Question from AL:

For a long time now I have been very attracted to someone at work who clearly shares my feelings. The problem is, I'm married, but my marriage has been on the rocks for a long time and I've been considering a divorce. My husband and I have grown apart, spend no "couple" time together anymore, and just don't seem to have that the connection we had in the first decade or so of the marriage (we've been married over 23 years). Especially now that I have an opportunity to pursue something with someone else that I think I don't want to lose out on, am I wrong to believe that this is a sign that the marriage is over and it's time to move on to something better?

Terri's Feed-back

You are right and wrong. You're right that it's a sign, but not of the inevitability of your marriage's death knell. Rather, it's a sign of your lack of determination to fix the marriage.

The first thing that I find quite telling is the apparent timing of your feelings for your co-worker in relation to your marriage deterioration. You say both have been in play for "a long time" which indicates to me that they may be connected - I believe your feelings for your fellow worker began about the time you began to feel conscious dissatisfaction with your marriage. So, in essence, what you're doing is avoiding the hard work of dealing with the problems in the marriage by placing your emotions and attention elsewhere.

That said, I'm very proud of you for not acting on those co-worker feelings (you didn't, I hope!) as do so many in a similar situation, rationalizing their actions as justified by a bad marriage. I've encountered folks who in fact actively seek romantic companionship, stating that their spouse (you pick it): "hasn't wanted to have sex with me for years" ; "suffers from depression..."; "has been emotionally out of the marriage for decades, but I don't want to hurt the kids by getting a divorce" (adult kids, by the way...). There's many more, but you get the idea.

I believe you haven't acted on the attraction because subconsciously you don't want to give up on your marriage, knowing deep down that throwing your vows into the gutter (phrase carefully chosen) is the best way to do just that. So, to get the ball rolling on your real solution, let me share with you a brief overview of recent research on marital health. It showed that many couples experience an attraction to other people when things in the marriage get a little rocky. It also found that those couples who openly discussed these feelings with each other saw two positive outcomes as a result: the person considering an affair did not act on his/her misappropriated feelings, and marital relations greatly improved.

Surprised? The reason this works, the researchers explain, is because most extra-marital shenanigans are a result of couples' deteriorating lines of communication, and their resulting belief that there is nothing that can be done to fix the problems in the marriage even before any meaningful attempts to do so are made. The impending crisis of one spouse losing the other's commitment in such a significant way tends to wake everyone out of their couple coma and propels them to seek the help, and solutions, they need to stay together.

This, I believe, applies to you. Whether you choose to take this approach (I cannot recommend that without knowing more about both of you) or not, the bottom line is you have chosen your husband for better or worse (actually that would be and) - which means when the going gets tough, the tough get help.

What have you done to work on fixing the marriage? Have you two talked heart-to-heart about your discontentment, which very likely is mutual, or directly asked for some of the things you need to get the marriage back on track? Or have you both simply retreated into your separate corners, feeding your resentments rather than seeking solutions to the problems?

If you want to be true to yourself, which among other things means being true to the promises you make, you cannot give up on the marriage without first putting the time and energy into saving it, Otherwise, the running you are tempted to do now will become a habit that will haunt your relationships for a very long time.