Hard To Keep An Affair At Work Only

“I see him every day at work and I am attracted to him, really a lot, like I want to be with him all the time.”

She was 25 and hot by most common ways of assessing such matters; with olive skin and dark eyes, well made-up and skirt a little on the short side. A smile  sneaked gently onto her face as she talked about this guy.

Workplace Affair

She told me she was happily married, with a three year old at home, and a good husband, one of the husbands everyone else wished they had, and she did not want to screw that up. Her face got dreamy and she kept talking and I could only wonder about one thing.

Is this the best problem she could come up with?

I saw her in a clinic in a poor part of town, where nobody had jobs let alone husbands, and this was her problem.

“You don’t have to listen to all of your feelings.  You don’t have to start to have an affair with him.”

Now she was mad at me.  “I don’t want to have an affair with him.”

“Good,”  I answered.  “Your instincts are good.  People have feelings and urges and fantasies all the time, but you don’t have to act on them.  You can say good- bye to them.  You can say goodnight to this one, every night when you go home to your husband.  Then you can be happy with him and you will forget about work until the next morning, and you will be fine.”

She actually kind of agreed.  She did ask me if this could be a medication side effect.  I had to admit I never heard of sertraline (Zoloft) causing this one before.  It would probably not explain an “attraction” that existed at work and not elsewhere, even though she actually said she took her medication first thing in the morning and went on to worry about blood levels. I told her that if she wanted, we could try something else.  She didn’t want to.

She figured she could write in a journal.  I told her to keep it at work so her husband did not see it.  They were young, who knew what he could handle?

She went away with enough Zoloft to last until the next appointment.

I was not happy with her