I have been happily married for the last 3 years, but the guy in my office attracts me more. What should I do?
It is absolutely normal to have been attracted to someone else other than your spouse. Studies have shown that people get attracted or develop a crush on others because they are humans and have romantic infatuations. Having a crush on someone else doesn't make you a bad person or it is not like you are deceiving someone. You can like anyone, liking someone is never a crime but all that matters is how you handle your feelings and what are the steps that you take. It is neither a reflection of you as a person nor it reflects your married life. You can have a crush on anyone who you spend time with and who has attractive or, interestingly, anxiety-producing qualities.
But does it mean you don't have feelings for your spouse anymore?
It is quite debatable. According to me, you can have a crush on anyone even if you are in a relationship or married. These are feelings and basically hormones. But you cannot be attracted to someone else if you truly love one person. If you are attracted or getting interest somewhere other than your committed relationship that means there's a gap between you and your partner. It means you have to work on your relationship. Mostly in long term relationships, especially marriages the early stage love is replaced by responsibility in later stages. It is like the early stage romance has faded, there's just attachment and care left. And some part of us want that romance, that excitement, that butterfly in the stomach feeling and hence get attracted somewhere else.
So what is to be done? Should you leave your partner and get to your crush or you should ignore your feelings?
In most of the cases people especially women ignore the feelings. They think this is wrong in terms of society but actually you should think why are you feeling like this, how did this feeling developed, why did this feeling developed? It is because you need reignition and spark in your married life. You lack romance and moreover you are not satisfied. Committed relationships need to not follow those feelings but rather handle them maturely and wisely. Feelings are something that just happens, it is upto us how we handle it so that we can protect ourselves, our relationships and our integrity.
How to handle a crush while being married?
If you want to be in the marriage then the first thing you should do is to get back the energy to be in your primary relationship as soon as possible. Having an infatuation means you need something different in your relationship which is lacking. Then you can figure out what is lacking and can add the ingredients like spending time together, novelty, emotional intimacy, flirtation, and fun. All this will make your relationship stronger than before.
What could be the consequences of not handling the feeling well?
What if you can't handle your feelings and basically get involved in an affair. It can ruin your marriage obviously. Knowing how to handle yourself if you start to develop feelings for someone when you’re already married to another is one of the most important ways of protecting your relationship from an affair. Even though couples can recover from infidelity, infidelity is terribly traumatic and difficult to repair. Affairs destroy marriages and destroy lives, and at the end of the day it tends to result in disappointing relationships with the affair partner as well.
Developing a crush is normal but starting any sort of relationship with him being married is unethical.
The best way to get out of this feeling is to ignore this feeling and instead think of ways of maintaining the fun and excitement in your marriage. And also never keep it away from your spouse, talk to them about your feelings, your expectations and find out how to keep the spark.