# In love..long time EA at the office



## Milenka (Nov 15, 2011)

Ok so I met this guy at my new job couple years ago. Both his look and personality met all my standards of what I like in a man ... except one thing : he's married and has kids. I did not acknowledge right away, he does not wear a ring and never saw his wife so I was wondering if he was married or divorced as I did know about the kids. We clicked and sparks flied since the beginning. At that time I was in a commited relationship myself ( which ended for unrelated reasons ) so I didn't realize when it happened, but I just found myself passionately in love with this new man. As for him, he at least likes me a lot. His gestures and actions indicate it very much. But he tries to fight his feelings and stay sober. He never did anything unappropiate, which raise my respect for him highly. I don't think he really loves his wife. He spends a considerable amount of time at the office, or with his best friend afterwised , and doesn't seem very happy. He is aware of how I feel about him, and I stated clear that I do not pursue a relationship given the fact that he's married and would be totally wrong. To his credit, he did not try to take advantage of my feelings and get me in bed. We act normal and hide the feelings from others, but sometimes the connection is so intense that raises eyebrows. I love him painfully much. I tried changing my office and go NC but made me so miserable and lost.I tried to date other men but I felt zero interest in them other than just friends, while they fell for me. We see each other daily. When he's not there I'm like a flower without water. When we have disagreements or sense he's taking distance I'm like dyeing inside. On the other hand nothing makes me happier than when he smiles to me, or when we can ( rarely ) get a hug. This lasts for a very long time and I don't see myself falling out of love with him anytime soon. I want him, but would not wreck his home. I want him happy...but I don't think he is. I want to be happy too, but i'm not happy away from him. At most, I'd call this an EA...a long one. Am I to blame? Just needed to tell someone.


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## Prodigal (Feb 5, 2011)

From what I'm reading, you have never met him outside the office. It also doesn't appear that he is telling you much about his marital situation. You feel he is unhappy because he spends a great deal of time at the office or with his best friend. Well, from what you have written, he is having an EA with you. However, he's not deeply confiding in you. Meanwhile, you get an occasional hug.

So where do you see this going? What exactly has he discussed with you about his personal life? Has he ever asked you out to lunch or to dinner?


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## Almostrecovered (Jul 14, 2011)

it's wrong and you know it

you're stealing from his wife to suit your own needs, find someone else


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## SadSamIAm (Oct 29, 2010)

Milenka, you need to be honest with him and yourself.

You say you won't pursue a relationship because he is married. So stop doing it. Your interactions, no matter how minor are you pursuing a relationship with him. 

Tell him your feelings. Tell him that you are breaking all contact with him because of your feelings. Move on. 

If his marriage is bad. If he has true feelings for you. Then maybe he will leave his marriage to pursue you. But as long as he is married, your EA with him is affecting his marriage. The only way that you could ever have a lasting real relationship is if you leave and let his marriage play out on its own without your influence. If his marriage fails due to your affair (Emotional or Physical) then your future relationship is doomed.

If you truly believe in not pursuing him because he is married, then stop doing it.


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## trey69 (Dec 29, 2010)

It sounds like you are far more interested in him than he is you. Regardless of whether his marriage is happy or not is beside the point. He hasn't really pursued you which is a good thing. So far at least, it looks like he respects his marriage enough to not go there with you. 

Probably best to go out and meet some new people. Get a hobby, move to another department. I have a feeling if he came to you and said he was not happy in his marriage and asked you out to dinner etc, I think you would go. I also think you would go along with whatever he told you, because you are that wrapped up in him, thats not a good thing.


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## Milenka (Nov 15, 2011)

Thanks everyone for the responses. Doesn't add much to what I know myself but helps to vent it out. Prodigal, he is not a very open person, and neither am I until I really form a connection with a person..thats why I don't know much abt his home situation. However , we did talk about where we stand. I do not meet him outside bcs it would be harder to control ourselves. After my attempt to NC, he was hurt by my distance so I had to tell him why I did it. I was to weak to continue NC..we agreed to stay just friends. I AM serious abt not pursuing him while he's married. Otherwise would have had, and wouldn't make sense to lie abt it. Not only bcs it's wrong, I'm not a saint and may have fallen into temptation..but bcs I truly love him and understand what a possible divorce would cost him emotionally and financially. When you truly love, you put that person's interest above yourself..that's the main reason I do not pursue him and I do not go out with him. I have no intention to steal anything..and it goes nowhere I know. Just donno how to stop loving him.


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## trey69 (Dec 29, 2010)

You may never stop loving him, but you do need to move on. Sometimes out of sight out of mind works as well. You may have to actually relocate if you just can't get him out of you head.


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## meson (May 19, 2011)

I really know how hard this is for you. My situation is very similar but slightly different. It takes a lot for me to become friends with someone and even more to become a close friend. But once that threshold is passed I let my walls come down. This sets the scene for escalating bonding and with that the problem you have encountered. 

I have found a way to deal with it and be faithful to my wife while at the same time remaining in contact. I think you can do the same thing but it might be harder for you because you are single and unattached. The trick is to transform your feelings for him into the type of feelings you might have for a relative. Put him in the relative zone. We love our relatives (at least most of them anyway) but yet this love does not include romantic feelings. You need to go there. You also need to place limits on your relationship and don’t go beyond them. You need to start treating him like you would your other coworkers and leave it at that. No talks about feelings or anything that could be related to romance, life together, sex etc. Begin to de-escalate contact. I know you have started this but it takes a long time for it to work. You are addicted to the love chemicals dopamine, oxytocin and others. It will take months to years to completely withdrawal. 

I suspect that you think about him all the time and you need to treat this as well. Put an end to fantasies about him. Don’t imagine how life would be with him. Don’t touch him at all, it is a form of emotional escalation and invokes the chemicals. Don’t think about his marriage. Avoid any discussion of any non-positive aspect of his marriage. Demote his place in your mind. I found this link useful in demoting feelings:

The Edge of Reason: "Demoting" a Relationship

Now you need to work the other side of the equation. Go find new activities to take your mind off of him. Try some high adventure activities that give you an adrenaline/dopamine rush like climbing for something similar. You will meet new people and get the same drugs from another source as well as divert your attention away from him. If you are lucky you will find someone to start a relationship with and your addiction to him will plummet.

This method is working for me. I knew a woman for many years as a friend of my wife. She and my wife did kid events together and I was involved with the events as well. She had recommended some things that led me to change my life completely for the better. I became a better father, husband and person through my relationship with her. She became a close friend. I let my walls come down. I started escalating contact and contrived to do so. Finally one day when I was talking with her I had the total rush of love drugs hit my brain and I knew I was in love with her. This was bothersome to me because I didn’t think you could be in love with two people at the same time. I am in love with my wife and that never stopped. I did some web searching, found out about EAs, found this site and began treating my problem as I outlined above. 

For me the critical aspect was disclosure to my wife, transparency (to help enforce limits on contact) and boundaries. I was simply treating her more than I would a friend and I stopped it. In addition I redoubled my emotional investment in my wife. A little more than a year has gone by and now she is more like a cool Aunt whose company I enjoy at family events.

You will have a harder time than I did because you don’t have something or someone else to focus on yet. This is why I think it is really important for you to undertake some new activity that involves social contact. One poster on TAM that helped me a lot likes dancing.


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## Laurae1967 (May 10, 2011)

This is not real love. It's infatuation. Having conversations through text and at the office is not the same thing as having a real-life relationship. Stop this fantasy and figure out why you are drawn to someone who is emotionally and physically UNAVAILABLE. 

And honestly, an emotionally healthy man who is married does not have an EA with a female co-worker. He's got issues.....and so do you. Figure out what yours are and fix them. You will be much happier that way.


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## meson (May 19, 2011)

Laurae1967 said:


> This is not real love. It's infatuation. Having conversations through text and at the office is not the same thing as having a real-life relationship. Stop this fantasy and figure out why you are drawn to someone who is emotionally and physically UNAVAILABLE.
> 
> And honestly, an emotionally healthy man who is married does not have an EA with a female co-worker. He's got issues.....and so do you. Figure out what yours are and fix them. You will be much happier that way.


The beginnings of an EA are subtle and often entirely innocent. It’s like slipping into a black hole, you may not even recognize for what it is until it’s too late. It’s not so much about emotional health than about a lack of boundaries coupled with poor choices. When you really look into where we get emotional support you will find that it comes from many relationships that we have. It is not something that is special to a spouse only. It comes from family, friends, coworkers and even strangers. What makes an EA an EA is that the emotional support starts to rival and interfere with the spousal relationship or other relationships that should have priority such as family.

The driving force of the escalation of the emotional bonding is the love chemicals that the relationship delivers. The fact is that we are biologically wired to attract and be attracted to others and this biological wiring occurs in the form of a chemical addiction. Stated simply we are predisposed to encourage the development of love. It all starts by being friendly and it escalates from there. The solution is to recognize when to stop and abide by boundaries.

Infatuation and “real love” have the same physiological effect on people so making the distinction is not useful in this case. Infatuation is a social concept of a one sided or otherwise socially unacceptable love relationship. But for the one infatuated, the effect is just as real as someone in a completely reciprocating love relationship. The reason is that they have the same chemical drivers. A full EA really can be a “real love” relationship because it is fully reciprocating. This is why a full EA is so dangerous to a marriage because it will kill the marriage by replacing one love relationship with another. Furthermore because the participants who are married and in an EA don’t really get to know one another. As a result they often live in a fantasy relationship, the fog. On TAM we see a lot of the full EA examples but I don’t think this is one of them. She has recognized the problem and is trying to deal with it. That is what will end it.


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## CandieGirl (Apr 27, 2011)

meson said:


> I really know how hard this is for you. My situation is very similar but slightly different. It takes a lot for me to become friends with someone and even more to become a close friend. But once that threshold is passed I let my walls come down. This sets the scene for escalating bonding and with that the problem you have encountered.
> 
> *I have found a way to deal with it and be faithful to my wife while at the same time remaining in contact.* I think you can do the same thing but it might be harder for you because you are single and unattached. The trick is to transform your feelings for him into the type of feelings you might have for a relative. Put him in the relative zone. We love our relatives (at least most of them anyway) but yet this love does not include romantic feelings. You need to go there. You also need to place limits on your relationship and don’t go beyond them. You need to start treating him like you would your other coworkers and leave it at that. No talks about feelings or anything that could be related to romance, life together, sex etc. Begin to de-escalate contact. I know you have started this but it takes a long time for it to work. You are addicted to the love chemicals dopamine, oxytocin and others. It will take months to years to completely withdrawal.
> 
> ...


This is the first time I hear of anything like this...your wife is actually OK with this? Do you really think this can work? Sorry to sound skeptical...


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## Laurae1967 (May 10, 2011)

Sorry, Meson, but I don't agree with you. What you describe is infatuation. Deep, mature love is what happens once the chemicals wear off and you really get to know the person on a deep level. The chemical rush of a new relationship is about infatuation and projection.

I also don't think distracting yourself works long-term. What works long term is to figure out why you don't like yourself enough. What works is realizing another person doesn't make you complete. What works is learning to find validation and acceptance from it's source - ourselves. Jumping out of planes and driving 95 miles on a highway isn't going to cut it.


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## meson (May 19, 2011)

Laurae1967 said:


> Sorry, Meson, but I don't agree with you. What you describe is infatuation. Deep, mature love is what happens once the chemicals wear off and you really get to know the person on a deep level. The chemical rush of a new relationship is about infatuation and projection.
> 
> I also don't think distracting yourself works long-term. What works long term is to figure out why you don't like yourself enough. What works is realizing another person doesn't make you complete. What works is learning to find validation and acceptance from it's source - ourselves. Jumping out of planes and driving 95 miles on a highway isn't going to cut it.


You're right. The distraction is not a long term strategy. It buys time while contact is de-esclated so that the addiction wears off somewhat.


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## meson (May 19, 2011)

CandieGirl said:


> This is the first time I hear of anything like this...your wife is actually OK with this? Do you really think this can work? Sorry to sound skeptical...


My wife is OK with my priorities and my wife is my priority. She was hurt by this but understands as I understand her hurt.

I think that it can work for the begining stages of an EA or borderline EAs. For most of the ones we see on TAM no contact is a better solution because they have gone waaay too far to continue any contact.

And Entropy is correct, no contact is a gauranteed solution. But in this case the OP seems to be aware and wanting to find a solution so I think it may work in her case.


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## Jellybeans (Mar 8, 2011)

_*He is aware of how I feel about him*, and I stated clear that I do not pursue a relationship given the fact that he's married and would be totally wrong. To his credit,* he did not try to take advantage of my feelings and get me in bed*._

Meaning you already went too far when you told him how you felt. 

You already know the answer to this but want it spelled out to you:

Yes, it's wrong. He's married. Back off. And keep it backed off. Every woman in love with a married man says the same thing "I don't think he loves his wife." Uh huh. Same story, different day. 

You have already wasted a lot of your time/life on this guy. And what has it gotten you? 

Nothing.

Know your worth, respect yourself, respect his marriage, respect your reputation at work.

Don't be "That girl."


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## Jellybeans (Mar 8, 2011)

Milenka said:


> However , *we did talk about where we stand*. *I do not meet him outside bcs it would be harder to control ourselves.*
> 
> but bcs* I truly love him and understand what a possible divorce would cost him emotionally and financially. *


There is a lot more to this story you are not telling. 

How does one get to the point of "talking about where we stand/ he knows how I feel/I know what a divorce would mean and cost him emotionally/financially" and "I truly love him" if it's just as you claim, a work thing? 

How does it get to that point if it's just some crush you have on him in an office.

How about telling us everything that's happened and not just the things on the surface to make the story sound better/less messy? 

We have heard it all before so don't worry about us being alarmed/surprised/shocked. And we don't bite (well, most of us). 

Tell us what's really happened.


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