Dear Roe,
Recently I met a woman through work and I think I have fallen in love with her. We both have feelings for each other and so much in common it’s hard to stay away from each other. She just understands me. There has been no physical relationship at this point, just to be clear. The problem is, we’re both married in unhappy relationships but we both don’t want to hurt our spouses. I know this shouldn’t have happened but I have been feeling unappreciated in my marriage for a long time. I had a change of career, and my wife was not supportive. I think I needed emotional connection somewhere, which I found. I know it’s not great to do this but I don’t want to stay somewhere I am unhappy for the rest of my life when I know this other woman is everything I need emotionally. I think I fell for my wife’s beauty and looks years ago and it has turned out to not be enough as we get older. I feel I need an emotional and intellectual connection more as I get older. Should I try to get counselling for our marriage, or just go with what I feel is right? I don’t know what to do or think and am very confused, but I am not the kind of person to hurt others if I can avoid it.
What strikes me most about your letter is not the fact that you have feelings for someone outside of your marriage. That happens, more commonly than we like to admit. Everything a human does has been done before. Life is both long and short, marriages can span decades, and human beings are wonderfully flawed and complicated little creatures. We change, we grow, we enter new phases of life. We unearth parts of ourselves that have been neglected, and discover new facets of our being we didn’t know existed. Our needs change, as do our desires. None of that makes you a bad person.
But what does strike me is the story you are telling yourself about what is happening.
I believe that with this woman from work, you’re able to connect with parts of yourself that you haven’t felt able to connect with in years. That’s the most common reason that people get into affairs – because they are trying to recover a version of themselves that feels alive, and desired; a version of themselves that is freer and more hopeful and more hungry for life; a version of themselves that they somehow lost amid the responsibilities and mundane routines of adult life.
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But when you say this woman is “everything I need emotionally”, I do want you to pause and question this statement. Because this woman who is everything you apparently need is married. She is not available to you. Perhaps as an affair, if you wanted it, sure. But she is not available to be with you fully, emotionally or tangibly. She is not able to fully commit to you. You do not actually know what this woman would be like in a relationship. You are projecting the fantasy of a perfect relationship on to an unavailable woman – and then claiming she is everything you need.
To own my own biases here: I believe there are all different kinds of love and it exists on spectrum, but I don’t really believe that you can truly, deeply love someone in a romantic sense without ever being in relationship with them. I believe that crushes are beautiful and intoxicating, and the first waves of love are glorious things – but without being in a relationship with someone, without going through some real experiences together, without knowing a person’s flaws and neuroses and coming to deeply understand how different they are from you and loving them still – before that, I believe there are sparks of love amid a lot of fantasy. Before you’ve experienced life together, you’re fantasising about how perfect it would be to experience life together – and fantasy is always going to paint everyone as more perfect and sexy and forgiving and endlessly patient and endlessly interesting than they are in reality.
Right now you’re taking the stolen moments and clandestine glances and intimate conversations that you’ve been having with this woman and projecting a fantasy on to them, filling out the rest to make the image of a perfect life, without ever having to actually live out the boring bits: the fights, the flaws, the financial difficulties, the household chores, the stresses, the illnesses, the sexual dry spells, their unsupportive moments, your resentful moments, conflicting priorities, the thousand small negotiations and compromises that make up a life. You are comparing your brief, untested, emotionally charged interactions with her to the years-long history of mundane realities you’ve had with your wife – and that simply isn’t fair. The woman at work has not had to disappoint you, to show you her flaws, to show you where her support would waver. The woman at work gets to remain a perfect, unblemished ideal, precisely because she is not available to you. You are comparing fantasy with history – and in that comparison, one will always be shiny and new, and one will look dull and old. And let me remind you: shiny things get old too, eventually.
[ ‘I’m a married woman but my work crush is getting complicated’Opens in new window ]
None of this means your marriage is healthy. It may not be. I am not invested in keeping people in unhappy relationships. If you and your wife are no longer right for each other and you decide you need to leave, that’s okay. Everything a human does has been done before. You describe feeling unsupported and emotionally disconnected and intellectually disengaged, and these are not small issues.
You’ve also entered a new phase of your life and career, and it sounds as though you are searching for something deeper: emotional honesty, intellectual fulfilment, personal growth. That is important and deserves to be taken seriously. But I do not believe that the most honest, connected and fulfilling version of your life will be built through avoiding difficult conversations, being dishonest with your wife or projecting a fantasy on to an unavailable woman. If you want a life that feels real, then you need to start living in reality.
Start with your marriage. Put some distance between yourself and this woman at work. If what exists between you is real, if she truly is someone with whom you could build a meaningful future, then it will survive a period of honesty and reflection. For now, focus on the relationship you are actually in.
Give your wife the honesty she has earned through years of marriage. Tell her that you are unhappy; that you feel unsupported during a stage of life that matters deeply to you; that something fundamental feels disconnected. Find a good couples counsellor and see whether the two of you can listen to each other differently, support each other differently, and grow together rather than apart. And if, after that process, you decide your marriage has reached its natural end, then so be it. But end it because the marriage is no longer right for either of you, not because another woman has become a symbol of everything you feel is missing.
The question is not whether this woman is the love of your life. The question is whether you are willing to live honestly enough to find out. Whatever happens next, let it be built on truth rather than fantasy, courage rather than avoidance, and respect rather than secrecy. That is the only path that gives everyone involved the dignity they deserve.
