'I love my wife and have two children but I fancy my workmate'

Dear Coleen

I’m a married man and a father with two children. During the lockdowns I’ve found myself constantly thinking about one of my female work colleagues. I fancied her like crazy when we were in the office together, but never did anything about it.

I wouldn’t say my marriage is bad – in fact, it’s good most of the time – so I don’t know why I can’t stop thinking about my colleague who, by the way, has no idea I feel like this about her.

Is my marriage in trouble? Is this normal? I’d love your advice.

Coleen says

It sounds as if this woman is a kind of fantasy figure for you, which might be a symptom of lockdown. However, I think if your marriage was really strong, I’m not sure you’d be spending this much time thinking about her.

Try to turn your focus to your marriage and really think about what you can do to improve things – whether that’s injecting some romance or excitement, or even just creating the opportunity to spend more time together when the kids are in bed.

Try to think back to how you felt when you got together with your wife and what it was about her that you found so attractive. You must have spent a lot of time fantasising about her when you first met.

When you’ve been married for a while and have kids it’s easy to forget those feelings and also to start taking each other for granted, but all relationships need nurturing. I think this other woman is just a distraction from what you should be focusing your attention on.