Close friendship transcending into EA territory or not?

[rbtnylander]

More details on me and the lady in question and our relationship since its beginnings were lavishly provided in this other thread: http://www.loveshack.org/forums/t273902/

 

I've become familiar with the term 'Emotional Affair' only recently and its full meaning is still hazy to me... I'd usually associate the term 'affair' to a more phsyical meaning, but since it's not the case here, I'm not sure where 'very close friendship' territory ends and where the 'emotional affair' starts...

 

If needed, here's summary and essentials of the situation at hand : for the last 6-7 months I've been friends with a co-worker, she's 33, married, one kid, I'm 24 and single. I've been having a huge crush on her for all this year, but never did/say anything to disclose my feelings to her, so far I've just endured and waited for it to subside. I was kinda getting into the routine of seeing her just at work and I thought it would help me eventually see her as just a good friend at work (especially if she didn't need me as more than that), but things started changing this month.

 

To say we've spent more time toghether than before would be an understatement. Basically for the last 2 weeks she took over my entire schedule, meaning that she came up with an invitation for me to join her & her daughter in some activity almost everyday (except 1 or 2). It was like being on a long holiday at Disneyland, every day she came up to my desk and said 'me & my girl are going there/doing that today, wanna come along?'. And I always said 'yes' because I was flattered by the invitation, or because I thought she might need some company or just because I enjoy being with her a whole dam'lot.

So we went shopping rollerskates for her daughter, then the next day we took her daughter in the park to try them out and walked till the evening cause the weather was great. We all went to a Thai restaurant and on another evening we ate at a Turkish restaurant. They even dragged me shopping groceries & the usual home crap at the supermarket twice.

Friday afternoon her daughter invited her cousin over, V treated us to homemade pizza (with everything her girl picked from the fridge as toppings) and the boy brought her a "Tangled" dvd... (we guys didn't actually watch the entire cartoon, we were gaming for most of it - he's 11, so stiff competition). We spent all saturday at the adventure park, climbing trees, walls, ropes and stuff like that and it was alot of fun. A bit surprising is that she called me to the mall on sunday and when I got there she was at the table with her best friend from college, so we all had lunch together.

 

I later found out from her that I actually met her only close friend (the only one she considers her real friend), because all others are mostly friends of her husband and the kind of people that she just can't bring herself to like. Problem is that her husband and this college friend of hers got into an argument long time ago (according to V it was his fault and he was being judgmental) and since then, he forbids her to invite her friend to their house, doesn't even want to hear about meeting her and is upset if she finds out that she did.

She revealed other personal stuff about her and her husband's relationship too and this outpour really caught me by surprise because it was like she'd been waiting for some time just to find the right occasion (or courage) to gather the confidence to confide in me and when she did, it made her feel more at ease and familiar with me.

Most of my suspicions were confirmed with this: I sensed she misses real friends and family and it was confirmed when she told me that her husband chooses their friends only with thought of a potential gain in mind. Her parents live very far but her mother-in-law that lives in the same town with us has never been a fan of hers. She's the domineering type, praising her son constantly and criticising everyone else is what comes naturally to her, but as demoralising as it is to V, she can't avoid her, because she insists in being a part of her granddaughter's life.

V also mentioned that her husband suggested she gave up work and become a housewife. Of course she refused and told him that she'd surely go crazy. As outlandish as it seems to me to hear that in 21st century Europe, a man would gladly turn a university graduate into a housewife for his own comfort, it just confirmed my suspicion that his husband doesn't appreciate her for what she's worth.

 

These two weeks, while spending so much time with her, I got the feeling that she and her daughter were trying to enjoy life (the fun side of it) as much as they could until the husband comes back and starts again with rejecting one idea after the other (exotic foods, homemade pizza, adventure parks, roller skates were precisely things that he doesn't allow). He prolly thinks that he's doing what's best and safest for his family, but as I heard, taking them to the same holiday resort every summer, years in a row is definitely not the girls' idea of fun.

 

Writing all this makes it sound like I AM getting a little too emotionally involved in my friend's personal life and with my background of attraction to her, it's not really helping my case, I know... But even before all this spending-together-our-spare-time happened I knew I wanted to be everything she'd need as a friend and I can still remember I expected her to trust me enough to open up to me... So I don't know why it would come as a surprise now that she did. And how could it actually be or turn into a bad thing along the way?...

 

If it's about the 'one thing leads to another' principle, I don't see it happening anytime soon. I mean, we spent most of the time in public or at least with her daughter and on the few times we did not, she didn't act in any more-than-friends way. And we actually were alone on a few occasions (in the evening after her daughter fell asleep or when she was at her grandma's) but still, nothing awkward happened. As for me, I was my most honorable possible. Sure, chemistry is still a sneaky bastard and when I think I've got eveything in check, it suddenly pops its freaky head and goes 'boo!' at me... I guess I should feel lucky to be the phlegmatic type 'cause this is one of the situation where having a more immobile face really comes in hand...

I can say for myself that seeing her outside of work has helped me at least with being able to put more focus into my work, as I could avoid being fascinated by her presence like I was when I started even missing her in the hours between work and the next day... (sounds sad & pathetic, I know it was...)

 

With all this, I'm still stuck on a few questions: why a married person talking to someone else about their personal life would be qualified for having an EA? And then : if the husband can't or doesn't really care to offer the emotional support/outlet that she needs (like any normal person does once in a while) can this still be labelled as an affair (emotional in this case) instead of a close friendship?

Edited May 21, 2011 by rbtnylander

[MistaDynamic]

You need to open your eyes!! This is not emotional affair she is using you to fulfill her needs. She is bored in her marriage you provide a distraction. This broad ain't dumb she can tell you're interested in her. She likes the attention you give her. You need to decline her invitations to spend time together and find other women to be interested in. Stop being a simp and stop allowing this woman to use you for her needs.

[Pxl]

Hi, been reading since your first post, just curious if there's an update to this?

[rbtnylander]

I guess the previous posts of this thread (and possibly my other one) are now redundant.

 

Actually they've probably been like that for almost 2 mths but I didn't return to write for fear of being scolded , being too proud to admit failure or just plain confusion (I still don't know).

 

I guess it's only fair to say the possibility of an EA is not the main concern here anymore, because I think one of the basic conditions of an EA was that it's exclusively centered on the emotional stuff and not the physical... correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Unfortunately in this case, some physical stuff came to happen about 2 months ago, it was on the last weekend before her husband returned from his trip and since then our relationship decidedly took a f***** up turn.

 

It wasn't even sex, just some heavy making-out, somehow we managed to keep our clothes on, she stopped it because she felt guilty, but then she turned it against me and accused me of acting immature.

 

That really pissed me off, because the way I remember it (I was completely sober and so was she) she was the one who made the first move.

 

I stopped talking to her altogether and the s***tiest 2 weeks of this year followed, when I couldn't even look at her properly because she wouldn't meet my eyes or tried to disappear from sight as much as possible. She looked like she was even scared of me like I would go rat her out to her husband or something but I guess I wasn’t that immature, or mature enough, who the f*** knows anyway...

 

Then I had probably the best luck of my life and was selected to go on exchange to UK for a month, I happily left and things were better (for me) in that time I spent away.

 

I really thought things were finally starting to clear up in my head and that I wouldn’ t go back to where I was when I’d return and meet her again at work (on a daily basis).

 

And I didn’t. Now almost 2 weeks after my return, I can say that things are not the same, I’m not as mad at her as I was and she doesn’t look afraid of me... but things are still NOT ok...

 

I don’t see her the way I did before, wanting to be just friends with her seems completely out of the question and I can’t for the life of me understand what is it about her that makes me see her the way I do.

 

I mean, she hasn’t changed much, but just being in the same room with her messes me up so bad that I can only function normally afterwards with very great effort. It’s like there’s some voodoo energy there that I have no control over... or maybe I just need to go get my head checked...

 

There’s killer sexual tension especially now that it’s all out in the open and I know she’s attracted to me too. She can’t pretend anymore that it’s just me who sees what’s not there and she’s a very bad liar. We're both trying to hide it as much as possible from people around and I think they haven't caught onto anything (except maybe 1 or 2 very experienced ones). They just think we had a fall out for some reason.

 

The worst part is that I like everything about my job: the money, the field of work, most of my (other) co-workers, the bosses, this darn city that I moved to only for this workplace... And just because of her, I feel like running the hell away from it all...

 

I’m sorry that this is another ”I hate my life” type of post, maybe I chose a bad moment to pour it all out here, but I just feel that I’m inevitably lapsing into something I can’t help and I’m at wits end trying to figure out why this is not just working out the way I hoped it would with time.