Why Am I cheating?

[onemumbaby]

Help!! I'm a bad person, I know.

I'm married with one child. Someone in work with me is married with three kids. We've worked together for 8 years and travelled the world extensively, most of the time just us two. Sometimes some more senior people or the team below us.

There has never been anything between us. For eight years. We get along, we've met each other families. Nothing more. Respective partners say we are work wife and husband as we are close but just as friends.

Then at the Christmas party there was some flirting from him.. no idea where it came from. I (embarrassingly) enjoyed it and flirted back. We danced. Nothing else. Next work night out for our end of year results he asked for a kiss at the end of the night. I give him a teeny peck. Then the last work trip we kissed several times one night and got a bit carried away and done a bit more. We didn't have sex.

I'm so confused, for two reasons.

1. I'm happy. I have thought about this so much and I truly believe I am happy in my marriage. I love my husband, although all of this might suggest otherwise. I have never cheated before.
2. I don't even fancy this guy from work! I don't look at him and think he's attractive. I definitely am not falling for him!!

So why am I doing it?!?! Help!!

The only thing I can think is the "thrill of the chase" argument? Im ashamed to say the flirting excited me. The passionate kissing. Whilst me and my husband have a good sex life, we've been together 15 years. We're so familiar (which is amazing) and there is obviously no honeymoon phase! I think this is why I have allowed this to happen?? I am getting carried away with the excitement and lust? I loved the attention. I love seeing I turned another man on, after all this time. And the passion which I just don't think you have after all these years. I am still passionate with my husband and we have great sex, so passion might not be the right word. Hopefully some of you know what I am referring to though.

I know im a bad person. Feel free to share how awful I am but trust me, I know. The remorse I feel... I go to tell my husband every night and then I sleep on it, thinking tomorrow will be better. He will 100% leave me. I then go into work and see this guy and I find myself checking when the next work trip is. I go home to my husband, we have a lovely evening, the guilt and remorse kicks in. I promise myself I can't look forward to other trips and have actually applied for some other jobs. Then I debate telling him, don't. Go to sleep. Go into work the next day and the whole thing repeats itself again. What am I doing 😢😢

Any counsellors that can unpick this and tell me what the f**k is wrong with me?!?!?!

I think you should stop being stupid. You don’t need to unpick it. You need to either give yourself a slap and behave or end your marriage. It really is that simple.

I think you’ve already worked out what’s going on. In your shoes, I’d be looking for another job. Otherwise this is going to explode in the nastiest way.

If you genuinely want your marriage to continue you really need to step up your job hunting. I personally wouldn’t tell him, but I’d stop, as you’re playing with fire. Especially when you don’t even fancy this guy.

@Zanatdy .. I couldn't agree more with everything you've said 😩 My emotions then seem to take over when I am in the office, but this is 100% what I need to do.
I'm glad someone also thinks I shouldn't tell him. I genuinely don't think that for me, but for my little boy and my husband. I don't want to do them more harm than I already have 😩

Well you have already taken the chance, you made your choices.

If you end the affair then there is less probability of getting caught but you still risk the chance of the affair even if you end it of being discovered in the future.

Nothing you can do can change that, it is something you will have to learn to live with unless you dislose all to you husband but you say he will leave you.

You were bored by the sounds of it, filling space.

There is no answer that will change anything.

I guess the attention is flattering. I get that. When you’re working close with someone too I guess it’s tempting when the chance is there, miles away from home. Yeah I don’t think telling him would achieve much. He’s either going to leave, and you don’t want to be with office guy anyway, his wife could find out too. Or he will agree to move on, but won’t ever trust you again and it would be awful living like that. I think if my boyfriend had a fling with a colleague and ended it then I wouldn’t want to know.

Flattered by the attension. But you are a mature adult and a mother who has a lot to lose. So focus on what a split would mean and if you want to go there.
I'd you don't and you also can't summon up the willpower, a new job is the answer, maybe until the next man shows you some attension. This says more about you in the end.

Yuck, hardly classy is it?

Apparently you're happily married, with a long term trusting husband and yet...just because it gives you a thrill you feel it's OK to disrespect that love and trust?

You are putting your pathetic need for superficial attention from another above your marriage and possible family?

Get a grip and grow up OP. How you are behaving is shameful.

As if you really need to be told why you're doing it

Pathetic

All pretty shit & selfish really. Nothing to do with 'emotions' taking over, just your selfish wants. You know why your doing it, it's because your enjoying it and you can. It's what you do next is the key thing. How you limit any further damage to your marriage and family. You won't be totally in control of this as someone else may have noticed your indiscretion. Personally
I'd want to know if my partner/wife was cheating. I wouldn't wish to waste another day of my life with a liar and a cheat. Sadly been there and done that.

If you continue you will destroy not only your life but more importantly, your son's and husband's. Nip this in the bud now. You tell your colleague that you do not want this to go further, no flirting, kissing etc. Do you really want to lose your husband, house? Do you want to only see your child only 3/4 days a week? You need to see a therapist ASAP.

It’s as simple as it sounds, it’s the excitement and flattering.

May as well come clean op, you’ve ruined your marriage. He can’t compete with the passionate kissing and all the other exciting stuff. Even if you break it off things will never be the same , you’ll always compare and you’ll also lose respect for him and see him as a chump who didnt suspect a thing.

Tell you husband. He has the right to know and decide if he wants to be married to someone like you.

So much destruction just waiting to happen. Cute.

Grow up.

Wow people are so unnecessary harsh, OP has said she is aware she didn't do the right thing and the situation might seem more black and white to us, but she might be feeling all sorts and just needs some outsider view on it.

No need to tell her to grow up or call her pathetic. People are acting like they're the ones getting cheated on.

All that nonsense aside OP, as thrilling as it might all seem it's not real. You've created something in your head and you just need to shake it off. Just keep your DH and little one in mind. Like you said, you're happy with him so I think this is just a moment of excitement for you but keep it up and the consequences will be disastrous.

OP I agree with the above posters but just want to add some practical help.

You’re going down a slippery slope. Affairs are often about seeking validation, once you start collecting ego kibbles, you’ll become hooked (affairs are addictive), you’ll start to change the way you see this man. Your mind will work tricks on you, you’ll find yourself rewriting history, building this man into someone he isn’t and creating a narrative that suits your move from your moral compass.

Ultimately you’ll be damaging your mental health and this is aside from the damage you’ll be causing your family. Your husband will start recognising you pulling away and you may become snappy and irritable with your child as the desire for contact increases.

You’re already on a path where you’re risking your husbands emotional and mental health, he does not deserve this. Don’t add in taking his right to informed sexual consent.

Starting today you need to find yourself another job and block social recreational contact with this man as I realise you can’t go NC. Get hold of a book called ‘not just friends’ by Shirley glass and spot how affairs follow the same old same old, it’s appallingly predictable. I really advise you to read the wayward forum on the surviving infidelity website. Their posters there are harsh but fair, they have walked in your shoes and understand the drives. Another great source of support is affair recovery videos, there’s some great ones explaining the psychology of what you’re doing. Counselling is also needed.

For your family’s sake (and his family’s sake) please start to take a positive action. No one fulfils anyone, we have to fulfil ourselves. You need to find another way of filling whatever is being filled by ego kibbles atm.

She does need to grow up. Acting like a lovelorn teen.
Not harsh at all.

Cold reality.

Bloody hell op, what on earth are you doing?? Your entire post is all about YOU. How much you enjoy it, how you feel, what you want. Sit for an hour and think really hard about how your husband and his wife and your respective dc will feel when they find out. Imagine the utter devastation, made worse by the fact that you all know each other and have spent time together. They trust you and the pair of you have shit all over that. They won’t believe this is a new thing, they will think it’s being going on forever, that you have been taking them for fools forever. You and him have absolutely no right to make choices on behalf of your uninformed spouses, to steal their agency, to risk their health and to cause massive psychological damage, all for a cheap thrill. It’s a massive dick move and your post reeks of being selfish and entitled. When you get caught (and you will - people you work with will already have noticed) your DH and his DW probably won’t be that interested in your naval gazing about why you did it, just in the fact that you did and are therefore a pair of lying, disloyal arseholes. Just stop it now. Change jobs, and get yourself into therapy to work out why you somehow feel entitled to shit all over people you claim to love.

Time to find a new job OP

It's addictive behaviour. What you're drawn to is the feeling of being someone different- not a wife and mother but an attractive sensual woman. It's feeding a desire in you to feel seen and desired. It's also filled with those first flush romance hormones and butterflies. There is the thrill of uncertainty, vulnerability, deception.
Like any addiction it feels wonderful, but you know you need to stop - but maybe just one more time, you can handle it.
The next stage is that you start to need and crave it - and need ever more just to get the same effect.
And then you need it just to feel normal.
But it is all fantasy - hidden away you live jin the shadows of deception, a guilty secret. It has nothing to do with your actual life- that's the attraction and also the tragedy.
Eventually the reality of your life will start to come back as both worlds begin to collide.
Like any addiction OP - you aren't thinking about losing your marriage, your relationships, your family home - or that every Christmas and birthday and special event for your child will have to be split between two parents. And you certainly aren't appreciating the trauma from intimate betrayal that your DH will carry for the rest of his life. Or the earth shattering awakening when you realise all this and wonder what on earth you were thinking?
Like any addiction OP it will give you a taste of heaven and then drag you into hell, and you will lose your marriage, your home, your family, your close relationships, your self esteem - and your fantasy will burst like a bubble.
Get some counselling to find the pain inside that you are trying to soothe - and find better ways of addressing it than deeply hurtful addictive behavior.

I think you need to go to a counsellor to unpick why you were vulnerable to an affair with a man you don't even fancy.

@onemumbaby how was things now

I know it's not the point, but which jobs allow you to travel the world?

Security services,
Banking industry with overseas clients.
Etc

Grow up. Get a new job.
Don't tell your husband.
Think only of what is best for your child and this man's children.
You're both behaving like adolescents, not grown ups with responsibilities.