Hi Mark,

I sincerely hope your wrong about the emotional affair, although that is my biggest worry.

My problem is I don’t know how to differentiate my jealous feelings from what is actually normal? With the one incident that I know which he shared something personal, when I said it was quite personal and I was suprised that he shared it, he got defensive and said I like to share my life with people at work.

Hey Jas,

Thank you for your insights, I have thought of befriending, but then I feel like that encourages more out of work contact and I’m not comfortable with that.

I haven’t heard a perspective likes yours before so that is refreshing. She’s one of the only girls in the department so I can understand where you’re coming from. What sets me off is that she’s also become very, very close (as in they always hang out together and they’ll hang out in his car all the time during department wide get togethers) with another guy in thier department who’s married, which is boundary crossing to me. I understand everyone is different, but it’s still unsettling to me.

I do, he gets wired up pretty quickly in my opinion and escalates it, I’m not completely innocent in it either as I can get loud as well, but I am the one to always say we need to talk about it and try to listen to each other. But it’s hard because he shuts down, and when I tell him he is, he doesn’t respond well to it. That’s what makes me scared because he may just walk away even though I’ve said time and time again that you can’t do that. That’s why if I talk to him about it, I’m not sure if the understanding will be there, and I know that it will also come off as distrust. The last time we had a conversation surrounding this (which was with the wedding invite) he said, well if it’s jealousy that’s a whole new conversation we need to have, and I was scared. He tells me of thier interactions, so I know while he doesn’t tell me everything, he’s not trying to hide the fact that they’re friends. A lot of it is fear of what will happen if I do bring it up again.

Hi Anita,

Thank you for your response and suggestions, I thought it was important to state that I had said okay, even though I knew as I was saying it that it wasn’t, you’re right it was to avoid conformation and it definitely has hurt me in the end.

Some of our fights are okay, others can result in getting loud or defensive or both of us feeling like we’re not being heard by the other person  which I know is something we both need to work on.

Thanks again for your insight 🙂

Me again, I just wanted to add to my post. Regarding the wedding invite, I had quickly said it’s okay to invite her even though I didn’t mean it, because again, I was scared of the confrontation. Had I not been, I may not be where I am today. Just had to add that, thanks again tinybuddah community!