Hi everyone, I’m in an emotionally messy and pretty desperate situation. This is going to be a long one so strap yourselves in! I’m 35M and girlfriend is 31F.
I’ve been with my girlfriend for approaching 11 years. She’s American, originally from Seatlle and I’m English. We have moved back and forth a couple of times between our two home countries, and in 2022 we decided to move permanently to North America. We initially went to where her family is in Seattle, until I got a job in New York in the music industry.
I’d been trying to break into a career in the music industry for years so it was a great opportunity for me. My girlfriend also did acting and New York was a better proposition for her also, so we moved to New York in early 2023.
I love my job. For the first time in my life I don’t completely dread going into work, in fact I look forward to it. It has given me a new confidence in myself and a better outlook generally on life. It’s very social with gigs and events happening often, and I work with a great team of people and we’re very close. But this is where the issues start unfortunately.
For the last 2 years I’ve had feelings for one of my colleagues. To be honest, the moment we met I could sense there was something different for me, just that slight spark and connection you randomly get with some people, and initially I thought it was good because it would mean we could become good friends. Naive I know.
For the first year that was still the case, we hadn’t had the opportunity to fully get to know each other, but it changed literally in the space of one night when the team went for after work drinks. We got talking about music and the artists we loved, and within the space of an hour or so, I knew I was in trouble.
In hindsight this is where I should have told my girlfriend and we could have put a plan in place to deal with it. I didn’t however, and we continued to grow closer. I was in denial some of the time, convincing myself she was just a good friend. I would flip back and forth in my mind from thinking “oh no I really like her and have feelings” to “no you’re being ridiculous, she’s just your friend.”
My girlfriend actually knows her as well now, as we hung out in groups on quite a few occasions. Again, at the time I thought I was being a very modern man having close female friends (I should say I do have many close female friends, so I know it can be done but I should have known it was always different with this particular person) and thought it was great we could all hang out together.
Just to add a bit more context, myself and my girlfriend didn’t really know anyone when we moved to New York. I relied heavily on my work for social outings and as a couple, we haven’t done much in the last few years in terms of going on holidays, weekend breaks etc. I also became aware more recently that with me being 35 and my girlfriend 31, we were at the age where we were discussing whether we wanted kids. We both did, but we’re still not in a desperate rush. I was aware of my girlfriend’s body clock and noticed that due to my feelings for someone else, I was hesitant to discuss future plans and I began to worry I was wasting her time.
At the start of the year my girlfriend started to talk about wedding plans and again, my guilt and hesitation really came to the fore. It started to get to a point where I had to tell her what was going on. At this stage, I’d rather prematurely decided I should leave the relationship as I decided it was the right thing to do and I honestly at the time, I thought it was what I wanted.
I told her I had feelings for my colleague and that I wasn’t sure if I could continue with the relationship. She was extremely upset understandably, and when the full weight of what I was about to do hit me, I too was devastated. It was like I stupidly hadn’t considered the implications of leaving, the fact that it would be over and that would be it, everything we shared would be gone.
Since then, we’ve agreed to try and work on things with mixed results. We quite quickly can fall back into our old routines and genuinely enjoy each other’s company still. This is the thing that confuses me the most, I still think my girlfriend is the most amazing person I know, we get on so well and are aligned on pretty much everything from taste in music and films, to politics. If the relationship was terrible I feel like my decision though painful would be fairly obvious and straight forward, but that isn’t the case. However, on certain days my mind starts racing again and I feel like I should leave and it really frustrates me. I know I have everything I could want in my relationship, so what is it I’m looking for?
I’m also aware that I’m going through all the most cliched, classic tropes that happen (Get a bit bored in a long term relationship, meet someone at work, think they’re the solution to all your problems.) I know that I’m in the limerence stage with my colleague and that it would inevitably pass if we got together and there is no way of knowing if we would be compatible further down the line. I know the stats on leaving someone for someone else and the success rate of those relationships are shocking. I can think all these things, but feeling them is a different thing all together.
I’ve tried to distance myself from the colleague, so no more after work drinks and limited one on one contact but it’s difficult since she sits opposite me at work and we’re part of the same team. She also has no idea I have feelings for her. We have never discussed it with each other so I have no idea if she feels the same.
I sometimes can’t tell if me and my girlfriend have slowly grown apart or whether I’m using that as an excuse for my behaviour. As I said before, I definitely feel more confident in myself now and really enjoy connecting with people. I notice when I’m at work or at work functions I feel distant from my girlfriend. I don’t know why me growing into a more confident person means my girlfriend can’t come along with me. Again, it could just be an excuse.
Talking of my behaviour, I want to acknowledge how poorly I have behaved and take full responsibility for the current situation. In hindsight I would have done things a lot differently, and the emotional pain I’m causing to my girlfriend and myself certainly wasn’t worth the excitement that the building friendship with my colleague was giving me at work. I truely feel awful and am very sorry my actions.
Basically, I feel constantly stuck at the moment and that’s where I’m looking for advice. If I’m honest, the temptation to leave the relationship hasn’t gone and it’s a classic case of the heart and the head at odds with each other. Has anyone else been in a similar position? Do you have any advice for how I should move forward from here? I’m getting to a stage where I can’t see my getting over my work colleague without leaving my job.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated and thank you for taking the time to read my story!