A little background: I have been married for just over 5 years, but have been with my husband for almost 10 years. He is nevermo, and we started dating around the time I was finally out of the house and finally coming to terms with not believing.

We have never had any really big fights, and I would say we generally have a pretty good marriage. However, we are getting to the point where real life is stepping in and the day-to-day drudgery is getting us down. I guess there is just not much excitement anymore.

I really have had no real issues with this up until last week, (just figure that's how it goes). My profession is very male-dominated, so most of my co-workers and basically all of the consultants we work with are male. I have met some very great people and some are very good friends, but aside from a little joking around, it is strictly professional.

The last couple months I have been working on a project with a few people from around the country and 2 in Canada. Last week I was sent to a conference where the guy I have been interacting with the most (through email and phone calls) was also going. Since I like to have a face to put with a name, we arranged a time to meet up.

On the last day of the conference, we met in a lounge area set up off one of the larger corridors. We exchanged the usual pleasantries, then got out our laptops and started talking about the project. After half an hour or so, he said he wanted to go dump his laptop and things in his room and wander around the city. Since he didn't really know anyone else at the conference, he asked if I would like to join him for an hour or so.

Because he seemed like a nice enough guy, and because we are hoping to work on more projects with his company, I accepted. We started out by randomly walking up the street from the conference hotel, wandering into whatever building seemed interesting, making fun of the Christmas decorator’s idea of ‘snow’ and talking about industry-related topics. At the end of the street we found a nice bar with an outdoor patio with the heaters on where we could sit and people watch. We sat there for hours, talking about anything and everything under the sun. I found myself telling him things I usually don’t share until I’ve known someone for months. Nothing inappropriate happened, (I don’t need TSSC to tell me that cheating on a spouse is wrong) but I was astounded by how well we connected. I can generally talk to people pretty easily, but it’s usually about more superficial stuff at first.

Now that I’m back, I find that my mind keeps wandering back to our conversations, and I’ve been down-right giddy when I get an email from him (even strictly work related) It has really made me think about my marriage, and the relationship we have. Like I said before, it’s not bad by any means, but there are days I feel that we barely talk to each other, that we get home from work, watch a few lame tv shows then head to bed. I tried to think back to when we were dating, but even then I don’t remember just sitting there and talking for hours on end. We were always surrounded by mutual friends and had lots of places to be and things to do.

Now to the reason I am subjecting y’all to my rantings. This morning I came to the conclusion that when I met and was dating my husband, I had no idea who I was. I had spent my life up until then, fitting into the good little mormon-girl mould, thinking I was experiencing life by watching the occasional R-rated movie. I look back and I know the qualities that drew me to my husband originally, but after growing and actually experiencing a little bit of life, (but not near as much as I want) I find my list to be quite a bit different.

I have had random inklings through the last few years that I wish my life was different, but never this strong. (I suppose I was able to use my momo shelving skills to move past them) It was like this guy had the exact list of qualities that I never knew I really wanted in that special someone. So now I am sitting here, randomly fantasizing about running off to Canada to see what my life could be like, but deep down knowing that one day that relationship would also lose it’s luster, and there I’d be all over again.

I guess I mostly just needed to get this off my chest, so I could get it all out there and start working through it, but couldn’t think of a single person IRL I’d want to burden with my thoughts of just running away and leaving it all behind me.

To make this more interactive, has anyone else run into this problem? I’m sure there are many here who woke up one day and realized they didn’t know themselves and they definitely didn’t know their spouse. But what do you do from there? Throw in the towel and walk away amicably? Take a romantic vacation and try to get the spark back? Sit down and tell your spouse that you don’t find them exciting to talk to anymore? Help!

Read your story, and I hope my viewpoint helps. To me, this is not a marriage issue, unless you truly do want to sleep with this friend of yours. But if it's a friendship, what's the big deal? A marriage does not, and doesn't need to, satisfy every aspect of your life. There are some friends and family you share things with that you just can't with your spouse. There are activities you enjoy with people other than your spouse. As long as those activities are not sexual, you can have a good marriage. My wife and I have a lot of separate interests, and do a lot of things without each other, and even with other people. But we only have sex with each other.

By it's very nature, marriage fuels a "getting stale" scenario. That doesn't mean you married the wrong person. It just means you have chosen marriage. If you choose to leave because you "grew apart" or whatever, then don't get married to someone else - because the same thing will happen.

I'd slow down a bit there.

I think it's perfectly normal for a person to realize they can be attracted to someone OTHER than the person they are in a relationship with. There's something about the novelty of a new romance that can wear off in a long-term relationship. That doesn't necessarily mean the new relationship would be happier long-term, though. (And, ya know . . . even if it was for a while, THAT excitement would wear off, as well).

I think maybe it's time to invest more time in your marriage to see if you can revitalize it. Consider spending some time reading about things you can do to reconnect with your husband, or spice up certain aspects of your marriage. Maybe even try some counseling.

I don't know the particulars of your marriage, but you've got 10 years of history with your husband. That's worth something. And I have no idea if there are kids involved.

I did some stupid things to try and find ..whatever..

In the end, the problem was me. If I don't go out and try and find people we can be with, we are going to be sitting at home front of the TV. DH feels the same way.

My marriage never held me back, but I stopped letting myself grow.

That was 40 years ago and it is still a problem. I just stopped blaming marriage.

Please do not write off your marriage because of this. I know someone whose husband made a friend of a female coworker. The coworker was getting out of a bad marriage, yada yada, and they became friends. Where it turns the wrong way is that he lied to his wife about it from the beginning. He was also saying things like, "we got married too young," "If we didn't have kids we would be divorced," "I don't love you anymore." By the time my friend found out about the "friendship," there were months of cell phone bills and thousands of minutes of conversation with the woman. It almost destroyed their marriage, and now he is the one begging her to stay. He says he loves her and was wrong for the way he treated her badly. It is horribly sad. He damaged her and their relationship very deeply. I find it hard to believe that the husband did not do more than talk with this woman, but that is the story. So be very careful, your story is not unusual. It is dangerous territory you are entering.

Most marriages are not always exciting and hot all the time. It always seems the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. Remember what got you to marry him? You think he don't see or meet women that clicks with him. Trust and honesty are the main thing in any relationship.

So what you have is a classic situation. Your marriage has advanced to a point where it can be considered a "mature" relationship. You are no longer "newly weds" and your life has progressed to a point where you are comfortable with each other and have literally fallen into a rut.

You do the same things every day, see each other every day, sleep with each other, and your life has grown routine. That is both good and bad. It is good that you have grown and matured in your relationship. It is bad that you have fallen into a rut.

What you need to do is take a step back and look at things from the ten thousand foot level for a minute. Why did you marry this person? Why have you stayed with them for 10 years? Look at the reasons you are where you are and if you like what you see then you need to do something to shake things up a little.

Remember back to when you were dating. Did you text or email each other? Did you send love notes all the time? Did you call just to say "I love you"? Go back to doing some of the things you two did when you were dating. Have some fun. Make life a little interesting. Plan little surprises for each other. Hell, go get a hotel room and have some fun for a night!!!

Whatever you do don't screw up the relationship you have just to see if the grass is greener on the other side of the fence because what you are currently experiencing happens to all mature relationships and unless you do something to take away the "rut" common every day routine of your life and inject some fun and excitement back in, it will happen in your next relationship too.

Yeah, Mister work guy may seem like fun and would maybe make a nice roll in the hay, but until you have lived with him for a period of time you have no idea what dark secrets lurk behind that good looking smile and fun easy going person you spent one evening talking to.

I do not advocate marriage or fidelity for the sake of any religious belief, I just think you may end up miserable and wishing you were back with your husband if you do something without really thinking about it first.

Good luck with this, I know it can be very hard in your place.

Go tell your husband about your new friend. It will help you feel better and put things into perspective.

Never take advice from unmarried divorced people. I think I'm qualified to give you that much.

It was temporary with your husband, it will also be temporary with this new friend. That's because it is entirely chemical.

The best thing to do is something unusual and out of the ordinary to try to recapture that same feeling with hubby. It can be done.

Thanks everyone. I really think I mostly needed to get that all out there so I could dissect it all, figure out what the underlying problem is, and move forward from there.

Maybe what I really need is a trip to VS on the way home from work...

I have been married 35 plus years. Both my wife and myself have been down that road, probably more than once. We never had affairs, we gave each other the space needed. There were times when we may have not always liked each other as much as we should have, but we did always love each other and we knew we loved each other. We were wise to recognize this and deal with it. Now the kids are gone and it is just us two, we have basically started a new direction in life with each other. We love it. If you love your man, treat him good, take care of him and hopefully he will do the same for you. There is always a ebb and flow to life and our feelings. Make sure you know where your true feelings are and stick with them. Good luck.

I've never acknowledged this at all outside my own mind, but I have been in a similar situation.

I was a kid when I met my husband and I'm a different person now and sometimes I think I would pick a different sort of person to be with if I had it to do over again. My relationship with my husband is good-- I care about him truly and we are the best of friends. He is good to me and I have no complaints about him except that he isn't very passionate about life-- he's a follower, my roadie. If I could change one thing about him it would be that I wish he had his own life and goals and pursued his own interests instead of just being along for the ride with me. It's just unattractive to me that he is okay with having his life revolve around me. I wish he were motivated to do his own thing. Instead, he's a supporting character in his own life, and I'm the lead. I don't like it one bit.

So having revealed that, I have a very close male friend that I met several years ago. We hit it off immediately and connected in a way I hadn't imagined possible. It was a relief to be around him. We're just so compatible and comfortable and he doesn't have the problem of being a supporting player in his life. He's more like me in terms of ambition and skill (we're in the same field). I was completely surprised by this and he quickly became one of the best friends of my life.

Recently he confessed that when he was first getting to know me, his interest wasn't purely platonic. He thought I was in a relationship, but not married (I don't wear a ring), and was hoping that the relationship wasn't too well-established so that he'd have a chance. He then told me that he thought my husband was fantastic and incredibly lucky, and that he was a little jealous. He said that knowing us as a couple made him want to get his "shit together" and find a real partner for his life.

I was flattered to know that he admired our relationship and thought I was attractive. I was also really surprised to hear this after all this time because I didn't have any idea and I hadn't thought about him that way, because I'm happily married and I just don't think about other guys that way. But then, because he mentioned it, I did think about him that way, and realized that I'm very attracted to him.

So, here's what I've done since this revelation (a few months ago):

1.) I don't much spend time alone with my friend anymore. We work together, so there's no avoiding him, plus we really do have an important friendship and I think the attraction is going to cool off and we'll be left with just being friends. When I make plans with him, they include my husband. When I have long conversations with him, I make sure that they are conversations my husband would be comfortable with (we haven't revisited the topic of his initial attraction or any of my responses to it). We're still friends, but I'm careful in a way I wasn't careful before.

2.) I suspect that there is a "grass is always greener on the other side" element to this attraction, so I keep that in mind. An unexplored relationship that would have been possible in another life is always going to look more attractive if there's stuff in my life that is unsatisfying. I try to remember that the fallout of risking an established and basically-rewarding long-term relationship in favor of unknown possibilities is probably not worth serious thought. I'm encouraging my husband to do things on his own and I also try to be more appreciative of all the support he gives me.

3.) I used this as an opportunity to diagnose some issues in my marriage I hadn't recognized earlier and I'm working on getting to a better place because of it. I'm actually going to suggest some counseling here soon-- It's time.

4.)Also, I've found that the fastest way to get over a crush is to really get to know a person. I've gotten to know my friend better, personal demons included, and that has helped me see him as a whole person instead of a fix for the things that are unsatisfying about my relationship. He's a good guy-- a great guy, a guy I'd want my kids to think of as an uncle, a guy I'd like to think of as a brother.

Bottom line is this: I totally get where you're coming from. My choice in a similar situation is that I am using this circumstance to motivate me to make some changes in my life and relationship. If I find in a few months that I'm not quite over it, I'll make the choice to limit our relationship further in the interest of my marriage. I don't think it's going to come to that.

anon Wrote:
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> I've never acknowledged this at all outside my own
> mind, but I have been in a similar situation.


Thank you. This was exactly what I needed to hear.

I do love my husband and have absolutely no intention of cheating on him, but I do think that this is highlighting issues that I never knew were there. (and I realize that many are my own to work through)

It's great to have a place you can come anonymously to say things that you barely want to admit to yourself to help wrap your head around it.

My younger sister has a real issue with situations like this. She is always "looking" no matter who she is in a relationship with. The MOMENT she senses trouble in the relationship she is in, she gets in touch with her old boyfriends or someone she has met through friends . . . always, always looking for the perfect mate.

And she keeps telling me she just wants someone who wants to be a family with she and her son. I told her they are the family and she gave up the family she had when she cheated on and left her husband. He offered her the lifestyle she wanted. She got bored.

I told her just two weeks ago--you completely finish with one relationship before you move onto another one.

Having been through "divorce"--anyone who has a good marriage even if it is boring is crazy to chance losing it.

Had that done to me in spades !! Think how you would feel if you found out that your husband was sleeping with his secratary. Pretty gutted, I would imagine.

Happens a lot more that you could imagine. Friend of mine's wife started by working in an office with a womanizer in charge. He "arranged " for extra work for her praised her efforts, and managed to get her to lunch a few times a week, Later it was work a little overtine. Then is "blossomed" into a full blown relationship. Ended in divorce for the guy and the office manager's wife left her husband. The two adulterers lasted 3 months together once she saw all his faults, and found him sleeping with his next conquest.

Be careful unless you want to lose all you have now

JB

Years ago I read a book called "Permanent Love." I never forgot the profound and complete definitions it contained. Wish I could remember the author, but I'm going to pass along this gem.

Strengthening bonds requires quality time. Unfortunately, no one seems to understand what this really means. According to this author, quality time is defined as an activity that makes you feel like you are better together than you could be separately. Specifically, couples report significant relationship improvement when they found an activity where they BUILT SOMETHING together.

For one couple, they wanted to save their marriage and completely created a shared interest in thrift store shopping for unique pieces of furniture and then refinishing them. At the start, they kept them, then they started selling them. He created patterns, she did the toll painting. They poured over catalogs, brainstormed ideas, took trips looking for pieces. Before that, they were companionable, going to each other's separate activities as dutiful spouses. Not the same thing.

This also works with children.

I advise my daughters and since you are older, am assuming you already know the street wisdom regarding cooking and sex. And PS, anytime you feel giddy about contact with a man and feel a "connection" think about how easy it is for you to return to Page One of a romance and relive that instead of moving up to the next deeper level of investment in your present, mature relationship.

Buy some romance novels and chocolate, or some Lifetime movies and dope up. It's a woman thing, perfectly natural, don't mistake it for more and miss your real growth opportunity.

Good luck -

Anagrammy

because it is getting watered :-) Lot of great thoughts on this thread.

But--I have been through it all!

I have never cheated, but I did love a friend very much, for5 years. He was more of a father to my boys than my husband was. He was not a Mormon, but I had just become inactive, thanks to my then-husband. We worked together, and we also volunteered in the community together. We championed the same causes, and my husband couldn't care less. We would talk and laugh late into the night. I was the one he wanted to be with when his father died. He was everything my husband was not. I was very moral, and we never kissed.

Here's where "more information" comes in. The reason I enjoyed this man so much was that I was extremely lonely! I knew my husband didn't love me as much as this man did. This man loved and cared about my boys more than their own father did. My husband had withdrawn himself from the children and me, and was spending all his free time on the golf course. I considered myself a "golf widow."

The bottom line was that my marriage was over!

All the time I was raising my children, working, and volunteering, the father of my children was cheating on me--multiple times, with multiple women--since the first months of our marriage! He can't even play golf. He is a classic narcissist, unable to love anyone but himself. He totally abandoned me and our children, and never looked back. He does not care anything about them. He refused to pay alimony or child support. This man has no heart.

My ex moved us to Utah, to dump us off here. My dear friend that I loved came to get me, but I was in too much pain, and too distrustful. I had also heard the same old cautionary stories, that my next relationship would be likely to cheat, too, that all relationships fade in the light of day, bla-bla, so I turned him down. He is still a wonderful man.

Your story is unique. Everyone's story is unique.

You are too focused on your new-found friend, when you should be looking at your own husband veeeeerrrrryyyy carefully! What's with him? Don't get distracted. Don't deny the REAL problems.

You are not wicked, or weird, or guilty of anything. You have valid feelings.

WHAT ARE YOUR FEELINGS TELLING YOU??? There lies the answer!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/08/2010 04:15AM by forestpal.

There is something called an "emotional affair". I am not saying you are HAVING one, I'm just saying it's a danger...for all of us. Esentially, an emotional affair is when you emotionally attach to someone besides your spouse in a romantic way. You start telling them things you'd never discuss with your spouse, and THEREIN lies the danger. In an EA, you're looking for something you're not getting in your own marriage.

An excellent book to read, that did wonders for my marriage (which suffered from an emotional affair) is: "His Needs, Her Needs. Building an Affair Proof Marriage." by Willard F Harley Jr.

Again, I am not suggesting that you are having any kind of affair. but what I see are some of the same red flags that turned my marriage inside out 15 years ago.

I have been "unmarried" with the same woman (who I call my wife) for 27 years. We have 3 kids (2 adult).

Believe me, these feelings aren't limited to the married.

Any long-term couple has to deal with this at times - and each solution may well be personal to that couple, but I would agree with the posters urging prudence and deep reflection.

Love comes and goes, but just because it's low at the moment doesn't mean that it won't come back. This happened to me.

But my main advice would be: think about everything you would LOSE - on the off-chance that it would work out with a largely unknown quantity (other guy). For me, it would have meant financial ruin, great solitude (I live in a foreign country) and breaking my "covenant" with my children, though that may not apply to you if you have no kids.

Good luck in your choices!

Just my 2 euro-cents

I think that mormons, and by extension, exmormons, have trouble with opposing-sex friendships. We aren't trained to be friends with the opposite sex and there's a lot of stigma, starting around age 12, about being seen interacting with the opposite sex. The general assumption is: males and females only interact with each other when someone has sex in mind.

It's a false dichotomy: it's not about "either you're having sex or you're not having anything to do with one another." There's a huge range of types of relationships in between.

My advice is this:
1. Date your husband again. Ask him out. Set up dates. Remember when you'd go through all sorts of machinations to set up sweet little surprises for him or you'd work really hard to come up with some creative thing to do on a Saturday afternoon? Start doing that work again. I think people just get comfortable and complacent in relationships (married or not -- after about 2 years, there aren't many surprises left) and stop working at it. That's where the real work is: continuing to work on feeding and watering and nurturing the relationship long after the surprises have stopped coming.

2. There is absolutely nothing whatsoever wrong with being friends with this coworker of yours. A. He's very far away, so remember, despite all that conversing, you really don't have any intimacy with the guy. He just feels like a safe place to talk because you and your DH aren't really communicating like you used to. Again, there's nothing wrong with having male friends outside of your marriage... AS LONG AS YOU ARE STILL WORKING ON BEING BEST FRIENDS WITH YOUR DH WITHIN YOUR MARRIAGE. Sorry for shouting, but I wanted to make that clear. I do not advocate affairs, emotional or otherwise.

Rejuvenate your friendship with your husband. That will be what meets your needs. You are merely missing intimacy because you and the DH have settled into "We know everything about each other, so what's left to discover is really mundane boring day-to-day shit." Time to spark up that late night conversation with your spouse.

That will put your friendship with your coworker in perspective. It shouldn't be that you can tell your coworker anything that's on your mind. It should be that you can tell your DH anything that's on your mind. I'm sure he loves you. I'm sure he's supportive and kind and wonderful -- that's why you married him, right?

Here's another thing to think about: You never really know what's going on in other people's lives or what's motivating them. This coworker may be completely oblivious to your friend-crush on him. He may have a really messy personal life that you would not want to be involved with. He could be married or a serial cheater, or who knows what. As long as you keep the conversations either work-related or neutral/appropriate, you should be able to be friends with him and your DH as well.

When DH and I had problems talking I had the TV taken out of the house and it did not come back for over 7 year's and now if I see the same thing happening the TV goes off.

Nothing kills a relationship like television. I don't think there's anything wrong with active engagement in watching a movie or occasional sporting event, but passively "watching TV" is really hard on relationships, in my opinion. It makes conversation difficult and sucks the creativity and drive out of people. The constant chatter is irritating and too often that irritation is misdirected at a partner rather than the true source of the irritation. It's kind of a bizarre fact of life that two people actively engaged in reading two different books or doing two different crossword puzzles in silence often feel closer to one another than two people passively watching the same television program.

I think stopping and thinking about where you are, what's bothering you, and what you need to do to improve the situation is always a good thing in marriage.

You and are similar in our relationship lengths. My DH and I will have been together for ten years this May. We've been married for three. The whole new relationship crazy love thing is long gone, and we're now in a comfortable relationship that does occasionally feel like a rut. We're also both people who love computer games, and I love to stitch - so our hobbies tend to be things that pull us out of interaction.

On the marriage rut - if you're feeling like you don't know your husband (or yourself) anymore, then do something together. I agree with everyone that the sex is a fun thing, but I also suggest some "hanging out as friends" time, too.

Doesn't need to be a scheduled thing like a date night or a big event. Just something small to go do something together - and make sure it's something that encourages interaction (i.e. not a movie where you're just sitting there).

DH and I did a few random wanderlust drives together, just to discover what's in the neighboring neighborhoods/towns near us. Nothing big, and no real money involved. We just go driving and talking about what we find, maybe stop by a little Mom 'n Pop dive for lunch, and have a nice afternoon together. During those drives, we found things that benefit us, so they've been valuable on both the marriage AND our budget (an old-school meat market with great prices, a dairy farm that sells right from the farm, etc.) as things we do to get out of the house together.

As far as the coworker goes - there's nothing wrong with being friends. I think your awareness and concern about the excitement of this is a good thing. I think you do need to be very conscious about being able to talk to this person more than your husband. That's not a good thing. If you're getting wrapped up emotionally with this coworker where you do see it as a threat to your marriage, you need to back off immediately.

Work on the relationship with your husband and strengthen it. The connection between you and your husband is the most important one, and if it's in trouble - that's the one you need to work on.

While your situation is of great personal import to you, it would be wise to take a really big step back and look at it objectively. If you do, you will likely see that your story line occurs quite commonly in the workplace; indeed, so often as to be nearly formulaic.

Here's the formula: we work together, we work well together, we look good to each other, we smell good to each other, we talk, we laugh at jokes, we dress well and fix ourselves up for each other, we tell inside jokes to each other,we share details of our lives, we talk about how our marriages aren't that great bla bla, we give gifts, we start to look forward to seeing each other, we make plans to eat together, we stay late to work more, we touch, we make more plans, we sleep together.

The story formula also leads all too often to ruin of multiple lives in at least 4 extended families: the woman's side, her husband's side, the man's side, and the man's wife's side. Children, parents, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, fellow workers, bosses, all are affected. The personal cost is enormous.

My work involves working with people to pick up the pieces afterward. The thrill is gone.

Your situation might not go there. But why risk it?

I think Holly kind of narrowed down my fear. I know I'm strong enough to keep myself out of a situation that would lead to physical cheating, but an emotional affair seems to me to be pretty hurtful too. I know I'd be devastated if I found out DH had to go elsewhere for deep, meaningful conversation.

When we were talking, I was thoroughly caught up and enjoying it, but later I was feeling guilty and sad that it wasn't like that when talking to DH anymore.

I think I'm going to try to get us out of town for at least a night soon, find a nice place for dinner and just start talking about whatever

Your post made me think of the Jimmy Buffet song "pina colada" where the couple post/respond to personal ads, only to end up meeting each other. Great song. On a more serious note, I think that respect is an important foundation for a marriage. If I were you, I would ask myself if my behavior/interactions with this other guy were something I would be comfortable with my husband seeing. If the answer is no, you need to back off.

When I'm not madly in love with my husband (I usually am), I remember I am in it for the long term & try to focus on not doing or saying anything that would hurt him.