'I'm emotionally cheating on my husband with a woman from work.' UPDATED 2X
"I'm emotionally cheating on my husband with a woman from work."
I (f31) am married to B (m33) we've been together over 13 years. He's been my first in everything in life. In the beginning of our relationship things were great & we've built a comfortable life together. I guess with the years things have become a little stagnant, but I just assumed that was the natural progression of marriage.
Naturally the next step we've been considering is children, we’ve not been not trying but we’ve also not been going out of our way to make it happen. However, I am seriously considering going back on contraception because of a new relationship which has begun to unfold. And this is where I need the advice.
6 months ago a new woman started at my workplace J (f30) she had come in on a temp role to cover a mat leave. She became popular with the team, she’s very chatty, warm and likeable and fitted in straight away.
We quickly became very fast friends. We hot desk at work but I noticed whenever we are working together, she would always take the closest desk to wherever I was and vice versa.
I started to find myself getting that little bit more excited about going in to work because I would get to see her. There is never a dull silence when we are together, we are always laughing, giggling and just having fun. We take lunch together, have been for after work drinks together, she is just that best friend I’ve never had before.
Even growing up I was quite shy and always envied my little sister with her outgoing nature and having a huge group of best mates.
We also have a friendship out of work. She invited me for a hike a few weeks ago and more since. I have been craving to go hiking for so long, B won’t go with me. I asked him once for my birthday if we could take one hike, he said he would organise something.
He didn’t, we had ended up in the pub all day and when I asked when we were going for my birthday hike, he had said he couldn’t be bothered. On my birthday!
Since becoming friends with J we have done lots of outdoor things together which I’ve always wanted to do but been to shy/afraid to do alone. We message a lot and have confided in each other. I have told her that my relationship with B feels stale. That he doesn’t want to do anything together, and if I suggest something different, he just says I can go without him.
He just wants to drink at the pub, watch tv, or chill at home. I don’t mind that sometimes, but I want more, I like being outside and being busy. I have confided in J that all the things we are doing together are things I wish B would do with me.
She has always extended the invitation, but he always says no thanks. Obviously as our friendship has deepened, I have found out more about J, she returned home after living in Aus for 2.5 years.
She was in a pretty serious relationship out there with another woman K (29) however J had to return home because her father passed away suddenly. The relationship breakdown was tough for J because she had to face the sudden death of her dad, but also finish the relationship with K.
I have found myself thinking about J more and more. Talking about her more and more. One of my friends even made a joke that I have a “crush” on her. The small group I was with all laughed and agreed. I of course played it off and I felt embarrassed because maybe I had talked about her too much, but it got me asking myself.
Do I have a crush on J? I find myself thinking about her often, I feel those flutters when I am going to work and know I’ll get to see her or get a bit giddy when we are going to meet up. I hug her a little bit longer when we see each other and say goodbye. I get excited when I see she’s messaged me, I have even dreamed about her.
A couple of weeks ago it was my birthday. It fell on a Monday, so not a very exciting day granted. I’d already arranged with my parents to see them the following weekend for belated presents/cards. My husband was extremely busy Monday, he had said he had a big meeting on. Anyway, I didn’t get an acknowledgment, a card, a text.
I went to work J had already arrived handed me a giftbag and card inside were some of my favourite chocolates from a handmade place down the road which is well known I love (also not cheap), and a few other very thoughtful and personalised little things that only someone who knows me would think to get.
She even took me for lunch and got me a little cake from my favourite bakery. I didn’t tell her about my husband but when she asked what were our (his and my) plans for the evening, I didn’t know what to tell her. I made an excuse and moved on.
When I drove home that night, a little part of me had worked up expectation that perhaps he had arranged something special for when I got home. Maybe even a surprise party! I had even stupidly convinced myself this was the case, so much so I was really excited. When I walked through the door, nothing.
Not a damn thing. He was slobbed in front of the tv drinking a beer. He even had the audacity to say, “You’re a bit late aren’t you what are we having for tea?” translating to – what are you going to make! I told him, “Forget it, I’m going out”, he turned to look at me and was so pissed saying he’d had the worst day at work and was starving. I didn’t say a thing. Just got in my car and drove off.
I drove straight to J’s. Needless to say, she was very surprised when I rocked up but welcomed me with open arms. We cracked open a bottle of wine and she ordered a takeaway and she got a few giggles out of me once I had calmed down. She didn’t bad mouth my husband once. Just listened.
My phone started blowing up. My husband. Apologies. The penny had finally dropped. My mum was also calling so I put 2 and 2 together in that she had reminded him what day it was.
The rest of the week I was flooded with flowers, gifts from my husband. His way of apologising. Offers to do the things I enjoy doing. The works. We have the weekend at my parents to celebrate my belated birthday but it all feels fake an awkward from him.
At some point the topic of kids gets brought up. My husband proudly exclaims “It shouldn’t be long” and winks around the table. I feel sick.
And so here I am. I know I am already emotionally cheating on my husband with J. And I don’t even feel sorry. The more I think about it the more I realise how neglectful he has been of me. How I do everything in my power to please him.
Make HIM feel special, sacrifices I’ve made to make him happy and valued, and I have had nothing in return for literal years. In the space of a few months J has made me feel more special and wanted than he has in the last 5 years and without even trying, I think. And if I am being honest, yes I do have a crush on her.
She really does give me butterflies and giddy buzz I have never ever felt in my life. I find I am thinking about her, missing her when I’m not with her. I feel crazy for feeling this way but I have never felt like this about anyone ever.
I don’t know what to do. Even if I did split from my husband there is no guarantee J will even feel the same way. I know she is still hurting from her ex and maybe she just sees me as a friend. Or maybe she has been what I needed to see I deserve more.
Or, do I continue with my husband. Really really try to make it work even though I feel like I’ve tried EVERYTHING and things change for a week or 2 but slip back to the same old ways. Do we have a baby? Would it bring us together?
Oh I don’t know. I’m so sorry for the babbling but I am at a loss. I have nobody I can speak to about this so even one tiny comment could help me right now. I will try to answer any questions. Thank you.
Info: I have tried to communicate with him numerous times that I am unhappy with our life. We tried counselling 3 times but each time he quit saying its a waste of money & that he's happy. I have literally begged him to do some of the things I like, and to meet some of my needs & he will try for a week or 2 at most a month before we fall back to the same old tempo.
Here's the advice people had for OP:
Baby plans need to be off the cards immediately. You can't make stuff better with husband if you're investing time in someone else. You need to reflect honestly about whether it is crap at home with him or if the attention from someone new is exciting.
I'd sit down with him and be completely honest with him about how you're feeling in the relationship at the moment and ask if he has any suggestions. Try and give a bit of distance with the work pal, at least until you know how you feel. It wouldn't be great to rush into something anyway after a long marriage, it'd be like a rebound for you both.
The real question is do you want it to truly work with your husband? And does he want this marriage to work with you? Neither of you communicate with each other at all, if you want it to work with him you are going to need to push to do stuff together outside of watching tv and going to the pub. Does he know your checking out of the marriage?
trowawayborj OP
I do communicate with him. I asked to do the counselling but 3 times he quit saying its a waste of money & that he's happy.
I can't tell you how many times I've sat down with him to ask him to fill my needs, he tries for a week or 2 but then we just level back out to our usual rhythm. Rinse and repeat always
Then i think it might be time to sit him down and explain your getting close to ending the marriage, explain how your neglected and you feel like he no longer cares and that your checking out. If you want to make it work then try but if not call it quits and both go separate ways and try finding happiness
Two weeks later OP posted this update:
A lot has happened over the last couple of weeks. But overall, I think things are moving in a positive direction. I wanted to thank everyone for your advice, good and bad it really helped motivate me to where I am now.
I sat down and had a conversation with B the next evening. It was a very long night. The long and short of it was I told him I wasn’t happy and why and that I hadn’t been for a very long time. He pretty much deflected everything I had to say.
A few of his choice lines included “Why can’t you just be happy?”, “All you do is moan” and referring to the birthday incident “I’ve proved how sorry I am, it wasn’t that big of a deal”. He refused to go back to therapy saying it was a waste of time and money.
I didn’t feel like I was getting through at all and eventually admitted I had started to develop feelings for someone else. He immediately jumped to the conclusion I had slept with someone and went ballistic. He had drunk quite a lot by this point and smashed a few things in anger. To be honest it frightened me.
It took me a long time to convince him I haven’t slept with anyone and when I felt like he was listening to me again I explained that my feelings had developed purely from someone who was meeting my emotional needs and the needs that he hadn’t met for the last 5 years and listed said examples.
I don’t know if it was down to the drink, but he got incredibly nasty. Calling me names, continued to smash things, accused me of sleeping with people and then started grabbing stuff of mine and throwing it around, I think to insinuate packing up my stuff to leave. I called my mum to pick me up.
My decision was made. I was done. With or without J, I was done. I’ve been staying at my mum's ever since. My family went to retrieve my stuff. B has been blowing up my phone with back and forth of calling me every name under the sun, to begging me to come home and saying he will do whatever it takes but, he told me everything I needed to know within the first 30 minutes of our talk.
The last 11 days have felt very surreal but overall, I am at peace with my decision. My friend is a solicitor and is helping with the legal stuff.
So, on to J. She has been supportive and kind. I ALMOST told her how I was feeling a few times but she has had some news herself. Her ex GF has been trying to reconnect with her to see if they can give it a second go.
J’s ex is offering to come to the UK or wants them both to go to NZ. I don’t really know where J’s head is at. I do know that she is hesitant for many reasons, whether I’m one of them or not. I don’t know.
I really really want to shoot my shot, but I am absolutely petrified. I truly do believe there is something between us. Argh I just don’t know. Should I just tell her, or should I leave it and let the situation with her ex play out?
Here's what people had to say after the update:
So. I’ll tell you, I’ve once been in a position like J’s in. I had a work friend who was leaving her wife and expressed that she had had feelings for me for some time. I was intrigued and upon learning that she really was in the process of divorce, decided to see what could happen.
Turns out she was really only interested in the strange fantasy concept of me she developed to distract herself from her shitty marriage. She didn’t want to be a real friend or a real partner. I dropped her and her weirdness pretty soon after that revealed itself.
Don’t be like that. Be brave. And be honest—with yourself. What do you need right now? Do you want and need some time to yourself to recover? Are you ready for something new?
You are just out of a marriage and not even filing for divorce yet… rebound relationships rarely last. I’d be careful jumping into another relationship. It’s also possible J needs to put her ex to rest before the two of you can be together. I honestly think if it’s meant to be, it’ll be. Whatever you decide, best of luck. I’m glad if your husband acted that way, that you left. No one deserves that.
Four days after the initial update OP came back wit this:
I have to say, I was somewhat shocked to discover 360 of you are following me. And I’ve had lots of very kind messages of encouragements and wholesomeness. I just wanted to say thank you. I also got lots of requests for an update – I thought I should wait for more substantial news but for now I hope this will suffice.
My ex-husband has decided to tell everyone that I am pregnant and that I’ve destroyed his family. His mum even came to my parent’s place to BEG me to see reason for her grandchild. I am NOT pregnant. Never have been.
I have avoided social media and rarely use it but apparently, I’m being dragged hard. I really don’t care at this point. It will be obvious there is no baby soon enough. I’ve had lots of support from my friends though and they have been backing my corner wherever needed.
I’ve also heard that he’s been celebrating his freedom from his quote “Boring dead marriage”, partying hard with lots of photo evidence. I even had a message from an unknown number to say he had slept with a woman or 2 in Amsterdam on a stag he’d been on a few years ago. Who knows.
Seems I’m learning a lot. The messages begging me to come back have also stopped since my “running away with the baby” escapades. Anyway, enough about him.
Oh and, for those of you who are wondering, I am in therapy. Always have been throughout this whole saga. Also, when I told B everything, I had asked him numerous times to please stop drinking because it was important, and he refused. I didn’t purposefully wait for him to get drunk beforehand.
I digress, J invited me for dinner at her place the other night. I haven’t seen much of her the last week with all that’s been going on and I had a few days off work to sort some stuff out, so this was the first chance I’d had a proper catch up with her.
I decided to tell her how I felt. In an ideal world I would have liked to have taken more time to allow things to unfold organically and over time.
I know jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire is not ideal and yes, I agree, I do need time to figure out who and what I like and am, but time is not on my side at this point, and I do not want to live the rest of my life thinking “What if” there could have been something with this person.
And so, I wrote her a letter. I was extremely nervous, and she could tell. She asked me what was up, and I took a few big gulps of wine and asked her if she would mind if I read something to her. She agreed.
My hands were literally shaking and for some reason I got really choked up, but I took some deep breathes and got through it. The gist of it was; I thanked her for all the support and kindness she had shown me over the last 7 months and for showing me that I deserved so much more than what I was settling for.
I also said that I really wanted her to be happy and no matter what she decided to do, or where she decided to go, I just wanted her to find her happiness because she deserves it and no matter what she would always be welcome in my life, and I hoped we would always remain great friends.
I told her that I wished I had more time however, I needed to tell her something because if I didn’t, I would always regret it.
I explained that she had made more of an impact on my life than she could have ever imagined and that I might be wildly missing the mark here but that I had feelings for her. That I wasn’t sure if I was just blinded by her kindness and love because I had been so starved of it. However, for me, it felt very real.
I apologised if I had completely got the wrong idea and regardless of whether she felt something in return I would be completely at peace whatever she decided. I will forever be grateful for the lessons our friendship has taught me and growth that has allowed me to start my new chapter. This has been the greatest gift.
When I had finished reading, I could literally feel my heartbeat in my head and my hands were trembling. I finally plucked up the courage to meet her gaze and her eyes were filled with tears.
She gave me a huge hug and said “That was the nicest thing anyone had ever said” we both just cried for a bit. I kept saying over and over, “It’s fine if you don’t feel the same way” because I started to feel unbelievably vulnerable, she kept hugging me and then made enough distance between us so we could make eye contact and she said,
“Well, this really complicates things because I feel the same way.” I literally thought my heart was going to burst. We hugged a bit more and made a few silly jokes to cut the emotion back. I was a mess.
Comparing notes, it looked like she had developed a crush at a similar time but also never wanted to overstep any boundaries so when anything relating to B came up, she steered well clear and would remain unbiased and always tried to encourage him to join us on any outings etc.
She also said when her ex got back in touch to try and get back together, she was very tempted to go as her feelings for me were getting stronger and she never thought I would be interested “being straight” and coming out of a marriage. She saw leaving as a good opportunity to make that space from her feelings.
She also said that deep down she doesn’t want to go back to her ex as there is a lot of pain there, when J’s dad died suddenly, K (her ex) wouldn’t come to the UK to support her which she doesn’t think she can forgive her for. She also doesn’t feel ready to leave her remaining family for a long while, if ever.
It was a truly beautiful, wonderful evening. We basically sat up chatting for the rest of it, quite a few tears and lots of hugs.
We agreed to take things extra extra slow. This is super new territory for me, and she respects I have a LOT going on as does she. She is soon to be leaving work as it’s a temp job, but she has something else lined up. She invited me for our first proper date next week. I am SO excited.
We have been messaging nonstop. I literally feel like a giddy teenager. Once again thank you for everything. The responses from the posts gave me a lot of courage, and so much help. Thank you!
Here's what people had to say after the last update:
AHHHHHHHH THE THING I WANTED TO HAPPEN HAPPENED (because its all about me of course) but damn this....I feel this.
💜💜💜💜 I'm so glad I checked here this morning. Literally read all three posts in a row. I found that your clear outlining of your whole process and how supportive and understanding you've been of other people's decisions has been a great lesson for me too. I respect and admire so much how you handled this situation. I'm so happy that you get the opportunity to feel as loved and supported as you do.
trowawayborj OP
Awh thank you! I've never felt so popular by strangers before 😂