I cheated with a married co-worker

[pippi179]

I basically cheated with a co-worker. He is married and he has cheated on his wife before (at the begining of the summer last year) but she knows. We talk all the time we know so much about each other. We've told each other things we haven't told anybody else. When ever we close at work or I work late he walks me out to my car. We will be just talking at first then next thing we know we are fooling around. I know this is bad of me but it is bad of him too. He thinks that if we aren't making out or having sex that its not exactly cheating but I know it is and I don't stop it. I'm very young but old enough and he is 16 years olderthan me. I only text him while he is at work cause he doesn't want he wife to know. Again I know this is bad but it life and it has already happened. His mom died about. Over a week ago from cancer :/ very sad. He hasn't been to work at all which is good and bad for him. The thing is I haven't been able to talk to him or hind out he is doing. It is driving me nuts cause I really do care about him. I've come to be very close friends with him. I am constantly thinking about him right now and I can't wait til he comes back to work. He coming back for the first time tomorrow and I'm going to go visit him cause I don't work again til Wednesday and I don't think I can wait that long to see him again and find how he is doing.

[TheFinalWord]

I basically cheated with a co-worker. He is married and he has cheated on his wife before (at the begining of the summer last year) but she knows. We talk all the time we know so much about each other. We've told each other things we haven't told anybody else. When ever we close at work or I work late he walks me out to my car. We will be just talking at first then next thing we know we are fooling around. I know this is bad of me but it is bad of him too. He thinks that if we aren't making out or having sex that its not exactly cheating but I know it is and I don't stop it. I'm very young but old enough and he is 16 years olderthan me. I only text him while he is at work cause he doesn't want he wife to know. Again I know this is bad but it life and it has already happened. His mom died about. Over a week ago from cancer :/ very sad. He hasn't been to work at all which is good and bad for him. The thing is I haven't been able to talk to him or hind out he is doing. It is driving me nuts cause I really do care about him. I've come to be very close friends with him. I am constantly thinking about him right now and I can't wait til he comes back to work. He coming back for the first time tomorrow and I'm going to go visit him cause I don't work again til Wednesday and I don't think I can wait that long to see him again and find how he is doing.

 

Yes what you are doing is very damaging to yourself. You have feelings for this man...feelings which can never grow beyond what this is: sex without a relationship. It will be a source of constant frustration.

 

1) If you two are telling each other things that he does not even tell his wife, that is a type of cheating. Emotional affair if you will. It is also making you feel you are special to him. What you are is an affair to him. He's done this before. He's a master at manipulating women's emotions. It's what he's doing to you now. He's got you infatuated with him. I'm sure you will say that he really cares about you and you two have a special bond. But just ask yourself, if this really were the case would he still be married to this woman? No, he'd be with you.

2) He's married and isn't going to leave his wife for you

3) He can have sex with you and then go home and have sex with his wife...if he's done this before, it's not a problem for him and he is probably sleeping with other women too.

4) He would cheat on his wife, which means he'd cheat on you

 

What good can come of this for you? Where do you see this going?

[Trimmer]

Welcome to LoveShack. You may find it gets a little rough here, but if you are really serious about getting some advice, please read through as much as you can. If you are put off or offended by something someone says, then just move past it, but realize that even within the stuff that seems abrasive to you, if you are willing to be honest with yourself, you may find some truth that you need.

 

OK, you seem to know that what you are doing is wrong:

 

I know this is bad of me but it is bad of him too. He thinks that if we aren't making out or having sex that its not exactly cheating but I know it is and I don't stop it.

 

First question is: do you want it to stop? If you don't care that it keeps going, then you probably won't find much advice here worthwhile. Nobody here really gives a lot of advice about the effective ways to carry on an affair willingly, or how to enjoy it or feel good about it. This isn't that kind of place.

 

Now, if you do want it to stop, you will have to make a clean and complete break from him. No "being friends", no walking to the car after closing, no texts, no leaning on each other for support. Take my word, you will need to do this to stop. I can see from some of your other statements that you may not have an easy time of this:

 

The thing is I haven't been able to talk to him or hind out he is doing. It is driving me nuts cause I really do care about him. I've come to be very close friends with him. I am constantly thinking about him right now and I can't wait til he comes back to work. He coming back for the first time tomorrow and I'm going to go visit him cause I don't work again til Wednesday and I don't think I can wait that long to see him again and find how he is doing.

As long as you continue contact with him, as long as you are seeking him out, looking for and craving his friendship, you will not be able to break the patterns that will keep you in the affair. People experience this time and time again on this board - they think they can just "turn it down" or "step back" to just being friends. It will mess you up, and it will be worse than just cutting it off. And you probably won't believe that at first - you'll probably think that you can handle it...

 

Now, as far as dealing with your own feelings, you will try denial. You will say things like you "basically" cheated - to make it sound less awful - or stuff like this:

 

I know this is bad of me but it is bad of him too.

 

We will be just talking at first then next thing we know we are fooling around.

Yes, it is bad of him, but that doesn't diminish your responsibility to make choices in your life that you can live with.

 

And by saying "the next thing we know..." it makes it sound like it's something that happens to you. In fact, you need to be honest with yourself and admit to the truth that this is something you are choosing to do, something you are deciding to make happen.

 

Until you can be that honest with yourself - as long as you keep fooling yourself and minimizing your responsibility - you will feel like it's just something happening to you and you won't really feel enough fear, enough anxiety, enough distaste at what you are doing, that you motivate you to take action and make decisions to change what is happening.

 

You show glimpses of self-awareness - admitting that you know it's wrong, and that even though you are young, you are still responsible. Now take that the rest of the way: admit that regardless of him and his behavior, you are fully responsible for your own behavior. Then look in the mirror and decide who you want to be, and what you want to do about it.

 

And while you're at it, think about two other things:

 

Think about his wife looking in the mirror at herself. Does she think that his other affair was just a one-time thing and now they're healed and moving into a better future? Or does she kinda suspect what is going on, again, and trying to figure out how she got herself into this life, and what to do about it. Neither one is a very pretty picture, is it? You are a part of that picture, until you make the choice to remove yourself from it - completely.

 

The other thing to think about is this great guy you are so close to. This is like one of those horror movies where the good looking guy walks past a mirror and the reflection shows some kind of a monster. Remember that this is a guy who has (now at least twice) cheated on the woman he supposedly loves. This isn't a one-time "mistake", this is a pattern. This is a character flaw. He is a liar, in one of the most inhumane, hurtful ways that one can be a liar - to someone who loves (loved?) and trusts (trusted?) him.

 

What do we look for out of the person we spend our life with? We want to be safe, respected, cared about, and to be able to trust. He has smashed those things into the ground. This is who he is - and not as a "mistake" but as a pattern - as part of his character.

 

Is this who you deserve?

 

This situation is completely under your control, and as long as you let it continue, then you have made the choice that it will continue.

 

Finally, I'd like to ask you, if you're willing to share, just how old are you, actually? If you are 18 (and he's 34) then that's a little different landscape than if you're 27 and 43, or something like that. How young is "young?" You obviously know right from wrong, and you are starting to sound like you understand the idea of taking responsibility for your actions, but if there's an age- or employment- related power imbalance here, that makes him even more creepy and character-flawed, although you might not see it so clearly until you are older...

 

Edited to add: Incidentally, in your opening post, you said that you "fool around" but then you said that he thinks if he's not "making out or having sex" it's not "exactly cheating." What exactly is it that you are doing, then?

 

However, every word I've said here still applies even if you're not having sex yet.... If you feel like you are doing something inappropriate, and you are having to hide from his wife, you've crossed the line, and it's probably only a matter of time. If it's not physical yet, then maybe you have a chance to get out and break off contact before you are more emotionally damaged, but you still need to break it off, completely.

Edited February 21, 2012 by Trimmer

[nofool4u]

The thing is I haven't been able to talk to him or hind out he is doing. It is driving me nuts cause I really do care about him. I've come to be very close friends with him. I am constantly thinking about him right now and I can't wait til he comes back to work. He coming back for the first time tomorrow and I'm going to go visit him cause I don't work again til Wednesday and I don't think I can wait that long to see him again and find how he is doing.

 

Ok, so you say you have cheated, but mention nothing about your significant other.

 

So what is it you are expecting from a bunch of us that have suffered at the hands of someone like you? A pat on the back and a "there there now"?

 

You think this is a forum that SUPPORTS infidelity and cheating? Maybe it is to some of the dregs, but for the most part, nope.

 

If you want support in continuing your betrayal while giving us a sob story about how you miss a MM cheater, while cheating on your own significant other, the Other Man/Other Woman forum will suit you more.

[Professor X]

I am getting the vibe that you wanna continue with these shenanigans? If so, this isn't the place to get advice on how to continue cheating, as nofool4u said.