On my article Are Crushes Natural?, a reader left a comment about how she’s happily married but developed a big crush on someone else. She even tried to hook the guy up with an available friend, but that only made her think about him more.
She admitted she knows she needs to stop thinking about him, but also that she hopes the friend and him decide not to see each other again.
Yikes. That’s a tough situation to be in.
Now some of you will take objection to that and say “If she’s so happily married, why would another man catch her eye?”
That’s actually an excellent question and one that will help her get over her crush if she keeps a few other things in mind.
Go Ahead, Think About Your Crush
As Heather wrote in a recent article on affairs, most affairs are not about sex. As I also wrote about in Fantasizing Wives, a recent survey discovered 58% of wives have fantasized about a man other than their husband.
The fantasy is not wrong. Finding someone else attractive is not wrong. Thinking about what it would be like to spend time with that person is not wrong.
I actually recommend thinking about that as much as you can in as much detail as you can. Don’t fight it. If you do, you’re likely to only end up thinking about your crush more. (Don’t be appalled, the more conservative among you. This advice will make sense by the end.)
Consequences
Now start taking your fantasy to the next level. Think about the moment you and your crush reveal your feelings for each other. How suddenly the giddy crush feeling turns into the “we’re embarking on an affair” liaison.
Think about the passion of that first kiss. The illicit rendezvous. The thrill of sneaking away to spend time with this someone else who isn’t your spouse.
Then start thinking about the guilt and shame that will inevitably follow. Of the heartbreak of your spouse finding out. How devastated he or she would feel. If you have kids, think about how they’d think of you. Think about the person you were as a kid looking forward at the person you’ve become. Would they be proud or appalled?
Think about this in as much detail as you can. Think about life without your spouse. How awful you’d feel and how lonely you’d be. Especially if you are happily married now.
This should start to help squelch those crushing feelings, as will a couple more things.
Time
Give the crushing feeling time to go away. Eventually it will.
Maybe because you’ll see your crush in a not so positive light one day. Or because you’ll see them engaging in some habit that turns you off. Or maybe because you’ll start drawing comparisons between your crush and your spouse. Using your spouse as the standard to live up to, you’ll realize your crush falls short.
Distance
If you do have the “taking it to the cheating level” fantasy and can’t conjure up images of the nasty consequences an affair delivers, distance is good. Especially if you find yourself thinking things like, “I’m a risk taker by nature and am willing to roll the dice and see what happens.”
That’s when it’s time to avoid the temptation so hopefully time can play it’s role and return your senses to their rightful perspective.
Related Articles
Does an STD Make the Crime of an Affair Even Worse?
The Psychology of Why Married Men Cheat, Part 1
The Psychology of Why Married Men Cheat, Part 2
What You Might Not Have Known About Affairs
Signs of a Cheating Wife or Not?
Straight Talk for Potential Two Timers