My husband and I were together for 15 years. We had many issues; I’d been very unhappy. Meanwhile, I started having feelings for a woman I work with. I ignored them at first and told myself I needed to work on my marriage. And I did that. I stopped thinking of her that way and tried harder in my marriage. But my husband was getting worse and worse. Not with just me, but with our children. I finally told him we needed to end things. As our breakup started to unfold, my co-worker was there for me. A true friend. It got to the point where I sat her down and told her how I felt about her. She was like, “wow.” She said she knew there was a physical attraction there but didn’t think there were feelings involved. She told me she had a lot of thinking to do. I told her she had all the time she needed as I am still dealing with a lot with my divorce.

We keep spending time together. We are very comfortable around each other and I’m starting to fall in love. We spent a night together (no sex) and talked about a lot of things. She told me she thinks she can get past the age thing (I’m 35, she’s 55). A big hurdle for her is work. We are not in each other’s another chain of command, but it’s still scary. I told her one of us could always find another job. She says she wants to say yes, but that because I haven’t had any serious relationships with women, she’s afraid she’ll be stuck being “all in.” She said she needs time to process and think. I told her again, she can have all the time she needs. Meanwhile, I’m absolutely in love, but my brain and heart are preparing for the worst (her saying she can’t do this). What do I do? I can’t turn my brain off.

– Hoping