Feeling guilty

This is my first post, Sorry about the length. But I do not know where to turn. I also feel I can't talk to anyone about this, as it's very embarrassing to me.. I am trying to get a handle on this as far as why this apparently is happening to me, at this stage in my life.(age 50)

8 months ago, I landed what I'd call the perfect job. It first started out I was very happy in my new position. (I started about 8 months ago). I loved the job like no other and the pay is double of my old position. I feel I am greatly respected and hold an important position with the company. It's been a dream job.

My dilemma is this. I have noticed that almost since I started, a man, (a boss in another dept) at my workplace( but not my own immediate boss) has been paying a lot of attention to me. I noticed that he seemed to be making excuses to come and talk to me and is always being helpful when I need a hand with any problems I have encountered.. He has been a great help. He is always polite, courteous, and always professional. We have started to become very good friends actually. I am married and so is he.(abt 26 yrs for both of us) We are both abt 50, are attractive and healthy for our ages. We have a lot of things in common we've found. I am finding myself helplessly attracted to this man and I can't seem to stop thinking about him when I leave work etc.... I would not call it love at this point, as I do not know him out of the workplace at all. I don't know what to do about it because we work quite closely with eachother, and it's becoming very difficult for me. I keep hoping he will(or no-one else will) notice. I try to remain calm when he is around and act with the same professionalism to him, as all the other bosses I interact with. . I am wondering if this is happening inside my brain, because I have been so unhappy with my own marriage lately, that I have become so attraced to this man, out of lonliness and the fact he makes me feel good by the way he looks at me? I have almost divorced my husband twice in the past. I do love my husband, (except the desire for him has really faded fast lately). It's not like I have not tried very hard with him. He refuses to help our marriage improve, from his standpoint things seem fine.. Our marriage does not seem to have a lot of compatibility at this stage in our life together.. Things have not really seemed to improve as I feel we are really moving in different directions in our life and it makes me very unhappy that I can't share more of my life with my own husband. He doesn't seem to care that much about my happiness. I don't want to hurt him though. I know it is inevitable. I guess I know he loves me in his own way..But that is not enough to hold the marriage together. I know marriage also takes hard work, but he doesn't put much effort into it. I have never considered myself needy, and have always taken pretty good care of myself. At this stage I wonder...Is it time to move on?Our children are grown and married. 26 years is a long tie to be married, but I am unhappy with in the marriage.

I have a lot in common with this man I work with and I keep feeling this pull towards him because he pays this attention to me. But in all honesty I would never want a scandal/talk at work. For all I know he is probably very much in love with his wife, and is just being helpful and a friend. Sometimes I do think about being with him and I realize that this could never work as I would more than likely get fired! He has NEVER implied he wanted anything more than a friendship/work association. I blame myself for my own feelings in this dilemma. Neither of us have talked much about our spouses at work, and I wonder why we do not? I have brought my husband up a few times, but neither of us has ever said anything negative. I feel very guarded in my private life. . I just feel so ashamed of the fact I am so attracted to this married man and the fact that I am married also. I would have said at one time that this would never have been me in this position. How naive we all are at times!.

I am in a lot of emotional pain over this and can't seem to get away from these feelings, because I see him almost every day at the workplace. I am wondering if I should go as far as to quiting my job? I am starting to feel like that might be the only solution. Maybe it is and I should try working on my troubled marriage of 26 years a little more. But then I stop and think, what happens if this happens again at another workplace? Maybe I am getting attracted to others because my marriage is failing. I have always considered myself a pretty happy person on the inside, yet now that this has happened I wonder what is going on here?....

Why is it, that we always seem to want what we can't have and then when we get it, we find out it wasn't that much greener on that side of the fence?
What really makes me so angry and dissappointed with myself is that I am 50 and a grandmother, I should know better than to get involved with a married person and me being married makes it all the more wrong! You'd think that this sort of problem would be somewhat happening in a person 's younger years. I just want to feel like I am making the right choices here and I guess there are no guarantees in life. How does one "move on" and "get over it", when you have to see each other daily? I feel so guilty for having these feelings, yet I have never been untrue physically. I guess I know it's wrong to even have these feelings and thoughts while one is married to another. What's the solution? Should I tell my husband I am attracted to this man?

hi brown eyed.....i'm moving your thread to the relationship support forum on the ow/ym side of the boards to hopefully get you more input.

Tracy

Welcome Brown Eyed Girl.

We normally help folks with age-gap relationship related problems here, although we have many members (mostly women) who aren't in a relationship at all.

I think you need to go to counseling and get some help for yourself. I say that because I have been a similar circumstance to you. I'm 54 and married for over 30 years before things fell apart. When they were falling apart (like they are for you) I went to counseling for awhile to work out my feelings about myself, my life, my marriage and what I want the rest of my life to be.

You are focusing on this man because he's put you in touch with feelings you haven't felt for a long time. Most of us women been there to varying degrees by the time we've reached 50, unless we were married to a man who knew how to love us the way we needed to be loved.

If you choose to leave your marriage, you have to leave it because it is the right thing for you to do for yourself, for your sanity, for your growth, etc. Leaving for someone else is rarely the answer.

I hope that what I've said makes sense to you. You really are far from being alone in where you are in your life and your feelings. Many, many of us have been there.

Good luck and please consider counseling. You can only benefit from it. Even though I wound up splitting from my husband, I am so much happier in my own skin. Counseling helped me make the decisions that I needed to make to be happy.

Thanks for the reply!

You made me feel so much better. Yes I am actually in counseling for another non- related issue, and this attraction issue did come up. The counselor told me pretty much what you said. The reason I am feeling like this is because I do not get love and attention from my husband at home but it could be because he has his whole set of reasons and issues of his own that he needs to deal with like fear of intimacy etc.......He will not go to counseling though s he has no problems he said.

I have been married /divorced before. But the first marriage lasted only 5 years. I Guess I knew all along I needed some extra help sorting this out. I have been doing a lot of thinking tonight and I think I'd like to go back to school and finish my degree and get my mind off of this man that I think about, and like you said concentrate more on ME.