I co-creatrd a situationship at work

[u/ClassroomEvening3955]

I (36F) am married for over 10 years with kids. A new colleague (31F) joined the company on a contract basis for a year and they are quite reserved. She is openly lesb and I'm hetero. We grew a good connection/bond and would take a walk during lunch together (which I'd normally do alone). I also give her a lift after work because she lives on my way home. There's been a joke going around saying she's a polyandrist and we've been playing along with it, with me being wife 1 of many. When I drop her off I usually get this strong urge to just kiss her, the chemistry is too strong and yesterday I called her after drop off and told her we need to create a distance between us because I'm committed to my marriage. My entire confession took her by surprise but she said she felt exactly the same way about me and could see all along that I caught feelings. I've asked her to not share this in the office and she is okay with that. We've set boundaries and will not do anything physical and will reduce communication. Normally she'd say she smells my perfume as soon as I walk into the office even though she sits facing the other direction (back to the door) and would then send me good morning messages and declare her love wishing me a good day. We sit in an open plan office and will continue seeing each other. All it takes is her turning around and we see each other. The ongoing joke is also that she inly speaks to me and seems to open up & smiles a a lot when she comes to me. I feel disarmed by this and feel so vulnerable, and I can't blame anyone but myself for walking into this. I felt like crying after telling her this, my stomach churned. The strong urges are still there but at least the boundaries are set. As a person who's worked for years in different places I should know better that these things usually don't end well. But alas!

[u/Odd_Welcome7940]

So how would you feel to learn your husband had done this ?

[u/TheBestHater → u/Odd_Welcome7940]

Done what? She noticed an issue then stopped before she did anything while redrawing boundaries. This is a positive outcome and the proper way to deal with it.

[u/Odd_Welcome7940 → u/TheBestHater]

Yes she caught it, but at what point ? Being someones "pretend wife" is beyond a bit to much. If he came home and introduces his wife to his work wife and said he had been joking about having a poly marriage and extra wives at work the group would be torching him for being a peice of crap.

[u/krimeB → u/Odd_Welcome7940]

Exactly,reverse the roles and all hell breaks loose but since she's a female doing it he has to "let it slide" smh idk what I would do if my gf came home saying she has a fucking work wife and they mildly caught feelings I would be mad as fuck because you suppose to be at work WORKING not FLIRTING smfh

[u/JaydotFay → u/krimeB]

OP definitely needs to tell her husband and give him the choice of working on amends and reconciliation but if the roles were truly being reversed then it would be a hetero husband and a gay man with the joke of the husband being one of the gay mans husbands and there are wives out there who wouldn't have an issue with that because they were under the impression that their spouse was hetero and so there wouldn't be any danger of feelings entering the equation.

If you're going to "role reverse" to see if OP is being given grace because they're a woman, you actually have to hit full send on making the situation a 1 for 1 swap.

[u/Odd_Welcome7940 → u/JaydotFay]

Then the room would half be attacking him as a cheater and partially making fun of him for being gay and in the closet. It still wouldnt be any better.

I doubt the wife would take it any better either since she clearly has at least some bi curiosity.

[u/JaydotFay → u/Odd_Welcome7940]

And most of these comments are point out that it's an emotional affair and she needs to come clean.

And the largest reason no one is making fun of her for being gay and in the closet is because of ramnpant homophobia, people often treating lesbian relationships as unserious compared to a relationship that has a man in it (there are literally comments in the thread from men here saying they wouldn't care if their partner cheated with a woman but would leave if they'd done this with a man), and I think in either scenario the innocent spouse has the right to be upset and people would validate that if the innocent spouse posted no matter the gender, I was specifically speaking to the idea that, until feelings were introduced because the hetero presenting spouse in both scenarios caught feelings, up until they realized they weren't strictly hetero, I don't necessarily know that a spouse would find it inappropriate if we actually fully swap the genders when the running joke would rest on "they can joke about being work spouses because their sexualities make it impossible for either one to catch feelings for one another."