.
B had called me that night after she got home from work and asked if anything was going on between me and him as she felt like she had interrupted a private moment between me and him that day. I did confess that I had feelings for him. She knew how my marriage was and was not at all surprised.
I ended up very depressed in the coming weeks as I was not longer seeing him at work daily. I was not able to hide it well from my husband and he we both had realized then that I had fallen in love with someone else. My husband was upset of course and lost trust me. However, he understood how things happened like they did, but we stayed together not really sure where things were going to go.
Things heated up for a few weeks after that, between this guy and me. We would text each other Sunday nights at like 8:00-9:00 and one Fri from like 7:30 until almost midnight. No conversations were inappropriate but I still felt connected to him. We agreed to meet up soon. Eventually, his texts would become fewer and further between.
One day at a later time, I went out to the bar with B and we both had a little bit too much to drink and told her to tell him at work that I was attracted to him. I mistakenly asked her to be my wingwoman as he was not responding to my text messages anymore. She did tell him and he did not believe her and said women aren’t interested in him. He acted clueless. He also said there was no way I was interested because I was married. B had told him that he knew I didn’t have a good marriage. He ended up telling her that his “simple life would break open”. I took that as he did not want to get involved in the drama that being with a married women would entail.
A few weeks later after another night out with B, she told him at work that I had feelings for him. He said that he cared for me and wanted me in his life but just as a friend. B told me she thought he had feelings for me but didn’t want to come between a marriage. B told him that was fine, but gave him hell for not at least responding to my texts. He agreed he should text me. The last texts I received from him were in April and he apologized for being dormant. He told me he was hermiting away and not wanting to invest in anyone right now. We had a nice conversation and told me that he knows I’m a good person and that I’ll be there for him.
He did not have any further contact with me after that and I did not contact him either for a while. Things continue to deteriorate with my husband and we separated in July. We lived together still due to financial reasons but we basically acted as roommates. I did text the other guy at this point to tell him I was separated from my husband if he wanted to give things a chance with us. He never responded. I ended up hurt big time by his ghosting.
I sent him one final text in September for closure baring my feelings and telling him how much he hurt me.
I am trying to move on from him now as I know things will never happen between us. I have been in therapy for a while now and only beginning to process what had happened to me. I am trying to gain some insight on the situation and have so many questions. I also question my own attractiveness and self worth that maybe I wasn’t good enough or pretty enough for him.
I am trying to figure out what happened? Does it sound like he really had feelings and didn’t want to get involved with a married women? Even knowing we separated why did he not want to give things a shot? I am beginning now to question my sanity as to whether or not the whole “affair” was in my head. I still struggle to see what I did as an affair but my therapist tells me I had an emotional affair with him. Does it sound like I was imagining everything? I know that falling for another man while married was a horrible thing for me to do, but was he also in the wrong? Does it seem like he was innocent in all this and just friendly, and I took everything the wrong way? Or does it seem like he was playing with fire? Also, was it wrong for him to ghost me the way he did? Did he handle that in the best way he could have? I understand that it’s all just speculation at this point, but that is everyone’s take on the situation?