princessjay76 Posted March 18, 2009 Posted March 18, 2009 OK....I am a married woman and for the most part we are very happy together. Sometimes we fight but we make up and with 4 kids neither one of us are very satisfied sexually but we do the best we can together. He works long hours, always has and I'm a stay-at-home mom, but I keep active in volunteer work. We've had no major changes in our life other then I have quit smoking. We love each other very much. All of the sudden, for the past few weeks, I have started to have some very strong sexual feelings for a male friend of mine. I even dream about him most nights. Someone that I have been volunteering with for years. We're not particularly close friends and we never see each other socially. I get along well with his wife and our children play great together. We do talk almost everyday through emails because we are co-leaders of our volunteer group together. These feeling just came up out of the blue. I have no interest whatsoever in having a romantic relationship with this man. I don't picture the two of us running off together or anything. The only thing we seem to have in common is our volunteering, as our spouses are not very interested in our activities. The point is that I do not see ourselves as the perfect half of each other. But I just cannot get over the urges I have whenever I just THINK about this man. And now it's getting to be downright uncomfortable being around him. I do not want to act on these urges and I hope that I am strong enough to resist them but I am so afraid that I will not have enough willpower to stop myself if the opportunity arrives. I am very careful to make sure we are never alone together for very long but sometimes we have issue that have to be discussed alone and face to face and i cannot avoid them. I have even thought about starting to smoke again so I do not have to try to fight both things at once. I have thought about other men before in passing, noted how attractive they were and even commented to my husband what I thought of other men, as he has done to me about other women. This time it feels different. This time I feel BAD about thinking of this man and dreaming of him. I don't know what I am looking for here. I guess I just wanted to talk about this to someone and it not be someone I know. Thanks for letting me get my thoughts out.
Reggie Posted March 18, 2009 Posted March 18, 2009 Could be the hormonal surge that seems to happen around 35. Estrogen starts dropping off and testosterone starts taking over. Check out the e-book by Michelle Langely "Women's Infidelity" and the sequel. She seems to think that women of around this age have the same hormonally caused urges as 18 year old boys. But, unlike the boys, they have been socialized such that they mistake the urges for an indication that they no longer love their husbands. Makes some sense, as the cougar phenomenon illustrates.
Chrome Barracuda Posted March 18, 2009 Posted March 18, 2009 Some cougars are out there because their husband left home for 20 something girls, that happens as well. lol. But to the OP how much validation do you want? Your feelings are not in control of you , you are in control of your feelings. If you have a good marriage dont ruin it. because it is just plain stupid.
signedin2008 Posted March 18, 2009 Posted March 18, 2009 Get your act together! It's not a job that help put food on the table, but a job that can destroy your marriage and the lives of your children. Quit that work now.
CaliforniaGirl Posted March 19, 2009 Posted March 19, 2009 Hi, hon. Yes, I have had this happen too. Not often...just a handful of times. For me, it's always been when I was in contact with a male who really, really seemed to give a hoot what I was saying. At some social function or other, a dude paid very close attention to what I was saying, smiled a lot, nodded, encouraged me...did all those things that a guy does when he and a woman are first dating, in other words. I think that's the "trigger" for me. For you, it could be something different. But as far as where the feelings really come from: you said that you and your husband are apart for much of the day. You also have two seemingly different paths right now (career v. being at home). I can totally relate to this. Even though I work from my home, it's just not the same as being out where real live grown-ups are and getting validated every day for doing a job. As a result, there seems to be a split there emotionally at times. There just does. I think this feeling has always been there for families where the husband worked OTH and the woman was in the home...but in the 50s the woman drank, in the 60s she took Valium, in the 70s she swung, in the 80s she worked out obsessively and in the 90s she just scuttled back to work as quickly as possible. Today, we...I don't know. We go on the internet and post about it. Sorry. I'm sure that wasn't much help!
Heather1 Posted March 19, 2009 Posted March 19, 2009 that was funny... I just posted on another woman's post about the same thing. This stuff takes longer than you would think, especially with a friend. Just don't tell him! Just keep your personal stuff w/ girlfriends & husband & you'll be fine. If it's too much to be around him, DON'T TELL HIM!! Just tip toe out for a few weeks until it's not as strong. A couple weeks off really helps gain perspective.
Author princessjay76 Posted March 24, 2009 Author Posted March 24, 2009 You know, I feel pretty stupid right about now. I spent that past week or better assessing my situation and trying to decide what actions I wanted to take. I had few options to take, so it should have been pretty easy, but I wanted to make sure I thought about things long and hard first. Anywho, I realized a few important facts during this time: I had just started a new med that had a side effect of causing odd dreams, these "feelings" started not before the dreams but right after I had had a pretty explicitly detailed dream about my friend and it has been a bit of while since my hubby and I have had any time alone (in other words, I'm pent up) Most important, I thought that there was more to these "feelings" because I was so uncomfortable around my friend. I realized something this week when my friend and I had an incident. Nothing sexual or anything like that. We were in a meeting alone for hours trying to re-organize our help and during one of our many battles, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I wasn't really attracted to this guy. I had been uncomfortable because this was someone I actually did think of as a friend, a good friend and not just an acquaintance and here I was dreaming of him. I realized this when after the 3rd hour or so, I had no desire to jump him on the table. This day wasn't all business. We had lunch and talked about personal things. So if I really did have "feelings" for him, during that meeting I would have felt something more. I had forgotten about everything until he did something that reminded me of one of my dreams and then BOOM! I felt something physical. The urges I felt when I thought of him weren't because of him, it was because of the really really good dream I had (and subsequent dreams that followed) that he just happened to star in. If it had been Kiefer Sutherland in that dream the results would have been the same. And the reason why I felt bad was because this was something I didn't feel like I could tell my hubby, which never happens. I tell him everything but I was embarrassed and felt like I was betraying him that I was getting so...well....horny off a dream, not to mention a dream about someone else. So I told my hubby everything and had him read this post. He's perfectly fine with me having a little "dream crush" (his words) as long as it never goes anywhere because he has them all the time...from Faith Hill to one of my workers. We agreed to talk about these from now on (which, by the way, can get pretty hot) and if we ever have any feelings outside the dream world, to let the other know right away and we'll work things out. I just thought I'd let you guys know since you were so nice to listen to my babbling before. And I have ZERO intention of ever telling the friend about the dreams.
Chrome Barracuda Posted March 25, 2009 Posted March 25, 2009 You know, I feel pretty stupid right about now. I spent that past week or better assessing my situation and trying to decide what actions I wanted to take. I had few options to take, so it should have been pretty easy, but I wanted to make sure I thought about things long and hard first. Anywho, I realized a few important facts during this time: I had just started a new med that had a side effect of causing odd dreams, these "feelings" started not before the dreams but right after I had had a pretty explicitly detailed dream about my friend and it has been a bit of while since my hubby and I have had any time alone (in other words, I'm pent up) Most important, I thought that there was more to these "feelings" because I was so uncomfortable around my friend. I realized something this week when my friend and I had an incident. Nothing sexual or anything like that. We were in a meeting alone for hours trying to re-organize our help and during one of our many battles, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I wasn't really attracted to this guy. I had been uncomfortable because this was someone I actually did think of as a friend, a good friend and not just an acquaintance and here I was dreaming of him. I realized this when after the 3rd hour or so, I had no desire to jump him on the table. This day wasn't all business. We had lunch and talked about personal things. So if I really did have "feelings" for him, during that meeting I would have felt something more. I had forgotten about everything until he did something that reminded me of one of my dreams and then BOOM! I felt something physical. The urges I felt when I thought of him weren't because of him, it was because of the really really good dream I had (and subsequent dreams that followed) that he just happened to star in. If it had been Kiefer Sutherland in that dream the results would have been the same. And the reason why I felt bad was because this was something I didn't feel like I could tell my hubby, which never happens. I tell him everything but I was embarrassed and felt like I was betraying him that I was getting so...well....horny off a dream, not to mention a dream about someone else. So I told my hubby everything and had him read this post. He's perfectly fine with me having a little "dream crush" (his words) as long as it never goes anywhere because he has them all the time...from Faith Hill to one of my workers. We agreed to talk about these from now on (which, by the way, can get pretty hot) and if we ever have any feelings outside the dream world, to let the other know right away and we'll work things out. I just thought I'd let you guys know since you were so nice to listen to my babbling before. And I have ZERO intention of ever telling the friend about the dreams. And if your husband have dreams of a woman who's hotter than you? are you okay with that?
Reggie Posted March 25, 2009 Posted March 25, 2009 Good job. Everyone has attractions to others. You handled this well.
Author princessjay76 Posted March 25, 2009 Author Posted March 25, 2009 And if your husband have dreams of a woman who's hotter than you? are you okay with that? Sure. Why wouldn't I be? I'm hardly so egotistic to think that I am the hottest women in the world. I'm pretty sure there are better looking women in the world and seeing that my hubby isn't blind, I'm pretty sure he's gonna see them. So unless I decide to put blinders over hubby's eyes for the rest of our lives (and wear some myself), then I had better get over the fact that he thinks other women are attractive. It's no different then my thinking other men are attractive. The day he DOESN'T find other women attractive is the day I need to start worrying about our relationship.
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