Have you ever fallen in love with another while being married?

No, not even close. I’ve certainly been physically attracted to other people, but have never been emotionally caught up in that.

No. I’ve fallen in lust with many people while married but it was never love. I’m usually very good at recognizing the difference and then controlling my emotions. BUT, I think if I ever did find myself in that position I would choose to stay with my husband and let the other person go.

Yes. My marriage was dysfunctional and on its last legs so it ended. We didn’t act on our love until after my divorce.

I think it’s easy to have a crush on others whether or not you’re married.
What you do with these crush feelings, as with all feelings, depends on your character.

You can always just keep a respectful, friendly but ‘formal’, distance. That’s the easiest and most typical thing married people do.
If you can control yourself, you can turn it into a friend relationship. You can enjoy a lot about what you find attractive in the other person without violating your commitments to your marriage.

(If you can’t control yourself, what are you doing being married?)

@dabbler Agree completely and couldn’t have said it better myself.

Several times. It is, to some degree, a symptom of my illness, although I am reluctant to think of falling in love as an illness. But some people do.

I told my wife, and she got me diagnosed and us into therapy,and five years later we are still together. I realized that she loved me more than I was aware of. More than I could feel.

But there’s something different about me. I am always in danger of falling in love again. It is something I have to guard against, and it is exhausting. It doesn’t happen all the time, but from time to time I will meet someone, and instantly, I’ll get this feeling I know who they are. If I continue to talk to them, the feeling is almost always confirmed. Usually, I manage to divert the feeling, so it doesn’t get me in trouble. But it is always a big battle.

Since I’ve never been married, this hasn’t happened to me. However I have a number of friends this has happened to. I don’t know why they confide in me, but maybe they trust me. Most complain that their spouse is not giving them everything they want. Often it has to do with a lack of sex. This is both men and women.

They really don’t want to break up the marriage. There’s a lot valuable in it. Sometimes it is the children. Sometimes it is history and houses and investments and friends. There’s an awful lot to lose when a marriage breaks up. So they think that they might be able to find a little something on the side, and their spouse will never know, and they will be able to be happy.

I have no idea how prevalent this is. I’ve wondered, though. I’ve seen one person go on like this for years, and it seems to work. My other friend in this situation got caught. He ended up leaving his lover to try to make things work with his wife. They’re still together, but that’s a rocky one.

Obviously, it doesn’t make sense to generalize based on a couple of stories. My problem is the opposite: no relationships at all. I’m not unhappy. Just sort of resigned. I do a lot of cooking. I’m a bit overweight. What’s the word for that? Sublimation?

I am married, not dead. I can certainly feel lust towards another man on occasion. I don’t take it further though. I would also say because I am so, so into my husband, I can’t recall it happening for a very, very long time. So, if I found myself looking at other men and seriously feeling infatuated, I would take it as a sign that I need to spend more time working on my marriage. If It happened I would question whether perhaps my husband and I are a bit disconnected and we need to do some work to get that zing back. I think this is quite common after the birth of a baby for instance. When one party is very tied up looking after the little person and my be too exhausted to be romantic and sexy after they finally go to sleep.

No. I would not let myself do that unless I were married to someone who wanted a polygamous relationship. That’s never been the case.

It’s interesting that no one here mentions an open marriage. Hmmmm…I thought that was a little more common these days since Key parties and Swinging made a comeback. Not in my house, but I’m hearing more about it in the last few years.

I doubt that open marriage will ever be very popular. It will never enjoy much acceptance unless the balance between the sexes changes drastically.

How so? I mean women and men both get hit on all the time, so in that aspect, I’d say my husband and I are fairly equal. Unfortunately most of the people doing the asking for the swinging parties are EXTREMELY unattractive, we’ve discussed this phenomenon.

I just find it interesting that the divorce rate keeps rising, but couples that are in our small town stay together forever and just look the other way if something ‘happens’...usually. So why get divorced and go through all that, if you can live together and agree to have seperate ‘situations’ like the French do.

Because you can do it as an unspoken understanding. Yu can’t do it openly. People look down on you. Even in France, people don’t do it totally openly.

@KNOWITALL I mentioned it immediately above. By polygamous I didn’t mean marrying multiple partners at once, I meant an open marriage where we can have threesomes or moresomes when the spirit leads us to do so.