I'm thinking about ending my marriage. My husband and I have been married for seven years - we've been together for twelve years. A few years ago, I started to realize that maybe I didn't want to be in this relationship anymore. I was bored and felt unable to connect with him. He worked a lot, and I was angry and resentful and unable to communicate that to him effectively. We also stopped having sex. Our sex life was never really great, but after my husband had some major health issues several years ago, our sex life became almost nonexistent. I think it's been well over a year since we've had sex, and it's been very infrequent for several years befoe that. I don't really feel attracted to him anymore. I care for him deeply, but the thought of having sex with him just is not appealing anymore. I sort of enjoy spending time with him. It's comfortable and easy, but not terribly exciting or stimulating. Sometimes I just feel like we're on different planes.

About two years ago, I met someone at work. At first, we were just coworkers. He was nice enough, and I liked being around him. After a few months though, I started having feelings for him. Nothing physcial has happened, although I suspect he has similar feelings (but I don't know for sure). He's been very respectful of my marriage, but we have developed somewhat of a friendship. I notice that he seems to go out of his way to be around me, and I find myself doing the same. I'm just very drawn to him. I feel different when I'm around him, like it's easier for me to be myself. I notice myself being very curious about him and wanting to get to know him better. I can't stop thinking about him. I don't know what these feelings mean, if anything. Are they just a nice distraction from my marital problems? Or is it possible I've developed real feelings for someone else?

My husband and I have been going to a therapist for the last eight months or so. We've been talking openly about all of this (except the part about I might be having feelings for someone else). I'm not sure if therapy is helping, other than it does feel good to be able to talk openly about my doubts rather than just hiding them. But I just can't seem to get enough clarity on my own feelings to know what to do next. How do I figure out how I feel about my husband? About this other guy? I really do love my husband and don't want to hurt him. But I don't want to stay in a marriage that feels unsaveable. And I don't know how to feel more for him. Help!

You must end contact with the OP now. That is why u don't have romantic feelings for you BH.

It's really best if you leave your job so you won't be around the OP.

You will find nothing here but support for restoring your marriage. If u are looking for someone to approve your emotional affair or say that the feelings you have for the OP are OK, you will find no such advice here.

If you truly want help restoring your marriage you are in the right place.

Otherwise, move along.....

Well, let's get one thing straight: You are ALREADY hurting your husband. You are cheating on him, you are having an emotional affair.

Instead of truly focusing on your marriage and working through your problems, you are confiding in another man, talking to him, giving him your energy, and quite honestly, building a fantasy of him at your H's expense.

You and your husband don't spend time together, you don't have sex, and you're having an affair. OF COURSE your marriage is going down the toilet.

Stop talking and start doing.

Tell your husband about this man.

Quit your job.

And start from square 1 with Surviving An Affair.

NOBODY here will advocate you continuing this emotional affair, just so you know, so be prepared for that.

BTW If you do not learn how to properly work through your marriage with your husband, you can be assured that your pattern of running to another man will be repeated. And let's be real- a man who has such conversations with a married woman has no respect for you and your marriage anyways, so you need to start seeing it for what it is.

I am not having an emotional affair. This is someone I used to work with. I no longer work with him. He lives in a different state. We're in the same profession so I see him a few times a year at conferences. We are friendly to one another. I have never confided in him about my marital problems. Our relationship have never been inappropriately close, physically or emotionally. This is the major reason I've had such a hard time understanding my feelings for him. And like I said, this other guy has never been anything but respectful of me. He's never made any physical advance. He's never been inappropriate in any way. If anything, we've both been extremely careful about how we act around each other.

I'm reposting this on this forum. I originally posted on divorced/divorcing, and the feedback I got was that I have been having an emotional affair. I wasn't aware that's what I was doing, and I'm not sure what I think about that feedback right now. But here's my original post.

I'm thinking about ending my marriage. My husband and I have been married for seven years - we've been together for twelve years. A few years ago, I started to realize that maybe I didn't want to be in this relationship anymore. I was bored and felt unable to connect with him. He worked a lot, and I was angry and resentful and unable to communicate that to him effectively. We also stopped having sex. Our sex life was never really great, but after my husband had some major health issues several years ago, our sex life became almost nonexistent. I think it's been well over a year since we've had sex, and it's been very infrequent for several years befoe that. I don't really feel attracted to him anymore. I care for him deeply, but the thought of having sex with him just is not appealing anymore. I sort of enjoy spending time with him. It's comfortable and easy, but not terribly exciting or stimulating. Sometimes I just feel like we're on different planes.

About two years ago, I met someone at work. At first, we were just coworkers. He was nice enough, and I liked being around him. After a few months though, I started having feelings for him. Nothing physcial has happened, although I suspect he has similar feelings (but I don't know for sure). He's been very respectful of my marriage, but we have developed somewhat of a friendship. I notice that he seems to go out of his way to be around me, and I find myself doing the same. I'm just very drawn to him. I feel different when I'm around him, like it's easier for me to be myself. I notice myself being very curious about him and wanting to get to know him better. I can't stop thinking about him. I don't know what these feelings mean, if anything. Are they just a nice distraction from my marital problems? Or is it possible I've developed real feelings for someone else?

My husband and I have been going to a therapist for the last eight months or so. We've been talking openly about all of this (except the part about I might be having feelings for someone else). I'm not sure if therapy is helping, other than it does feel good to be able to talk openly about my doubts rather than just hiding them. But I just can't seem to get enough clarity on my own feelings to know what to do next. How do I figure out how I feel about my husband? About this other guy? I really do love my husband and don't want to hurt him. But I don't want to stay in a marriage that feels unsaveable. And I don't know how to feel more for him. Help!

--Over on the divorced/divorcing forum, I also replied back to clarify that I've never confided about my marital problems to this man. We don't work together anymore. I see him a couple times a year at conferences, but we're not in regular contact. I feel like we both sensed our feelings for one another early on and have tried to be careful in how we are around each other. He's not some slimey guy who's moving in on a married woman, and I'm not like that either. I feel like he's been respectful of me and my marriage.

This site is not the place to come for support of the horror you are creating for your husband. You are, without a doubt, in violation of the vows you took when you got married.

"He's not some slimey guy who's moving in on a married woman, and I'm not like that either. I feel like he's been respectful of me and my marriage." You both are going out of your ways to be near each other. This is indeed slimey and disrespectful. Saying that it isn't does not make it so.

Go tell hour husband now; he deserves to know what is happening to him. Then if you want to save your marriage, earn back your self respect, and hopefully mend the heart you have trampled inside of your husband, come back here.

Be extra kind with your damage repair by sending your husband here to start a thread of his own. These people can help him greatly.

Soconfused, the fact that you have developed feelings for him indicates that you are allowing him to meet certain needs. That is very inappropriate. Once one need is met outside of marriage, the others are soon to follow. This is especially risky in your situation, because your marriage is in a bad place. You are very vulnerable to an affair, WHICH WILL RUIN YOUR LIFE.

An affair will ruin your life. It will come crashing down on your head in shame and regret, let me assure you. You don't even want to go there.

The solution is to tell your husband you have inappropriate feelings for this other man and develop a plan together to cut this man out of your life entirely.

In the meantime, you CAN restore the romantic love in your marriage if you follow this diligently. It won't take that long either. You and your husband have neglected your marriage with the result being you fell out of love. The solution is to FALL BACK IN LOVE.

We can help you do that, but you must first tell your husband about your feelings for this other man and cut him off. Don't tell the man about your feelings because that would be a huge mistake.

Is this man married too?

You have already explained how you feel: you are developing feelings for this other guy and don't have feelings for your husband. Have you read the Basic Concepts on this site? Dr. Harley explains how romantic feelings are developed. It is very predictable and scientific.

There's no need to figure out how you feel, as you already know and have told us. The question is: would you like to have feelings for your husband, instead? This site can show you how to do that.

What is to understand? Dr. Harley's Basic Concepts explain how romantic feelings are developed. It happens all the time that two people do the things develop romantic feelings, and the romantic feelings follow, whether they expected them or not. It is extremely predictable.

Stop doing those things with the other man, and start doing those things with your husband, and you can have feelings for him, instead.

If you continue to spend time with the other man, your feelings for him to grow, and you will start to wonder if you could build a life with him.

Rest assured that this is extremely unlikely to work. You haven't discovered all there is to know about this man, yet. We know one thing: he's willing to spend time with a married woman. If he is that kind of person, it won't be long till his other side begins to show.

If you keep your marriage and build it, you can have feelings for your husband like the feelings you are developing for this man.

But if you end your marriage and hope you find something better with this guy, or somewhere else, the odds are that you are going to be extremely disappointed.

Here is some reading and viewing material for you:

Infidelity: What every couple should know (video)

Basic Concepts: Dr. Harley explains how to build and maintain the feeling of romantic love in marriage

Does your therapist believe it is possible to restore the feelings of romantic love in marriage? Because a lot of them don't, which is why most therapists suck and have a massive failure rate.

Read this, from Dr. Jennifer Chalmers, PhD:

Romantic Love: Is it a Realistic Goal for Marriage Therapy?

Do yourself a favor: if your therapist believes that sometimes romantic love just ends in marriage, that's just the way it is and you have to live with it, fire him (or her). The psychologists of Marriage Builders actually know how to reliably create romantic love within marriage.

We can help you develop those same feelings for your HUSBAND. And that is a relationship that will LAST.

You have no future with the OM. That relationship will ruin your life and your reputation. Relationships that start as affairs are doomed from the start becasue the very traits that made them possible [deceit, thoughtlessness] destroy the relationship. 95% of affairs never make it to marriage and those that do, end in divorce within 5 years.

Just ask yourself what kind of man would wreck a marriage? If you could get him to pursue a relationship with you, it would prove he is a rat because only a bum would pursue a married woman.

No, he's not married.

If you have to "plan" to be careful, this is dangerous. You should not have to be "extremely careful" around someone of the opposite sex. I translate this, in your post, as being extremely careful with your feelings, emotionally and physically. There should be BOUNDARIES. You should not have to be "extremely careful" around boundaries. A boundary is wall or line you don't cross, and you have crossed an emotional boundary with a man that is not your husband.

You feel for him what you should feel for your BH, so you don't need to be around him period. Not even a couple of times a year at conferences. Even though you say you don't work with him anymore, are you communicating with him? Texts? Emails? Phone? FB? You need to stop that too. ALL contact must CEASE. Period.

You don't have to be a "slimey" person to have an affair.
You are already entangled. Lots of reputable people, who are not slimey, fall to the trap of an affair. My POSex was one of them. He was a righteous, upstanding, Godly man who fell for lie that has ruined his life.

And if you've been planning it together, then you've been building intimacy by working on a shared intimate project and a secret that has been kept from your husband.

I do appreciate the feedback. I'm having a little trouble viewing the situation the way many of you apparently do, and I don't mean that in a disrespectful way. I get that many people end up spending time with someone outside of their marriage and letting that person meet their needs. I don't think that has really happened here. We haven't spent time together outside of work other than a few times in a setting with other coworkers. It sounds like some of you have the impression that we have been spending all this time together and sharing personal details with one another. That's really not the situation. Maybe it's more accurate to say I've developed a crush on him over the last couple of years.

I also want to add that I have been unhappy in my marriage for many years. Just to give some background, we dated for about a year before I moved away for a job. That first year was pretty great, like most first years are. The next few years we lived in different cities, and things were pretty rocky. Then we moved in together and got married, and things were okay. Shortly after that, my husband got sick and we dealt with his health issues for a couple years. That was extremely stressful, but we banded together and got through it. But then the real problems started (about four years ago).

Looking back, I feel like we may have never really gotten to know each other very well. We dated for several years before we got married, but a lot of that time was spent apart. We didn't really start getting to know each other until we got married and lived together. I've always had a sense that we weren't a great match. Like I said before, our sex life was never all that great. We've always had an okay time together, but I've always felt like something was missing. My real dilemma is, how do I know that I can build a good marriage with him if I'm not sure we should have gotten married in the first place? What if we just weren't a good match? And these questions have been gnawing at me from long before I met this guy at work. And this has never happened before. I've never had feelings for anyone else other than my husband. I've had other male friends before, from school and from work. I've always maintained good boundaries with them. And they've always been friends with my husband. Same thing with any female friends he has made at school or work.

These two sentences do not go together:



Do you see that? Being careful would mean going out of your way to avoid each other. You and he are not being careful at all.

People who have worked with marriages know how this story plays out: the feelings develop for the other man and they displace the feelings for the husband, until the wife cannot even remember ever loving her husband and wonders if she ever did. The wife slowly changes her mind about what is and is not appropriate around another man, allowing more and more. The marriage dries up. The husband suffers and doesn't know why, and the wife wonders why she can't be content in her marriage.

Somewhere along the line she makes a choice to go further or not, to divorce or not, to try to maintain both relationships or not. But the ending is the same: the relationship with the other man cannot work out for reasons that the wife doesn't understand, and she is devastated. Sometimes she tries to restore her relationship with her husband at that point, but sometimes she finds that is impossible because she is divorced from him and he has moved on, or she has hurt him too deeply.

Sometimes the wife decides to change her habits and spend her time with her husband instead of the friend she is developing feelings for, and helps coach her husband into the relationship she needs, and they live happily ever after.

We haven't been planning anything together. What I meant was that we have both been careful in the sense that I recognize I want to be near him so I will sit somewhere else. I've noticed him doing the same thing.