First of all, I love your podcast and really admire your frank advice for how to handle life’s tricky situations and now I’m in a situation that is causing me a lot of emotional confusion, distraction and distress—and while I’m going to say upfront that I know how I SHOULD handle this, I’m having a very difficult time following my own advice.
My relationship status: I’m a 36-year-old woman, a lesbian, who ended a three year relationship a year ago. The last 12 months have brought a lot of change and rebuilding and moving on. In that time though, I’ve been dating a bit—a couple “relationships” of about four months each, nothing serious, the second of which I’m still in. She’s a really great girl—smart, funny, stable, the most adorable doctor I’ve ever seen—and I like her very much and I don’t want to hurt her… but… I’m just not feeling as excited about her as I know I should be at this point…
So here’s the complication:
The rest of this epic lesbian letter… and my response… after the jump
I work at firm of roughly thirty people, where we all work incredibly long hours. The trade-off is that everyone at the firm is really close because of it. These are my best friends. For the last year I’ve worked with a woman who, though the lines are blurry, is technically my boss. Our project together has increasingly required more and more collaboration. At this point I’m spending many hours a day with her, and the friendship has grown pretty naturally from that. However, as of a couple months ago, we’ve started spending quite a bit more time together, after-work drinks, 10 pm, local places, and this is now happening maybe 3-4 nights a week, and we’re staying out late. It’s been flirty and I’m really attracted to her.
To compound this situation: She’s a lesbian too, a couple years older than me, and she’s married. She’s been with her partner for twenty years, so this is someone she must love, on some level very deeply. I do know that at one point, a long time ago, they had an open relationship, but that is not the case at the moment. Now, I’ve never cheated on anyone. I’ve never dated anyone in a relationship before, let alone someone married, let alone someone who is my quasi boss! I know that indulging this jeopardizes my career, and compromises my reputation, and is likely setting myself up to be hurt—I get all of that—which is why, at first, I thought it might just be a silly crush that would go unspoken. Or at least that was what I was telling myself. But I also know she’s been lying to her wife about how much time we’re spending together. Then the other night she brought it up explicitly—her attraction to me—and we acknowledged it aloud, both of us. We are attracted to each other and we’re both thinking the same thing but it’s complicated on both our ends. And that was it. We didn’t dwell on it. We sort of just let it hang. Or rather I changed the subject. So while it’s not clear where we both want to go from here, our feelings are on the table.
Then this happened: at the end of that same night we admitted our feelings to each other… she told me her wife was out of town and she asked me back to her place. I can’t even tell you how hard it was to say no. But I did say no. I said, “I can not do that.” I went home alone.
Fast forward a few days: There’s been no follow-up conversations, despite our having been out once (this time in a group), and, somewhat surprisingly, it’s actually not awkward at work. In fact, it’s even more fun and flirtatious from her side. But now I don’t know what to do. I’m afraid to talk about it directly again because, in all honesty, I don’t know what to say. So, Dan, I’m looking for advice about what I should say if/when it comes up again or advice about whether I should bring it up myself at all. I realize that on paper this is the worst idea ever and that I should address it with her directly and tell her this will never happen and ask her to stop flirting with me. However, she’s not a slimy person, and I’m not a bad person. We’re both just human. And she’s wonderful and kind. She makes me laugh so much, she’s brilliant, we’re just really attuned right now. The language is there between us, and that’s not easy to find—and certainly not at my age in the lesbian community. But there are just too many people involved who stand to lose and be hurt, including me. However, I’m finding it nearly impossible to push her away when she wants to be close. I honestly don’t know how to handle myself in this situation or how to make the best of this.
Lesbian With Obsessive Relationship Drama
First things first, LWORD: you gotta break up with the doctor.
To borrow/paraphrase/revive a battered/spent/neglected bit of wisdom from the mid-aughts: You’re just not that into her. So if you’re sincere when you say you don’t want to hurt Dr. GF—and I have no reason to doubt your sincerity—you’ll end things with her now. Dr. GF will be hurt by the breakup, of course/presumably, but a break up that comes 1. after you’ve cheated on Dr. GF (with your quasi-boss or with a lesbian to be named later) or 2. after you’ve lined up or landed your next GF will hurt a lot more. You’ve been dating Dr. GF long enough to know that she’s not who you want to be with. So stop being with her.
As for your quasi-boss, LWORD, say this to her just as soon as you’ve ended things with Dr. GF: “We’re obviously attracted to each other and we can keep flirting and hanging out and enjoying each other’s fully-clothed, non-scissored company. But it can’t be more than that. Even though I’m single now, Quasi Boss, you’re married and your marriage isn’t open and I don’t wanna cause you trouble in your marriage. Or, for that matter, cause myself trouble at work. But, hey, if your wife was okay with you getting it elsewhere—if you officially reopened your marriage—I might be up for some hot quasi-boss-on-pseudo-subordinate action. But only if it’s on the up and up.”
Quasi Boss may respond by telling you that she’s trapped in a sexless marriage that she doesn’t want to end for all sorts of reasonable reasons—maybe her wife is financially or emotionally dependent on her, maybe they share too much history for her to want to end things over the inevitable waning of sexual passion, maybe she still loves her wife even if the sexual aspect of their marriage is over, maybe all of the above—and a little discreet fucking around now and then (with you or with a lesbian to be named later) isn’t a threat to Quasi Boss’s marriage, LWORD, but the one thing that makes it possible for her to stay in this marriage. It’s easy for people who aren’t in a sexless-but-loving marriage to say, “Do the right thing and end it!”, and people will doubtless pour into the comments thread to say just that. But there are situations where cheating and being cheated on are the least worst options for all involved. If your coworker is in one of those situations, LWORD, then you’re obligated to fuck her.
Kidding! You’re not obligated to fuck anybody, LWORD! But if it does turn out that this is the case—Quasi Boss is in a decent and loving but sexless marriage that will end if quasi-boss can’t get sex elsewhere now and then—you may wanna give the “only on the up and up” thing a rethink.
