Is friendship with the wife of a crush possible?

[melancholia]

This thread has become too much. Some people are obviously taking this personally and are projecting their own experiences into their responses. I think the OP has taken the advice she needs, and a little more than she expected as well. I say we close this thread, if we can. We're all going around in circles and nobody is getting anywhere.

[Wakeup]

This thread has become too much. Some people are obviously taking this personally and are projecting their own experiences into their responses.

Now you're just assuming. It doesn't take "experience" to give the advice that Op has gotten regarding her behaviour with her OSF/crushes/emotional affair. All it takes is being well read, as well as having good personal boundaries and relationship boundaries in place and to be able to actually "get" what one has read without taking offence.. Ya know, "if the shoe fits" kinda thing.

I think the OP has taken the advice she needs, and a little more than she expected as well. I say we close this thread, if we can. We're all going around in circles and nobody is getting anywhere.

We don't close threads around here. (at least very, very rarely anyway) As long as someone keeps posting, someone is bound to respond.

[melancholia]

Keep stoking the fire...

[Wakeup]

... ...

[that EmmaGirl]

This thread has become too much. Some people are obviously taking this personally and are projecting their own experiences into their responses. I think the OP has taken the advice she needs, and a little more than she expected as well. I say we close this thread, if we can. We're all going around in circles and nobody is getting anywhere.

Yes! ^This.
Thank you!
Some people sure get in an interesting holier-than-thou mode here.

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just to be clear: I don't believe it is narcissitic to get involved in an emotional affair.

It is however narcissistic to smile in the wifes face whilst stabbing her in the back.

To the person who somehow didn't get the hint about their wrong use of "narcissism", here goes:
"Narcissism is the pursuit of gratification from vanity or egotistic admiration of one's own attributes. The term originated from Greek mythology, where the young Narcissus fell in love with his own image reflected in a pool of water." (This is from wikipedia, which I must admit, I would not accept from my students, but it's useful for a first )

I have to disappoint you, I do not admire my own attributes. I think you might have meant "egotistical". Which I'm also NOT.
Confused, sad, and hurting, maybe, but not egotistical.

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You're not being "obtuse" because you don't agree with me, you're being obtuse because you justify everything you do as not being what many articles have been written about, you justify your over the top behaviour of flirting, your crushes on your OSF's and them on you and you fail to see that your way of interacting with men is inappropriate when they or you are in a relationship.

ok, hi, I'm not justifying anything. I already feel like s***, I don't need to be called more names by you. I'm making a *general* point about relationships NOT being easy.

I give up on you. You are not going to change and you will be finding yourself in trouble like this all through your life (pity your husband or life-partner) because you can't see the error of your ways. Sure, I give you kudos for backing off now but had you behaved differently then non of this would have happened. You gave off a vibe to him and he responded to it. Now you have to see him at work everyday and he has some serious personal insight to go through to get you out of his head and his focus back on his wife.

I'm not angry that we disagree, like I said, stupid remarks are what make me angry and what you said was moronic. In fact, it proved that you have no idea about what you read and are totally closed off to learning that one-on-one interaction with a member of the opposite sex when one or the other is in a primary relationship ALWAYS has a chance of developing into what happened to you and this man. You had a crush and he certainly picked up on it and threw caution to the wind now didn't he.

I'm not sure how it is in your line of work, but I'm an associate professor at a University, it's not always easy to avoid one-on-one time with people, often brilliant colleagues one might look up to. Friendships tend to form between people and the line to "more" is not always easy to see.
It's funny how you're telling me I'm not able to read properly and understand that article you linked, when most of us grew up reading hundreds of books on how complicated relationships are. Sorry, it is not always easy and relationships are not always black and white, when you're friends with someone you have a crush on, you're normally not assuming that they might develop feelings for you.

BTW: You never answered my earlier question: How would you feel if your husband was meeting up one-on-one, flirting, having behind your back missives and communication after hours and that he developed feelings for her and she him.

My ex-boyfriend did have frequent one-on-one meetings with younger females. Frequently, in fact, since he's an English professor. I know that some of them might have had crushes on him. How would I feel if he had feelings for them? I wouldn't like it, of course. What a question!
I'm sure he thought that some of them are very good-looking, it's normal, you know. And I knew he was flirty when I met him and that he was flirty with other women (not students, obviously) even after we became an item, but flirty doesn't mean unfaithful in my world.
Had I known about any feelings, I probably would have felt bad. But I admit there were instances in our four-year relationship when I thought about other men as interesting, but these feelings passed quickly.
It happens.
Maybe not in the world of someone who lives according to articles filled with tired, uninteresting stereotypes so old, I expect them to proudly show me pictures of their grandkids who go to Harvard.

[Wakeup]

Yes! ^This.
Thank you!
Some people sure get in an interesting holier-than-thou mode here.

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To the person who somehow didn't get the hint about their wrong use of "narcissism", here goes:
"Narcissism is the pursuit of gratification from vanity or egotistic admiration of one's own attributes. The term originated from Greek mythology, where the young Narcissus fell in love with his own image reflected in a pool of water." (This is from wikipedia, which I must admit, I would not accept from my students, but it's useful for a first )

I have to disappoint you, I do not admire my own attributes. I think you might have meant "egotistical". Which I'm also NOT.
Confused, sad, and hurting, maybe, but not egotistical.

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ok, hi, I'm not justifying anything. I already feel like s***, I don't need to be called more names by you. I'm making a *general* point about relationships NOT being easy.



I'm not sure how it is in your line of work, but I'm an associate professor at a University, it's not always easy to avoid one-on-one time with people, often brilliant colleagues one might look up to. Friendships tend to form between people and the line to "more" is not always easy to see.
It's funny how you're telling me I'm not able to read properly and understand that article you linked, when most of us grew up reading hundreds of books on how complicated relationships are. Sorry, it is not always easy and relationships are not always black and white, when you're friends with someone you have a crush on, you're normally not assuming that they might develop feelings for you.



My ex-boyfriend did have frequent one-on-one meetings with younger females. Frequently, in fact, since he's an English professor. I know that some of them might have had crushes on him. How would I feel if he had feelings for them? I wouldn't like it, of course. What a question!
I'm sure he thought that some of them are very good-looking, it's normal, you know. And I knew he was flirty when I met him and that he was flirty with other women (not students, obviously) even after we became an item, but flirty doesn't mean unfaithful in my world.
Had I known about any feelings, I probably would have felt bad. But I admit there were instances in our four-year relationship when I thought about other men as interesting, but these feelings passed quickly.
It happens.
Maybe not in the world of someone who lives according to articles filled with tired, uninteresting stereotypes so old, I expect them to proudly show me pictures of their grandkids who go to Harvard.

Well, you may not be narcissistic even though there is a mental illness called Narcissistic Personality Disorder that you may want to research because its certainly closer to the definition I think was implied then the one you are using... Anyway, you certainly have just shown you are pretentious.

If you wouldn't like it if your boyfriend/husband ended up in a situation that you've ended up in, pray tell, why are you putting yourself in a position that facilitates this type of drama?
You appear to have very little in the way of relationship boundaries. You also are clearly not into changing the dynamics of your OS Friendships once you ARE in something committed with someone.
Is it due to the attention and the rush you get from being crushing on married men or otherwise and then freaking the fk out when they return the notion? Seems so.

when you're friends with someone you have a crush on, you're normally not assuming that they might develop feelings for you.

... and hence The whole point of what I'm saying is the possibility is ALWAYS there and that is why you don't put yourself in that position. When you have a crush on someone it is obvious that you do (even if you, in your naivety think otherwise)... that kind of attention from the opposite sex can cause the other to reciprocate. Hence why I said way back when that he's already betrayed her emotionally and you betrayed yourself by continuing on the slippery slope, this "friendship" when in reality, it was you just feeding your own desires.

As I said, as long as someone keeps posting, someone is bound to reply.

[lightstar]

self entitled behavior (taking what is not yours to take), arrogance, cockyness, vanity (believing you would be better suited to him than someone else), deciet, betrayal, cheating, multiple affairs etc etc all fall into narcissitic tendencies or NPD as wakeup mentioned above..

Anyway I didn't say you are a narcissist. I said it is narcissistic to be friends with someone that you are betraying either directly or indirectly.

I would not use such terms if I wasn't well read on the topic and didn't know what I was talking about.

Also there is nothing in this thread that I can relate to personally and hopefully I will never have to deal with my spouse having any sort of affair but I do know that how you both are behaving is wrong. So no I am not coming at you due to personal baggage.

I think you fell into this situation sort of by accident not realizing at the time that it was breaking boundaries and interloping on a marriage but now that you do know and can more easily recognize the signs of an EA in the future, I think you should take the advice being given here and move on.

It is in your own best inteterests to find a man who can commit to you 100%, who doesn't have any baggage and can be trusted. We are doing you a favor here but you choose to take it as a personal attack on you.

[dontaskme]

that my dear makes you a narcassistic biatch who just needs to be locked up or institutionalized!!

You did call her a narcissist unless of course ^^^ that was a drunk post and you don't remember it?

Anyway OP, I do agree that it probably is not in the best interest of the wife to be friends with her and the husband given that you and her hubby openly admitted your feelings for each other. Unless of course you come clean with the wife and tell her that you have a crush on her husband and that the husband feels the same way and let the wife decide whether she wants you to be in the circle of her friends, which I suspect is highly unlikely.