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Crushing On My Coworker Brought Me Back to My Husband

I finally admitted that my attempt at nonmonogamy had landed me firmly in polyamory, but Jack had known this all along

Per usual, Ned and I spent our entire forty-minute morning break together, wasting away time with the same old chatter that always bordered on flirting.

I never knew where I stood with Ned. One moment it was flirtatious or erotic, like when he tied me up and told me I was beautiful, and the next, he’d be slow to respond to a text, or change the subject to another woman he wanted to date.

Now he was saying something about dating and relationships. I don’t remember exactly what he said — something about something being confusing.

I do remember my response. I scoffed, my face nervously forming a half smile, half astonished smirk. “This is confusing,” I practically spat.

I guess I had been waiting for some segue to say it. He froze, taken aback, so I took the opportunity to elaborate.

“I don’t know what’s going on here sometimes,” I said.

He momentarily faltered, but then he went into hyperdrive. It was all the same things he’d said before, now fired out in rapid succession.

We’re taking it slow.

We don’t want to ruin this. This is working well.

What happens at work if we break up?

So we shouldn’t even get started.

You know, most of these poly relationships are fluid. They don’t last more than two or three years.

Adult relationships are complicated.

When he finally paused, I felt I should jump in. I wanted to tell him that I was good at relationships. I wanted to tell him that I was honest, that I communicate amazingly well, that I’m a good friend first and foremost, and a damn good lover to those privileged to know me that way.

I wanted him to know that I knew it was complicated, too, but maybe it could be complicated in a good way, a way that means that we have to work a little but that it’s worth the work. I wanted to tell him that everything was complicated until you talked about it, and that I believed putting words to the emotions could help sort things out. Instead, all those words got wrapped up in a knot before they could escape my lips.

“I’m smart,” I squeaked.

And then, I found my lips trying to move, and nothing more able to come out. He filled the void with more babble — words, yes, but when strung together the ideas didn’t make sense. But what if this doesn’t work out…I need work to be my safe space…I exist differently here…I don’t want to lose you, so we have to be careful and go slow…you’re amazing…you’re hot…you and Jack are amazing friends and we want to be with you for the long haul…adult breakups are hard.

We were interrupted as a visitor flung open his door, requiring his assistance. I grabbed my mask and shrouded my face behind its protective barrier, hoping to hide my discomfort. For a moment I thought I was fine, I thought that perhaps it was good that I had broached the subject. Maybe I’d finally received clarification.

Quite the opposite, I realized. My chest was tight. I stumbled through a meeting, my mind as far from digital archives as it could be.

After the meeting, I texted him.

“Sorry. Point taken. Can I stop in again at lunch?”

I paced the library. I struggled to answer questions, to look like I had it together. My face was stony, pale — my hands shaking as I assisted patrons.

I tried to choke down a bowl of soup at the beginning of lunch, alone, but the butternut squash was already threatening to come back up as I tried to push it down. Shoving it back into my mini-fridge, I promised to return to it once this was resolved.

Steadying my breath, I made my way back into the hall, taking my phone with me. He still hadn’t responded, and it had been an hour. He ate lunch at this time, too. I tried his room. He wasn’t there. I went to Veronica’s room.

“What’s wrong?” she said, eyeing me as I opened her door. She always knew.

“Hug?” I asked.

“Him?” she asked, embracing me. She’s the best hugger.

“I don’t know what’s going on with him,” I admitted. “We started to get into it, but…” and my phone Snapped at me. Him. I opened his message and read it.

“He’s back in his room,” I said.

“Come back here when you’re done,” she said. “Promise me.”

I went to his room.

“Hey, what’s up?” he cooed. Really, Ned?

“I — I didn’t want to leave it like we did. I think we have to finish our conversation from before.”

Did he not know why I was back? Did he not see the anxiety on my face, the trauma, the taut skin, the eyes threatening to burst forth with tears of anguish and worry and overwhelm? Didn’t he see that I had to think about every breath just in order to keep breathing, lest the air become caught forever in my throat, choking me?

I sat down in the chair across from him, where I’d been perching myself nearly every day during lunch this past month. In my spot — the chair that he kept there for me.

“I…”

Me and my damn words, they failed me again. I shook my head, lifting my eyes to the ceiling and trying to smile away my worry. Trying not to let out all the crazy thoughts, trying to ask him, but not give myself away. What was I doing? I had no idea.

“Okay,” he said, pulling his chair closer to his side of the desk, closer to me. “Let me try to say it, and you tell me if I’m right. You are confused. You are wondering what’s going on between us. You are worried about ruining the friendship that we have, because this is complicated.”

He went on for some time, but it was some repeat of his jumble before. It seemed to make sense, but it didn’t. It didn’t sound like my thoughts; it sounded like his. I nodded in response to his words, then found my own.

“I’m worried I’m a fool,” I admitted. “I’m worried that my feelings are not — reciprocated. That I’m alone in this.”

He shook his head and looked me square in the eye.

“You are not a fool,” he sakd. “I feel it, too.”

He smiled at me. He let the silence between us sit for a beat before he went on.

“It’s just, complicated. But it’s okay. We’re taking it slow.”

He was about to repeat his catchphrases, but I interjected.

“I don’t want to lose this friendship either,” I said. “I don’t open up to just anyone like this. I haven’t opened up to anyone like this in years.”

“Same. Same for me.”

“I’m worried that I’m crazy. I’m worried that I’m scaring you.”

He laughed.

“You’re not scaring me. If I thought you were crazy, I wouldn’t let you come down here every day. I would be locking my door, then when you try to open it with your fancy master key, I’d be hanging onto the door handle at the other end to keep it closed. Or I’d avoid you.”

He smiled. It seemed reassuring, in the moment.

“It’s just — it’s complicated,” he said again. “What if it doesn’t work out? What if it’s unbalanced, what if Jack and Tarah don’t feel as much as we do? And then there’s us working together? We have to be careful and take it slow.”

I took a deep breath.

“I guess, sometimes, I don’t want to take it slow,” I said. “I want to live in the moment, I want to enjoy what’s right in front of me.”

His grin widened.

“Now you’re making me blush,” he chuckled, then the smile faded after our eye contact lingered another moment too long. “But if we add the physical stuff, then the feelings get bigger, and that gets complicated. So we have to take it slow. It’s okay. It’ll be okay.”

He repeated the words, his composure returning. We were wrapping this up. And for a moment, it felt good. I had heard him. I heard him say that my feelings weren’t unreciprocated. I felt him say it, too. I felt it. I heard him acknowledge that there was something that existed between us that was more than just friendship. The way he smiled at me. The way he looked at me.

And yet. And yet.

I walked more slowly to Veronica’s room this time, going back to her as promised. She was a good friend to babysit me in this way. She was tentative as I came back in, arms wide for another hug.

“What happened?” she whispered.

“He said that my feelings are not unreciprocated,” I said.

God bless her, despite all the shit she saw me go through those past seven months, she smiled. She gushed. She made herself happy for me, even though later she’d admit that she always thought Ned was “snakey.” She tried to make peace with the situation, even though I was somehow not satisfied with it myself.

Hadn’t I just gotten the affirmation I needed? What’s wrong now, Eliza?

“Yeah, it’s all good,” I said.

She knew I didn’t mean it. She knew that I had to figure this out for myself. She let me go. Maybe my feelings weren’t unreciprocated, but I did indeed feel like a fool.

I arrived home to our warm, sunny kitchen around five o’clock.

Jack greeted me at the door, as always. He was eager to tell me what the veggie and fish du jour were for that evening, eager to exchange quips from our days, eager to embrace and hint at the fun to come that evening. Too often, I take his boundless love for granted — Jack, just give me a minute to unpack before you dive in.

I tried to play it cool that day, for about ten seconds. Then I went to him, and he opened his arms. Jack and Veronica share the same intuition about me; like her, he always knows when I’m not right.

Since the kids were all elsewhere, I spilled my guts to Jack right there in the kitchen with the scent of roasted Brussels sprouts wafting in the air. I told him how I went off on Ned and demanded to talk about this “relationship” and these “feelings.”

I told him that Ned had reciprocated, to which my husband said, “That’s great! Right…?”

I told Jack that I was worried that I’d scared Ned, even if he said otherwise. I told him that something felt terribly wrong. I told him that I didn’t want to talk about it any more, that I just wanted him to hold me.

He held me tight, for a long time, right there in the kitchen. He was warm from the sun and the heat from the oven, from his exertion in preparing my meal, in sending the girls outside to play, in going up and down the flight of stairs to Holden’s room to ensure that he ate something before sequestering himself away on his laptop.

My breathing relaxed and began to match his. Long inhales, longer exhales, until we melted together. He kissed me, long and passionately. I kissed him back. I felt restricted by my work clothes and yearned for my yoga-wear.

“I want to change before I eat my dinner,” I whispered.

“I’ll come upstairs with you,” he said.

He always follows me to our bedroom whenever I go up to change. He likes to watch. I like it, too.

In our room, door locked, I slipped off my black ballet flats and put them back in their clear shoebox in my closet. I slipped out of my skirt, then let my sheer white blouse skim along my body as I lifted it off over my head.

Jack let me muse on about my thoughts, recapping the day. He sat on the edge of our bed, listening and watching. I took off the black cami, the black bra, the black lacy thong. I walked over to him, naked and vulnerable. I straddled his body, and he took me in his muscular arms. He was unshowered. He smelled amazing.

We kissed. We embraced. He caressed me, and I looked into his eyes, the cool gray-blue color that three of our four children inherited. His light color read as open, caring, all-seeing.

“I”m all sweaty,” he said.

Sometimes the sweat appalls me. Not today.

“I don’t care,” I said.

I pulled off his tight black t-shirt. I moved to pull down his tan beach shorts and remove his black boxer briefs. Then I again took comfort in the warm, welcoming cave created by his broad chest and big arms.

I let him lay me down flat on our bed. His kisses moved from my lips to my neck, and I felt the tingles of pleasure ripple through my body. My mind was no longer elsewhere; my mind was right here.

His kisses moved to my collarbone, my nipples, my stomach. He spread my legs with his firm hands and kissed my most intimate parts. My mind felt fluffy and free as I was massaged by his tongue while sunlight and fresh air streamed through our wall of open windows.

When I needed more, I pulled his face back up to meet mine. I kissed him, tasting myself in his mouth — normally this isn’t my “thing” but today it heightened my pleasure as he entered me. I orgasmed from the deepest part of my clitoris. The sensations rippled over my entire body, one after another.

Jack had already eaten dinner earlier, but back in the kitchen, he watched me eat mine. Then we cleaned the kitchen together while we listened to music, chatting with the kids as they raced in and out of the house. We got Eloise into the shower, then set up our room for yoga.

I took a deep breath, and with my exhalation, the whole truth came out. For the next two hours, I told Jack everything. I hadn’t realized how much I’d been holding back — I had told Jack about the anxiety, the incongruencies, about my longing for more than a friendship with Ned and Tarah, but I hadn’t used all of my words.

I hadn’t said “love.”

That evening, I did.

I spent those two hours crying to Jack about all of my feelings, naming them, and lamenting about the worst of them. I wasn’t sure if my feelings were really reciprocated, despite what Ned said. And even if they were, I hated feeling that way. I didn’t want it; it felt wrong.

I told Jack that I wasn’t sure what to do, and I looked to him for advice, guidance, and support. I told my husband that I thought I was in love with another man, and I wanted his help.

This is where our friends scrunched up their faces, at a loss on how to empathize with my story. “I don’t know if I could handle that,” they say. Maybe they silently judge us, wondering if Jack and I could really love each other as much as we claim. After all, how could he endure this betrayal? How could I do this to him? It’s the paradox of this entire situation.

I told Jack, “I think I’m in love with Ned.”

Jack didn’t balk. He looked me square in the eye and said, “I already know that.”

And then he held me while my tears spilled over. In telling Jack my entire, awful truth, I fell in love with him all over again. My heart swelled as Jack listened to me. He never wavered — he still wanted the absolute best for me. I could see the pain on his face as I detailed my anguish, but he didn’t shy away.

I’m so glad that I never used the L-word with Ned. Looking back, I don’t really see love in our equation after all. I see infatuation, a long, drawn-out crush that he took advantage of. I see anxiety that made my feelings seem deep and meaningful. I see that the energy between us was cultivated when I was vulnerable, after dealing with a bout of depression.

But then, with Jack, I was just feeling, and I assumed that a feeling that big was love. When Veronica had pointed out my feelings months before, they were brought to the forefront of my mind. They had lingered there, a secret that I dared not reveal to Jack, lest I crush him. They were a threat to my marriage, but only because I wasn’t sharing them. They represented a lost communication between two people who had always shared everything.

Perhaps a good portion of my anxiety was actually about the fear of losing my Jack, not Ned. But Jack didn’t falter. Jack listened, and empathized, and respected me. The more I revealed to him, the more he loved me — the real me, flaws and all. Unconditional love. It dawned on me that Jack was my fairy tale prince, and I’d only been focused on the adventure, and then the villain.

No more.

I found myself yearning for the man right in front of me. I would never hold back my feelings from him again. He’s my partner, my true love, and I wouldn’t dare take him for granted.

Interested in more? Perhaps you’d like to read my novel, Pretty Kinky for a Love Story, available now on Amazon.