Am I Emotionally Cheating?

Okay... I have had a quick read around the forum and have seen some stuff I recognize. However, my heart is still in utter turmoil.

A little over a year ago I met X when I started my new job. She is married and has been so for over 10 years. I have been with my gf for almost 3 years. X is 45, I am 25 and very open about my sexuality. Everybody knows I am gay. X and I became friends very quickly. She approached me and we started like just simply chatting. Ever so quickly the chats became very intense and loads of personal stuff was shared. Secrets from my past, her worries and troubles about her marriage and my own worries about my relationship and engagement. I am engaged to my gf and we are planning to get married in September.

As the months went on X and I were partnered up together at work. We used to work on opposite teams and never saw much of each other. As the chats became more intense and the foresight of working together became clear I realized how much I enjoyed seeing her, spending time with her and talking to her. I would literally be waiting to see her at work.

Bad stuff, I know. So we started working together. And the bond has only grown stronger. I know things about her not even her husband knows. She knows things my gf doesnt. She has told me I am making a mistake and that my gf isnt The One. We have so much in common it is scary. We are almost constantly looking for a change to spend time together outside of work. We have been for drinks (with or without friends from work), going to gigs, shopping.. Anything goes really. The text messages are filling my phone and sometimes we spend hours chatting online.

Sometimes we mess about in a playful, flirting matter. Other times we share emotional stuff that puts our hearts in agony and it feels comfortable to share it with each other since neither of our partners shows the capacity to listen.

I know X's husband. We have been out a few times. I envy him. He doesnt know what he has. He doesnt treat her right. He is not even worth having her. I know this sounds so terribly, terribly bad.

I cannot talk to anybody what is going on. I am aware that I have very strong feelings for her and I think that what's going on can be described as an EA. From both our sides, me and X. I think we are both aware of it as well. She has claimed she is now dealing with things she cannot talk to anyone about. I cannot help wondering if our "friendship" has got something to do with it since it seems to be the only thing we never talk about. We talk forever online but sometimes, if its just me and her ina room or somewhere - we are qiuet and dont always know what to say. We just walk, sit or do stuff in silence. Almost as if we cannot speak then.

We are a well matched team at work. We dont need a lot of words to make it clear what we need or want. I can do something and X will finish it for me, basically. We have come to the occasional touching of hands etc. Its like electric - for me- when this happens. Her whole body language tells me she likes me (alot). eyes, body, fingers, feet, the whole lot.

My gf and I fight alot. As much as I love her, I sometimes wonder if I am still in love with her. I have given up a lot for her. I moved for her, left my family way behind and started over with nothing. I have come this far but I am aware of the fact that if something ever goes wrong... I have nowhere to go. My gf doesnt have a lot of the same interests as I do or is reluctant to do things. Me and her have an age difference of 14 years but somehow it is so much more obvious between me and her than between me and X where the age gap is 20 yrs. My gf's got the habit of treating me like a child and seems the miss I am an adult too.

I cannot avoid X, even if I wanted to. I dont want to. I dont want to lose her. It may sound bad but I do need her. She has confessed to me that several years ago she went through a situation where she felt something for another man. She never acted on it, she said. Because she is married. She loves her husband like a brother, not like a husband. The sex is crap, she says but yet she will not leave because of the hassle. She made her bed and has to lie in it, she says. I have asked her whether she'd rather be unhappy for the rest of her life... It put her in turmoil, she said. I cannot describe how it made me feel when she said that. Knowing she knows what it feels like - what I feel now. I still cannot tell her. Not her, not my gf. Not anyone. I have so much to lose and nowhere to go, eventhough X has (partially) joked she will share a flat with me if I ever decide to leave.

Sorry about the whole rant.. I am just trying to empty my heart and my brain and need a place for this to be written down.

You need to face up to your issues with your gf and break up with her. You don't want to be with her, and, it seems, are just stringing along this engagement because you have "nowhere to go". That sounds an awful lot like you're using her for a place to live.

Or, it could be that you're so caught up in this emotional affair that you can't think clearly and really do love your fiancee but have faltered because something shiny came along to get you excited.

Either way, you need to give some deep thought to which it is and resolve your relationship FIRST. If you aren't in love with your gf, then you need to get out of that relationship. Find a new place to live, even if it's some crappy apartment, because it's not fair to your gf to continue deceiving her about your feelings just because you're afraid to move out on your own.

THEN, once you've resolved that relationship, will you be in any position to consider what's going on with your friend. And don't be too sure that's going anywhere good. Despite her problems with her marriage, that doesn't mean she sees you as a love interest that's going to cause her to divorce.

SHE also needs to resolve her marital issues, one way or another, FIRST. Either her marriage is working enough that she's going to stay in it, or it isn't. Only if it isn't does that leave any room for her to consider what you might or might not really mean to her.

It's one relationship at a time, people! Anything else and you shortchange everyone and end up making decisions from a positon of confusion rather than clarity.