I think you need a different rhyme for the shacking up with this one. "Grandpa Brah?"

Anonymous wrote:Help you?

Every time you consider trying to see this coworker for more than work, think about your spouse finding out and coming home from work one day with the locks changed and your clothes in a pile on the front lawn with a sign saying he found out and you can go shack up with your boy toy.

If that thought is not sobering enough for you, get a gym membership close to work and go take a cold shower whenever the urge hits you.

Help you?

Every time you consider trying to see this coworker for more than work, think about your spouse finding out and coming home from work one day with the locks changed and your clothes in a pile on the front lawn with a sign saying he found out and you can go shack up with your boy toy.

If that thought is not sobering enough for you, get a gym membership close to work and go take a cold shower whenever the urge hits you.

In addition to everything posters have contributed above, remember that you have absolutely no right to do this to your husband and children it is not about whether you will have a professional consequences, whether you will be happy, whether another person has an open marriage, whether you feel bored, or depressed, or anything else. This choice is not about you. You already made a choice to get married. If you feel you need an open marriage, talk with your husband about it. If he agrees, then you can both do so. If not you can always divorce. But you have absolutely no right to cheat on him, and to lie to your children. It simply isn't your choice, and isn't about the calculus of whether it would be "worth it" to you. There is so much here about you, you, you. What about your husband? What about the damage to him? It may be an easier decision for you when you live you the Vallos you have made to your spouse. If you want to unwind those, go ahead. But don't cheat before then.

Anonymous wrote:Don't do it. My husband had an emotional affair with a coworker and I am absolutely destroyed that he could do this to me and our kids. There are real implications. Is the sex worth having to split custody of your kids? Missing half of their milestones?

I get it... I've fantasizes and flirted. But the chase is soooooo much more intoxicating than the kill. Enjoy the butterflies and go home to your husband.

I agree, and for women who have stayed with their husband's it will never be the same. Even with time, the marriage to a great extent is over. I've known many women that "fake" it and the husband thinks they've forgiven him. For women it's about the kids, and finances...security.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To me it sounds like the possible affair could be part of a larger mental health episode. Could you be cycling from depression to hypomania?

Interesting that when women want to have sex outside their marriage, it's due to some underlying mental health, resentment, anger issues. Men do it because - wait for it - sex with someone new is awesome.

Who told you that? You'd be surprised how many women share the men's point of view. I'm female, and it makes me sad our society and family structure requires monogamy. It's men's fault!

PP that you are responding to. I am merely a man reading all the psychology with amusement. On one hand, when a woman says she wants to cheat, other women start dissecting her dissatisfaction with the marriage. On the other hand, there is almost always something wrong with the marriage - I have yet to meet a woman who is deeply in love with her husband and has a good sex life at home that still cheats (but I know they exist).

Men are different. No man looks at another man who confesses to an affair and questions his sanity. Men know why men cheat; every single man wants to have sex with other women, the reason we don't is somewhere between morals and opportunity. But the urge is always there.

And I totally agree monogamy is an awful construct, but I disagree it is imposed by men. Gay men are rarely monogamous. When it's left up to men, no one has the illusion that monogamy is a good idea.

OP, good for you for recognizing that your feelings aren't primarily sexual.

I'm channeling Dan Savage here, but this is what I think you should do. Dial back the flirty emails and long lingering looks. They're not helping. But see if you can use the fantasy and the energy with your husband. There is no harm in thinking about your idealized version of this older mentor while you have sex with your husband.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To me it sounds like the possible affair could be part of a larger mental health episode. Could you be cycling from depression to hypomania?

Interesting that when women want to have sex outside their marriage, it's due to some underlying mental health, resentment, anger issues. Men do it because - wait for it - sex with someone new is awesome.

Who told you that? You'd be surprised how many women share the men's point of view. I'm female, and it makes me sad our society and family structure requires monogamy. It's men's fault!

Anonymous wrote:16:46, thank you for the brutally candid post-mortem.

+1

Although you have to remember that people find themselves in different circumstances. What PP described was begging for a law suit, IMO. Yet, she was forced to believe it was all her fault. Like many women do, sadly.

Anonymous wrote:Your fantasy is probably much better that what the reality would be. You've built this up in your head to something that it could never live up to if it were to happen.

+1 Enjoy the fantasy. This too shall pass.

Anonymous wrote:I'm waiting for another cheated on wife to go postal on her husband and OW. Maybe, OP, you'll be a news item.

I went postal on the wife. Called her and told her what was going on. Husband told her I had the wrong number and he kept fucking me.

Anonymous wrote:To me it sounds like the possible affair could be part of a larger mental health episode. Could you be cycling from depression to hypomania?

Interesting that when women want to have sex outside their marriage, it's due to some underlying mental health, resentment, anger issues. Men do it because - wait for it - sex with someone new is awesome.

I'm waiting for another cheated on wife to go postal on her husband and OW. Maybe, OP, you'll be a news item.

Anonymous wrote:Don't do it. My husband had an emotional affair with a coworker and I am absolutely destroyed that he could do this to me and our kids. There are real implications. Is the sex worth having to split custody of your kids? Missing half of their milestones?

I get it... I've fantasizes and flirted. But the chase is soooooo much more intoxicating than the kill. Enjoy the butterflies and go home to your husband.

For men sex is a hard wired survival instinct. The split custody and social penalties are a tie with a powerful force. Women don't really understand what men go through. If women felt the way men did and struggled like men do there would be ribbons and organized campaigns about the plight of under sexed hardwiring syndrome.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't do it. My husband had an emotional affair with a coworker and I am absolutely destroyed that he could do this to me and our kids. There are real implications. Is the sex worth having to split custody of your kids? Missing half of their milestones?

I get it... I've fantasizes and flirted. But the chase is soooooo much more intoxicating than the kill. Enjoy the butterflies and go home to your husband.

What defines an emotional "affair" in comparison to the "chase"?

The amount of sharing and time/resources/emotional investment it steals from the primary relationship

Anonymous wrote:Don't do it. My husband had an emotional affair with a coworker and I am absolutely destroyed that he could do this to me and our kids. There are real implications. Is the sex worth having to split custody of your kids? Missing half of their milestones?

I get it... I've fantasizes and flirted. But the chase is soooooo much more intoxicating than the kill. Enjoy the butterflies and go home to your husband.

What defines an emotional "affair" in comparison to the "chase"?