Falling for a co-worker

by Beth
(Houston)

Falling for a Co-Worker.

A guy at work has been flirting with me for almost two years now. I didn't realize it for a real long time - he had to pretty much spell it out for me (but I'm dumb like that anyway). When I became aware of his flirtations, I didn't respond right away. I wasn't really attracted to him and I knew he was married.

Fast forward about a year - he's now going through a nasty, bitter divorce. He continued his flirting throughout the entire time, and we eventually became closer and started talking. He's a pretty serious guy when he's at work, but his face always lights up with the biggest, goofiest smile I've ever seen and it makes me giggle...cheesy, I know. I began to feel an attraction towards him, but still didn't act on it until one morning: he stood right inside my office doorway and said "You didn't give me a good morning kiss this morning."

I just stared back at him not really knowing what to say, and then he said "are you going to give me one?" Instead of stuttering out something stupid, I said "Sure, come here". And we had our first kiss.

Fast forward another month - things got pretty hot and heavy, except plans to do something outside of work never seemed to happen. We've been to lunch together once, and he came over last Saturday and we had sex. Good sign - he hung around for awhile and we talked until he was paged back to work...bad sign - the texts are getting far and few between since then, and I have this vibe that something isn't really ... right.

I'm 35, and I've been around enough to know when someone has been played. I don't believe this is the case here, but I could be wrong. He still looks at me the same way he always has when we're at work, he still risks others finding out something is up by giving me an affectionate touch or a quick kiss in the hall, he still comes by my office every day about half an hour before I'm suppose to leave and we sometimes talk and kiss for over an hour. He always says, "Be careful, baby" when I'm leaving, etc.

But after I leave, I don't hear from him or see him until the next day. I have a feeling he is going back to his wife (they have three young boys. I know he loves and adores them with his whole heart). I believe he does have feelings for me, but doesn't really know what to do right now. They've been together 13 years, the last 5 of which were hell.

I can empathize with him in a way; no matter how bad it got, she's still familiar to him and he's paranoid that she will move the kids back to GA (we live in TX) and is uncertain of his role in their lives once the divorce is final.

I am in no way bitter about his indecision, but I am hurt. I ended up falling for him completely. Every night that I don't hear a word or a text from him, I think of him with her and I plan a big old "I don't want to do this anymore, you've got too much on your plate right now to add anything else, maybe somewhere down the road when things in your life are more solid we can try again, yada yada yada...." but then I see him the next morning and the words dissolve and I just want to love him.

I don't know what to do? Or maybe I know what I should do, but I just don't know how?

Anyway, any advice would be appreciated. Thanks for reading such a long and rambling post.....