Feeling checked out from my marriage and crushing on someone else for a year?!

[Oneofthoseguys]

There might not be a specific question at the end of this story, just looking for general input/advice and people who can relate...

 

My wife (32/f) and I (32/m) have been together 10 years. We met in university, grew together and got married 6 years ago. We have a daughter together (2 years old). Our relationship has always been stable, if not tremendously passionate and with its ups and downs, until about a year ago.

 

About a year ago we went through a rough spot where my wife blindsided me completely by bringing up the possibility of divorce. It didn’t seem to have an immediate cause other than her being generally unhappy in our marriage, which is probably the sum of many smaller disagreements over the years, poor communication and a simmering realization that as people we are not as compatible as we had hoped back when we met in the mid 2000s. It also felt like this was the first time in years where we were standing still (i.e. not graduating, getting married, jobs, having kids or whatever for a while), which made us really take stock of the relationship. I love her, but I had/have definitely also built up resentment towards her as well for a number of reasons. Neither of us are perfect, but to get this out of the way first, I don’t subscribe to the fairy tale ideal of marriage nor to the “grass is greener” phenomenon.

 

When my wife dropped the bomb on me she took off for 3 weeks to her family outside of the country, and took my daughter with her. She wanted some space to think things over, and I guess that gave me the chance to do the same. During those weeks I spent more time than normal at the office, and as chance will have it I was assigned to work on a new project together with a guy from my team and a girl from a different department. After the first week or so we grabbed some drinks with the three of us and afterwards Lisa (the girl, she's 25 by the way) ended up walking back to the subway with me. Yeah, me going through a marriage crisis and spending one on one time with an attractive girl who clearly found me interesting, what could go wrong?

 

After working with her for a while I realized this was bad news, so did what I could to keep all interaction with her as professional as I could from then on, as well as limit contact anyway as much as feasible given that we still had to work on the project together. Though by that time I was crushing on her already, and it was inevitable that we would have to see each other at company social events, etc. I mostly managed it well by keeping distance and staying the hell away. Crushes happen and go away, right?

 

Nothing ever happened with Lisa and ever since the project finished our contact has been minimal. She knows I am married and I am sure she doesn’t want to be a home wrecker either, so she too tried to avoid seeing me. Our contact mostly became like that of two teenagers pathetically watching each other from a distance and avoiding walking somewhere if we knew the other person was around in order to avoid awkward interactions. What didn’t help though is that at some point a male colleague who is also a friend of mine told her that my marriage wasn’t going stellar, and subsequently conveyed to me that she told him she had developed strong feelings for me. Things became even more awkward following that, yet still we were both mostly avoiding each other and barely ever talking. Tension was thick though. I really feel like I did all I could and haven’t cultivated it in any way. I figured this would go away in weeks but it hasn’t.

 

My wife and I, when she came back we spent a lot of time talking, dating each other, focussing on each other, etc. and decided that hell no, divorce is not the way we want to go. I live under the assumption that every relationship goes through these ups and downs and that marriage simply takes hard work. So we worked hard, and things have been good superficially, but I am noticing that my heart isn’t in it. I feel like I have checked out from the marriage although my actions are all the right actions and she seems happier than before. In a way her dropping the D-word has made me question the integrity of our marriage and I am finding it hard to move past that.

 

I never got married to later get out of it, but given that was an option for her, now I found myself questioning whether I really want to spend my life with someone I am not all that compatible with? I am not even sure I really love her any more. Having this other girl zooming around my head for a year now hasn’t helped, and why hasn’t this crush I have on her faded despite both of us barely having had any contact with the other and us actively NOT cultivating it? I must feel really lonely in my marriage

 

The good news is that apparently Lisa is leaving the company soon. That will be a little painful but is great news for my mental sanity. I am thinking that I will just stoically proceed with life as it was and keep trying to find myself in this marriage but will that be a mistake? Surely me randomly crushing on other girls cannot be a good sign for my marriage even if I handle it appropriately? Any people with experience of similar situations? Anything I can do to be less susceptible to crushes?

[road]

You dodged two bullets.

 

 

You got smarter.

 

 

No harm no foul.

[anika99]

First of all you're wife suggesting divorce and then leaving for three weeks right around the time your child was a 1yr old, well the timing makes me think maybe she was possibly suffering from some leftover untreated postpartum depression as well as trying to adjust the huge changes motherhood had caused to her life. Children are beautiful but adjusting to motherhood can be difficult, especially if the mom feels alone and unsupported. It can be lonely and isolating and I suspect your wife was overwhelmed and depressed when she dropped the bomb of divorce and left for a few weeks.

 

Secondly when your wife told you she was so unhappy she was considering divorce she actually did a good thing. Your marriage was in trouble and she sounded the alarms. She decided to step up and communicate her thoughts and feelings and face the pain and unpleasantness that was going to cause. She opted for honesty rather then rug sweeping and allowing things to fester just below the surface. She let you know that things were not okay and that your marriage is in big trouble which allowed you to decide how you wanted to move forward. So first of all stop using that event from the past to justify your lust for another woman now and second of all why don't you give your wife the same honesty she gave you and tell her about this. Give her the same heads up that she gave you so that she has choices. That is what she did for you so you can at least do the same for her.

 

It's pretty hard to feel romantic attraction for two people at the same time. As long as you are crushing on this other woman you are unlikely to feel warm and loving about your wife. That's just simple brain chemistry and doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean your wife is the wrong person for you whom you married in error. A new crush always looks better than the same ole same ole at home. Crushes are fun and exciting. They are full of fantasy and desire and off course our crushes are always perfect specimens in our eyes. Even if we see their flaws or faults we think those are endearing or excusable while we don't give our loved ones the same pass for being less than perfect.

 

You are not evaluating your marriage fairly. You are comparing it to this other woman and because your feelings for this woman are exciting and unexplored off course your marriage is going to pale in comparison. Communicate with your wife. This is her marriage too and she deserves to know what's going on with it. Tell her you are unhappy and that you have developed an attraction to someone else. She will either help you get past this crisis or help you out of the marriage. Either of those is better than you secretly killing off your marriage which is what you are doing now.

[T-16bullseyeWompRat]

First off, kudos to both you and the office girl for being standup people, using good judgement, and avoiding each other as much as possible. Cant tell you how many people allow themselves to get wrapped up in that new feeling and cross the line. IMO crushing just kind of happens sometimes, but you are and were taking the correct steps to let it go and make sure it doesn't grow into anything else. Sounds like she is trying to do the same. Her leaving will make it fade quicker too. Its good she is leaving.

 

Second, there is two forms of thought on when you crush if you should tell your wife or not. I am in the camp that says no. I had a crush on a coworker years and years ago. I was overcome with guilt. I hated it! But it just happened. Dopamine is no joke! I was reading online how to get over it, so i could be the husband i needed to be for my wife. First was to put some distance between you amd them and it would fade. I put in a transfer request to move locations. Second piece of advice said to tell your spouse about the crush, expose it and it will die, and that a crush is no big deal, it happens to most everyone. So that is what i did, i exposed it to my wife. She flipped! Saying i couldnt possibly love her if i had a crush on another. Completely not true. I love her dearly and that has never changed. I was just trying to do right by her. It caused a HUGE strain in our relationship. For well ever a year. If i could do it all over again, i wouldnt have said anything to her at all. I would have just switched job locations like i had already planned to do. The crush died quickly when i wasnt around her anymore anyway. And we could have avoided a large fight lasting many many moons, and heartache from my wife.

 

Last, as long as you have any fellings at all for this girl, your judgement of your wife will indeed be skewed. Do what you have been doing. Go on dates, spend time together...Find that spark again. And dont stop once you find it. Build that birdsnest, get the kindling in order, keep that spark there and set this mother on fire again. It is possible. It takes work, just like everything else. But once the fire is blazing, make sure you got plenty of fuel. Never run out. If you feel you are running low on fuel, time to start looking again! It is there somewhere, as long as you are both willing to look for it together. It's always possible to keep a fire going, even in rainy conditions.

 

Good luck with everything.

[Mr. Lucky]

Here's the title of your thread:

 

Feeling checked out from my marriage and crushing on someone else for a year?!

 

I reordered it to reflect the reality of the situation:

 

Crushing on someone else for a year, Feeling checked out from my marriage?!

 

Mr. Lucky

[deepinthewoods]

It happened to me, in a more complicated way. My gf and I have had major sexual incompatibility for most of our 4 year relationship (we also have a 2 year old daughter), which led to my justifying a crush on a younger woman. The ow and I had been chatting online off and on, but nothing really intimate at all. I started feeling guilty though and told my gf about it. She was upset, but didn't leave. So I cut off communication with the ow, but my angst with my relationship continued, and several rejections later (which number in the hundreds), I began online chatting again. A couple of months go by, and the crush is still there, as well as relationship dysfunction, and I sent a drunken email to the ow telling her that I was into her, and was having relationship troubles, but couldn't go any further with her as things were. So, my gf ends up finding this email shortly after, and it all falls apart. This was about 7 months ago. Nothing ever ended up happening with the ow, gf and I have been living separately since then, and are talking about reigniting our relationship, though still not sure how to deal with the incompatibility issue. It's all a big painful mess.

 

Long story short, this stuff is confusing as hell! I wish I hadn't sent that email, for sure. But what are you supposed to do when you are checked out of your relationship, and your partner can't or won't do anything to help? How long do you live like that?

 

If you are into your wife, you've done a good job in keeping things together. Things might get spicy for you again, hopefully. But if you are not sure, yeah, that gets tricky. The crush, for me, was a welcome respite from a bleak and barren love life at home. If things are decent for you at home, I would just enjoy the crush and leave it at that. People come by once in a while that you can imagine a future with, or at least enjoy fantasizing about, but my opinion (at this point at least), is that all this stuff is illusion created by our brains. Enjoy it, but don't attach to much importance to it. My approach is, I'd rather let a relationship survive or fall apart on it's own merits, and not have the confusion of another person in the mix skewing things too much. Easier said than done...

 

Give yourselves some time. If, after 6 months or a year (or two), you still feel checked out, you have a choice. Either stay with her and do what you can to keep it interesting and accept that this is just going to be your life, or make the shift into single life and see what else comes your way. I really don't have great advice to give, since my situation has gone so poorly, but I do sympathize, and yes, have gone through a similar thing. Good luck!

[Alltohim]

I can understand the uncomfortableness of the 'D' word. You've been dating and spending time together, very important.

When you married your wife you must have seen a lot of great stuff in her heart in who she was, do you remember them?

Try to zero back in on them and zero in on the positives of life together remembering your daughter and what she means

to both of you. Sometimes it takes some hard work, and that's OK, just don't beat yourself up too much, it's worth it

in the end.