u/gacallstar12

I’ve (M, early 40s) had a secret crush on a female coworker around my age for many years now. At times we are like best friends but then at other times she seems upset/angry with me, short, or disinterested. When I’ve mentioned the change in behavior she tells me everything is fine, we’re cool, and creates some excuse about how she’s acting that doesn’t really relate to me and makes no sense to me. Especially since I don’t observe her acting this way toward anyone else at work. At times we’ve gone to her calling me her work husband, saying she didn’t get enough time with me today, texting all the time to literally not communicating for 1-2 months. It goes in these cycles every year. When we don’t talk I tell myself this is for the best because maybe my crush will go away. It’s the weirdest friendship I’ve ever had. If this was a girl I was dating, I would’ve ended it long ago but I guess I’m more forgiving since we’ve been friends for so long? There are days she really makes me feel bad, because it seems like she’s ignoring me or avoiding me. For the record, she’s married, which is why I’m struggling with this crush on her. I’d never act on it. At most I’ll compliment her job performance on something that I think went well or tell her her she looks nice when she dresses up for work or changes her hair up (only say that to her maybe 1-2 times a year). Part of my problem may be I’m pretty introverted and have cut back a lot in recent years keeping up with friends so there’s only a handful of people I regularly talk to and she’s been the one I’ve been closest to, knows the most about me, talks or texts me randomly. I’ve also quit dating for about two years now, but even when I was dating I still had this crush on my coworker. (It’s not preventing me from dating, people I’ve gone out with have haha).

I guess I just wanted to put this out there, maybe to get off my chest a little. I’m sure people will have a problem with it since she’s married, or say I need to break off communication with her especially since there’s times it feels like we aren’t friends. If this was just a crush, or dating, I would’ve. But she’s been one of my best friends for many years and I don’t want to lose the friendship, just wish that it wouldn’t go in these cycles of on again/off again that it has the last few years. Also, we were friends well before I ended up getting a crush on her.