Married...with a Crush

[Nunya_Bee]

I'm in my mid-to-late twenties and have been with the same guy for over seven years. We dated for less than a year before deciding to run away and elope.
The last few years have left me feeling more and more distant from my husband. We have always been very different; I'm a very sexual person and he is not; I am a very artistic person and he is not; I am a very easy-going person and he is high-strung and explosive. Despite all of these differences, I know I love him. But we don't kiss. We don't cuddle. We have sex about once or twice a month and sometimes it feels like business. We don't laugh or talk like we used to and on a daily basis I feel as though I'm talking to a wall when we're having a conversation. It's very one-sided and it makes me feel like I'm alone in this; alone in everything. He is obsessed with this video game called Destiny, which he plays on a daily basis. This game is played with headphones on with several other people, which he laughs and talks and just has a grand ol' time with. When he is playing this game it's as if I don't exist. If I try to say something to him he angrily rips off the headphones and stares at me. This game has been the source of the biggest riff in our relationship and is the cause of many arguments because he just plays CONSTANTLY. If I ask him not to play so that we can spend time together it's as if I'm asking him to set the TV on fire. He gets nasty, disrespectful and hostile. We have had discussions about setting schedules, "blackout days", but I always find myself sitting on the couch while he plays, feeling alone and frustrated.

So now that you know how the relationship has been going, I can explain the crush. He is the owner of massage therapy studio I frequent. I've been a client of his for a few years now and he added me on Facebook after my first or second session a few years ago. He seems like a very quiet and private person, which I greatly respect. As you can imagine with massage, there is a fair amount of physical contact. It is and always has been purely professional and there has never been any amount of inappropriateness. That said, there is a chemistry we cannot deny. It is present in person and on social media. After several months of not going to him, I recently made a trip and the chemistry seemed intensified. Again, nothing inappropriate, but the gazes and touch felt like fire. Up until new years day, he had been in a long-term relationship with an absolutely GORGEOUS woman. He constantly gushed about her both publicly and on the internet, and I was surprised it didn't work. He didn't go into detail about the breakup, but I know that he moved into his own place (and invited me to his very intimate house-warming party). Since my last massage, we have been messaging almost daily. I posted on our city's facebook page how I was looking for a group of beginner runners as I would like to start running, and he immediately messaged me asking if I'd like to go on a run with him. His massage studio is about three minutes from my work, and he asked me to meet him on Tuesday evening to go for said run. I did not say yes. I did not say no. I just said that I did not know what my evening would look like and did not want to commit. I haven't been able to stop thinking about what would happen if I met up with him.

For the first time in my seven-year marriage, I am frighteningly infatuated with someone else. Someone who is already giving me more attention than my husband. Someone who has set fire to my skin with their touch, and it was not even sexual (does that even make sense?). Someone who seems interested in what I think and have to say. For years I have tried and tried to get my husband to listen to me and to help me reignite our flame, but it seems futile. We have this conversation every few months about what needs to change and he apologizes profusely and says I deserve better...but nothing changes. Lately we can't go a day without bickering. Our relationship seems tired and tense and awkward and I can't help but continue to ask myself if this is it? Is this how it will be forever?

I am overcome with guilt because I don't know if these feelings are normal and I am just blowing them out of proportion. I don't know if my attraction to the other man is rooted in my own unhappiness and neglect in my own marriage. I don't know how to be happy again or to make my husband care and don't want to drift any further away because I don't know if I will be able to find my way back.

I am looking for understanding and advice, not judgement. Have you been here? Did you fix it?

[atskitty2]

Hello! Welcome to the site! I'm glad you're here and trusted us to give our thoughts on your situation.

What you're experiencing is "normal", but that doesn't make it good, healthy or ok. What you choose to do here will potentially affect you for a long time to come.

I do think that you've developed a crush because your needs aren't met at home. You're feeling neglected and here's a guy that gives you undivided, pleasurable attention every time you see him. It's a somewhat natural progression.
You can communicate easily with him, as opposed to the somewhat volatile responses from your husband.

What do you want to happen? Do you want your marriage to work out, or are you ready to possibly end it?

My advice to you is to tell your husband how unhappy you are and ask him to go to counseling for guidance on how to work out the communication problem you have. He needs to understand and change, and so do you.

Depending on your comfort level and how that suggestion goes over, I'd even admit to him that you've developed a crush...and explain that you don't want to act on this impulse and that's why you're sharing it...to demonstrate how unhappy you are, and how far down the path you've gone in your unhappiness and attempts to have your needs met.

If you don't change your focus, it's very likely that you will wind up physically cheating. Not because you're a rotten person, but because you have needs and they're not being met where they're supposed to be met.

I've been there. I understand what you're going through. It seems difficult in this time, but you must decide what you want to have happen through this. If you don't address the problem, this will likely happen over and over, if you stay married. And as I see it, the problem is your lack of satisfaction at home from your husband.

Don't be too hard on yourself. Cheating or emotional involvement with someone else is not the best thing, but we all find ways to cope and get our needs taken care of. This is not the healthy way to go about it, but you're not a horrible person. Just take the opportunity and try to make improvements at home. If that doesn't work, then you know that it's possible the marriage won't last...you're incompatibility will be the end of it.

[Texasred]

Nunya, i think youur husband has a srious problem, whth5rr he can admit to it or not. You seem on the verge of having an affair, but your husband, psychologically, is already having one, not with another woman but with a video game. WITHOUT telling him you have a crush on someone, give him an ultimatum: it's you or the video game, which does he want?
As long, that is, as you can accept that he might choose the game. He sounds woefully immature and I must say, it seems unlikely he'll make a good choice here either.
Consider also, though, that your mmassage friend might be on the rebound himself.

[amy40]

nunya welcome

I used to go for massages (to a woman) and we'd talk about anything and everything and she'd even spill beans about other clients
it's a very personal business and often people in personal businesses such as massage and hairdressers are great at being personal
after all it's their business and they want people to come back

think you should switch to another massage therapist
and work on your marriage to see if you can save it (you said you love him)

7 yrs is a time when so many do divorce because they reach complacency and instead of working on their marriage, they give up
but marriages do go through highs and lows and the people who work through things often come out better on the other side

hide his games for a while and tell him you want him to play with you OR learn to play his games with him
start kissing him everyday until he starts responding
read once that women should give husbands a 10 second kiss everyday when they come home from work

sometimes someone in a marriage has to be the one to light the fire and get it going again or it will fizzle
In your marriage, it has to be you and you can do it (if u want to)

how does the song go......"love the one you're with"
best to you

[amy40]

read a book this past year about a married couple and it talked about an "other"
that every marriage needs an "other"

something the couple has that they focus on together.....it could be exercise, a hobby, travel, cooking
something that they focus on outside themselves, an interest, and "the other" helps keep the marriage together

you two need to find your "other"

also, couples who do "new" things together heighten interest in each other, one learns new things about the other person and just doing the new things together creates interest in each other

so go to a museum, amusement park, take a class together, go skating, hiking, something
in other words......date your husband

[Popcorn&Candy]

You're obviously feeling neglected by your husband. You need affection, love and sexual desire from your husband. You need to convey this to him. Going into a relationship with another man won't solve anything. It will temporarily satisfy your desires but you'll end up with a broken marriage. I can't read your mind and don't know your exact feelings for your husband, but you do. Be honest with yourself about your feelings for your husband. If you're not attracted to your husband anymore, then maybe you have to accept the love is gone. You don't have to stay in the marriage out of duty: be honest with yourself. Morality does matter but in order to be morally right, you need to admit to whatever you're feeling. Take time out and see those deep, inner thoughts without denial.