Contrary to popular opinion, cheating really isn’t very much fun. Granted, there are some thrills to be had in the beginning, but they are far outweighed by the drawbacks. From a purely selfish point of view, it takes up every last moment of your free time. Also, the continued lying really wears a person down after a while. It isn’t easy to come up with new excuses and deliver them convincingly time after time after time. Furthermore, guilt and fear really suck.
I hope you don’t get drawn into this. It’s truly miserable (aside from being morally reprehensible, but I, for one, am not going to go there.) Good luck!
Yeah, PunditLisa pretty much said what I would have, and so much more clearly!
Some practical tips (my partner and I have been together 18 years now)
NO Drinking!!!
Tell your partner that you are having conflicts - whether or not you choose to go into detail is up to you, but she needs to know what is happening - there is a REAL good chance that she already knows something is up.
See the client as a real human being - right now she is a shot of adrenaline, a thrill, a new hot woman who is interested in YOU. In the real life? She is conflicted, messing up her girlfriend, and probably has bad breath in the morning. In other words, she ain’t got nothin’ over your girlfriend, who has already seen you with bed-head and likes you anyway.
(That is a glib way to put it, but I’m trying to say to look at her WITHOUT the shinyness…)
Have a long, long vacation with your girlfriend and try to remember what it was like when everything was all shiny-new with her.
Good luck. I am feeling for you, more than you can know. I’ve been there.
I was in a similar situation - I ended up becoming involved with one of my friends, who was also in the same academic program as I was. And who has an SO of many years. We were always attracted to each other, but it took one drunken night for us to cross the line. We told ourselves that it would never happen again, but once that line is crossed, it’s so easy to cross it again. Unfortunately we crossed it many, many times before we broke it off. He’s still with his SO (and I honestly cannot understand how he was able to continue on with his relationship after that whole episode - the thought that she is still with him and oblivious to what happened still racks me with guilt).
It starts off as a few drunken episodes, then gradually it gets to the point where you don’t need alcohol anymore to lower your inhibitions - hell, it gets to the point where there are no inhibitions anymore. You tell yourself again and again that you have to stop, but once you’re with that person, your resolve goes out the window because the attraction is so overwhelming. And because you’ve already crossed the line, you think “well, whatever we do, it’s nothing we haven’t done before.”
Of course, I can only speak from the point of view of the “other” person (I myself was single at the time). But if you really want to break this off, avoid this person as much as you can - especially situations where you two are alone. Resolve alone is NOT ENOUGH. Lust is a frighteningly strong motivator and the line gets easier to cross every time. I used to tell myself that what happened between him and me was inevitable because our attraction was so strong, but that was a pathetic excuse. It was a conscious decision that ended up hurting a lot of people, directly and indirectly. Believe me, you do not want to go down this road.
Something I was thinking of as I drove to work today…
it sounds to me like you’re making decisions for your woman, as well. Are you sure that an open relationship would be unacceptable? Have you* talked* about that with her? A lot of the things we do in our relationships are based on assumptions. Don’t assume you know what she thinks until you’ve asked. Of course you have to take into account whether the risk of her having a “bad reaction” outweighs the benefits or not, and what the other two women would have to say; and of course I still think that you should make up your mind about what to do when you run into attractive, possibly interested people in the future. Frankly, I’m amazed that in a seven year relationship you’d never looked at another; either your tastes are real narrow, you’ve seen other attractive people but they never looked possible… or you must spend a lot on arnica from going through life with your eyes closed
I agree with this, and keep your mind on business. Don’t keep thinking about what you could be doing instead, and how exciting it might be.
Now this, I disagree with. I think dwelling on her in any form is a bad idea. You’re already giving her way too much space in your head as it is. When the thought of her comes up outside of strictly business contact, knock it back down. You don’t have to keep her in your thoughts.
From the way you explain your feelings I think you realize that going through with this will create a cloud of guilt that will follow you for the rest of your life.
Reread Fetchund’s post because that’s what I was going to say.
Thank you everyone. I really don’t have any intention of following this through, I just need to get her out of my head. I’ve ‘just’ come out of a meeting with her, and it helped to see her in a purely professional environment. We also sat pointedly at opposite ends of the boardroom table.
It’ll be ok, I just need to work through this and spent some quality time with my girlfriend.
I must agree about the danger of having “just one more” intimate conversation: it is unlikely to diminish the glamour, and instead promote feelings of intimacy and secrecy.
It is easy for memebers of a anonymous message board to judge from afar. While all of the advice you’ve received is sound and true, it’s correspondence like this one you got that illustrate how difficult the real life situation can be. So while “tell her to cut the shit” is still good advice, please know that there are members here who realize how hard this is for you. Don’t give in, you know what’s right.
Because my client told me that after she’d made a pass at me at Christmas, she told my boss (who is a good friend of hers) - because she was embarrassed about crossing the line and wanted to apologise. My boss had never said anything to me, except the other night when I was talking to my client, my boss said to me as an aside ‘be careful’. The following day, my client tells me, she said to the client ‘I won’t ask and I don’t want to know’. So yeh, looks likes she knows SOMETHING went on, but she hasn’t said a word to me about it.
Sounds like this woman really needs a governor on her brain. You don’t make these things less awkward by bringing them to others’ attention. Or by sending sultry emails.
Yes, but remember, you bear half of the responsibility for it getting to this point. You fucked with your relationship and your job too. She seems to not have as much of an issue of hurting her SO as you do with hurting yours and I’m glad to see that deep down you know what’s right and want what’s right. But, the proof is in the pudding. If you want to continue your relationship with your SO, do what you need to do to make that happen.
I’m sure it’s difficult since she is a client but I’m sure you can put a wall up between you and her without damaging your professional relationship.
Good luck!