Emotional affair - can I save marriage without losing career?

[RunningAhead]

So I'm after some advice and I know it's duplication of other threads on here. I've read lots of similar threads and the advice is amazing, but there is a slight different angle to this so would appreciate any input.

In short I'm having an emotional affair at work. Home life is difficult and we've struggled for a number of years. I'm not having my emotional needs met at home. There's a whole host of other problems but I won't go into them. It feels like we're together for the kids.

Recently I've realized that I'm having these emotional needs met by a colleague. They've confided in me about their life and me vice versa. We share similar interests and work well together. I feel like I can be myself around them and they bring out the best in me personally and professionally.

All the advice I read is to get counselling, sort out my marriage and leave work. All great advice. I've started counselling but they've turned down couples therapy so I'm on my own. I want to sort out my marriage and will do anything.

The colleague in question I work closely with and it's a relatively small workforce so not a case of being able to keep apart. And we bring out the best in each other. Everything tells me if I'm to save my marriage I need to move on from this person.

My issue is that I have worked so hard to get this job. I've only been there 12 months at most and is something I've aspired to for a long time. It's my big break and if I can finish the project, it will open so many doors. Being the only earner at home I can't see how I can leave my job and provide for the family. I'd never get an opportunity like this again.

Logic tells me to leave work and put the distance between me and my colleague. Then see what happens but I'm scared of being financially worse off. Particularly if we do end up divorcing and I lose half my assets.

Is there a way to save my marriage without risking financial security? Do I stick it out while I try counselling? Do I give up in my marriage and start afresh while I'm financially able to? Any advice is greatly received!

I want to sort out my marriage and will do anything.

My issue is that I have worked so hard to get this job. I've only been there 12 months at most and is something I've aspired to for a long time. It's my big break and if I can finish the project, it will open so many doors. Being the only earner at home I can't see how I can leave my job and provide for the family. I'd never get an opportunity like this again.

Unfortunately I don't believe you can have it both ways. If you want to be loyal to your marriage and truly try to save it you need remove yourself from the person you've been having an emotional affair with, whatever the cost. It's a natural consequence of the decision you made to have an emotional affair in the first place. Otherwise how can you truly move on from it and not get drawn back in? And you know your partner would not be ok with you continuing to be around this person if they knew what you've been doing.

If you can't or won't implement whatever changes are required to work on the marriage then I guess it's best to end it.

Thank you. I guess that was what I was thinking too but needed to hear it from someone else.

There are two aspects which scare the life out of me. The first is if I leave work it will be totally unexpected because it looks like.Im on the up so there will be questions. It will come up about the emotional affair but I'll still have to work alongside them for my 3 month notice period.

Then the really scary thing is if I leave work and don't save my marriage, then I'm left with no marriage, a huge loss of income and will eventually lose half my assets as I couldn't bare not to split evenly.

That's life though I guess. It's full of difficult decisions and you reap what you sow.

Is reining in your friendship with your colleague and just maintaining professional distance not an option? You’ve identified fairly early that you’re using them as an emotional substitute for your partner and know that you want it to stop, which is the most important first step; nothing particularly damning has happened, you’ve ultimately just talked frankly and openly. But you can stop that, even if you do have to work on a small team.

Though honestly, I’d be questioning whether your marriage is actually something you want to save. If you’ve been having problems and feeling emotionally disconnected for years with neither of you very bothered about changing that, and your OH has declined couples counselling, perhaps it’s time to acknowledge that things have run their course and you’ll both be better off in the long run by being able to actually find happiness elsewhere. You can be excellent coparents if you separate amicably.

Is there really no way to back off from your AP? It is possible to work with someone and keep it strictly civil and professional. Tell AP to back off. Turn your phone off and don’t respond to personal messages in the evening. You’re an adult. Attraction can be heady and is literally a drug, but you are still an adult.
If not, then you should just quit. The affair will be suspected or will come out at work eventually, it always does. Then your upward trajectory will be over anyway.
You keep saying you want to work on your marriage, but your entire post was a bunch of feeble excuses why you can’t give up the affair. I did not get any vibes of your marriage standing a chance from your post, so maybe just give up the ghost already and get a divorce.

I agree with PP. Leaving the emotional affair out of this why are you so sure the marriage must be saved? It takes two people to fight for a marriage. And sometimes they are past the point of saving and thats ok. It sounds like you have ploughed years into getting it back in track. Are you doing it because you want to, or because you think you 'should'?

If your spouse has turned down couples therapy it sounds like you're the only one trying to fight for the marriage. I wouldn't give up a dream job for this, especially if you're the only earner. Try to rein in your attraction to the other person if you can as pp have said, but maybe your marriage needs to end and this attraction is just the catalyst to help you realise that your needs aren't being met?

I don't think you should give up a well paid stable job when you are the only earner.

Could your partner not get a job to help out financially?

I think you need to just start being less close to this person & keep professional distance.

I'm guessing you are male - but could be just assuming.

This job sounds a great opportunity. I'm not getting a sense of why the marriage is such a great opportunity. Could this be an alert to that? I accept it would be very complicated to leave but if things aren't good and your partner refuses to seek help, are you pissing into the wind?

Re the EA. I'm not being obtuse but in what way has this crossed the line from close friends oversharing into EA territory (not a rhetorical qu, I mean have you veered into physical, expressed feelings towards AP)? Can you pull it back? Is there more to it such as the person is your boss? Maybe you could take control by being frank that you've been too open and don't want AP to get the wrong idea so thanks for listening but you're going to be a bit more circumspect about your marriage from now on.

My feeling here really isn't to give up what you've worked for to save an unsatisfactory marriage.

Why not just be honest with your wife and go from there?

Because I want to. At the end of the day I married someone who I love and deeply care about. Despite all the frustrations and years of working at it,there's not a moment where I wouldn't want to try to save the marriage despite my recent mistakes.

Thank you for the response. Made me think a lot. I do feel that what is happening is a symptom for want of a better word of the marital problems.

I don't want to go into too much detail. But some things that have been said have crossed the line I feel. So does the one friend who knows the whole story and it's come out in counselling as well. I would love to peel back but in such a small workforce when we are paired for much of this project it is nigh on impossible. Technically I am on a higher pay grade than them, but for the work we do we are on a level. The hard thing is as mentioned before we bring out the best in each other professionally, as well as personally.

They would prefer to be the stay at home parent. I have always been the main earner so it made sense to keep that after children were born. I thought they would return to work now kids are both in school but they don't want to.

I appreciate your honesty. That's what I was hoping for on here away from friends who naturally take sides. Maybe I have already given up and so am making excuses. It doesn't feel like they are made up excuses for me, just like the reality of a situation where there is no desirable outcome and I'm trying to sort my mind out.

Why are you obscuring the sexes of everyone involved?

I guess that the EA colleague is another woman?

Me and my husband are both male and we have two twins who were adopted at birth. AP is female. Husband is only second man I dated, before that I had a few girlfriends. Not had any feelings towards a another female until now.

Ask yourself if the reason you are staying in your marriage is due to convinience or because you love your DH?

You have already taken the decision to lean onto someone other than your DH for your emotional needs, so if the emotional affair colleague was happy to go further, would you?

Are you married for the right reasons?

What if your DH was having an emotional affair, what would you do?

We can all find excuses and justify why we do the things we do, you seem to have found a few OP. If your marriage is on its way out then make way for new opportunities and I would stay in your current job, why? because, as you say, there may not be another opportunity and your financial security is the only most stable thing you have at present while you decide on your marriage.

Also, your emotional affair now, may get bored off being just that, and start leaning onto someone else, who knows, people who do this have form for this, but you will need to make decisions on your marriage. Its not fair for your DH to be dangling onto hope, or you dangling onto hope, if there is none. Life is short and not a rehearsal.

There's an in between place of sensibility, maybe. How long does the project run for, and do you have the resolve to reign it in a bit and keep it on a friendly work level meantime?
You say you've both chatted about each's relationship issues, so does she know you have a husband? If not, it's at fantacy level.
I'd guess this makes you maybe pansexual or bi? Always something to learn about ourselves.
Anyway, I'd say the same in any situation. If you have the resolve to not go there and the job makes you happy and will open doors, carry on, in a cautious way, until you get the opportunity to move. This is as long as you are not treating your DH in a less fair way due to outside circumstances meantime.

Please put your twins as the nr. 1 priority in your life.

You can, if you try, be professional and civil and also reign in the personal chat and moments of intimacy with your AP. That would be my first goal in your shoes.

Get the project done and move on from the woman.

Is reining in your friendship with your colleague and just maintaining professional distance not an option?

This^^ Please don’t give up a job that you’re obviously good at and will open doors for you, you’ll only feel resentful. Plus you have children who need financial as well as emotional support.

It’s possible to step away from intense relationships that could turn into affairs, I’ve done it myself a couple of times. You don’t intend to become close to someone, you’re just drawn to one another and if you want to keep your marriage, you have to make a firm decision to move the relationship back onto a friendly but professional footing.

The other thing to remember is that many people show their best selves at work, esp. if they’re good at their job. You don’t see them when they’re grumpy in the morning, tired when they’ve been up in the night with children, ill in bed, etc. You mainly know their competent professional self, you don’t know who they are outside work.

Someone I know started seeing her divorced boss. She couldn’t understand why his wife had left him until they moved in together and she realized that he was a workaholic. Everything else in his life, including his family, came second.

Of course you don't give up your job especially because your "DH" doesn't work. I would end the marriage honestly - your H doesn't sound all that. Keep the job and maybe the other man instead!

Came back to say that I missed the part in your OP where your DP has turned down couples counseling. Not that this in any way justifies the emotional affair...but it does take two to try and repair things.

If he is unwilling to work on it with you then at the end of the day, it might be for the best to keep your job and end the relationship. Or at least have a conversation where you lay it out that you two need to go to counseling and both put the work in to repair the relationship or else it's over. Then see what the reaction is. You can't save your marriage on your own.

Unless there's considerably more to the EA than you mention, I don't feel you need to leave your job. It just feels huge now.

Look, this is all a bit of a mess. Marriage isn't great, you've got too close to someone at work, instinct is to run, but you don't want to throw away a good gig. I think you're overwhelmed. So break it down. Examine everything in chunks. But don't jettison a good opportunity

I feel strongly that life is about a lot more than interpersonal problems, affairs and lame relationships. Your career, intellectual and personal development are hugely important and you shouldn't leave unless to an equal or better opportunity.

I expect you can manage this at work with a good dose of maturity, diplomacy, humility and a bit of front. And cast iron self control.

You're concerned about your professional rep. Generally people are a lot less interested in us than we think, and I doubt folk would labour the point of a man known to be in a same sex marriage with kids on the subject of a non sexual relationship with a woman in the workplace. They would be on quite shaky ground. If it becomes a pattern, and twice is a pattern, then you're making a name for yourself but I think people wouldn't be that interested in a one off friendship that got a bit too confiding and emotional. It doesn't sound like you've breached any policy.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not diminishing bisexual relationships or minimising the impact of EAs at home. This is purely about at work

Is there a reason not to try and contain this? perhaps have a verbal conversation about how the woman involved has been a tremendous support at a difficult time but to your shame, upon taking stock, you can see how have leant on her too much and given the wrong impression? Apologise. Say you hope you can continue working closely and well together as you really value that but youre going to have to withdraw personally for the sake of your marriage. The truth, in other words.

If it's just that you'll find it hard then frankly I would just get on with it. It will be, or become, easier than being divorced and skint as you say.

Great advice from @Fuckstix and I also feel you need to put your children first, they've already been through the trauma of adoption. Having young children is tough on any relationship.