Relationship advice: Is having a “work boyfriend” harmless or hurtful?

Having a “work boyfriend” i.e., a male colleague at the office who you always go for lunch with, meet deadlines with and confide in about office politics, sounds innocent. But, what many people don’t realize is this intimate workplace relationship can lead to emotional infidelity and can negatively affect your romantic relationship with your significant other or husband.

Judy Librach, Life Coach and Host of Finding Your Bliss (findingyourbliss.com), shares the cold hard facts and relationship advice about emotional infidelity, and why it is sometimes worse than physically cheating on your partner.

Relationship advice: The motivation
During the day, your partner may not have the time to hear about the latest stress-inducing thing your boss did. Or perhaps you assume your partner “just won’t get it.” That’s where a work boyfriend becomes very easy to rely on. These too-close-for-comfort work relationships are convenient. Many of us spend eight hours a day, five days a week at the office, and this other is always at your beck-and-call. Plus it feels good to flirt and dress up for someone again. It’s understandable why these situations happen, but they come at a cost.

Relationship advice: The downside
The main pitfall in having a work boyfriend is that your attention is moving away from your primary relationship. “The emotional connection is much more risky than the physical, because the emotional heart is not with your husband anymore, it’s with someone else,” says Librach. “The moment you share your heart with someone else, that’s infidelity,” she adds. When you confide with another and turn to them in times of need with work problems, or worse, relationship problems, you develop a deeper relationship with them, which takes away from what you share with your partner. The danger lies in the fact that you start to turn to that person, when you should be saving that energy up for your mate. “You get further and further away from the comfort and the intimacy and excitement of your primary relationship, draining your own relationship,” adds Librach.

More relationship advice about an office romance and romantic relationships on the next page...