Dear Steve,
I'm a 40-something male who's semi-happily married to my wife, but recently developed romantic feelings for a coworker and feel conflicted about my current situation. My wife and I have been married seven years. Up until a couple years ago, we had what I considered a solid marriage. However, we’ve had our share of issues and they’ve become more frequent and significant, causing a rift in our marriage. It's made me question whether our marriage will even last.
While wrestling with those things, I developed a friendship with a female coworker. We work in the same company, but in different departments. She joined our company over a year ago. She's single and 10 years younger. We’ve got some common interests and that led to us chatting more, followed by being each other's lunch companions for a while. My coworker has always known that I'm married, although I never talked to her about the issues in my marriage until very recently.
As we spent more time together, our lunches started feeling more like dates, and then after a company party we ended up being the only ones to go out for drinks. We talked for hours at the bar chatting, flirting, and really opening up about relationships. It was then that I told her about the issues I was having in my marriage, along with how I was starting to develop romantic feelings for her. My confession caught her a bit by surprise and she very politely told me that while she's flattered, she doesn't want to be caught in the middle of my marriage issues or to be a contributing factor. She told me she's more than willing to be a good friend, but that it'd be very risky to proceed with anything more. I can't say I was surprised by her reaction and response.
While we've maintained good communication in the office since this happened, we haven't spent any time together outside the office nor had lunch together since. It's been hard for me because I feel I've been doing most of the outreach to her. While she's been responding, I can also tell she's refraining to an extent. It's been a challenge for me, too, in that I can't seem to stop thinking about her both in the office as well as outside of work. I find myself being with my wife, and even when we're having good moments, part of my mind is on my coworker. I thought I had a grasp on how to proceed, but I don't. Any advice is greatly appreciated!
– Distracted