FYI I am in my 40s and my sex drive has been up for a few years from where it was 10 yrs ago

Nurture the relationship that you have. Remember that you are a role-model for your child. I'm not saying you don't have a nice marriage, but you are using a lot of energy thinking of your crush. Would you want your child to obsess over someone for a full year who was unattainable, or be self-destructive, or live in fantasy land? Make some popcorn, go sit with your husband and child and watch a movie. Be present in your family and on [8 favorites]

1. You get to decide who you want to be. I hope you will choose to be an ethical person. The idea that if he showed up at your door you would not be able to say no is not true. Determine today that you will not do that. It is not the way to respect your marriage.

Being obsessively in love with Will Graham, Phil Coulson, Tony Stark, John Watson, Ulfric Stormcloak, etc

2. You are learning you are a passionate, sexual person. This is awesome. In my view, the best thing to do with this discovery is date your spouse.

3. Every time you fantasize about the way you would hike/watch movies/go apple picking with Crush Guy, do that with your current partner. Share one of the inner true thoughts you would share with CG with your spouse. Either you will start to feel like this toward him or you'll find out other things. But you will have truly given your marriage a shot at being the great relationship, which is what I personally think marriages deserve.

4. It's okay to want a sex life. Work on that including therapy as a possible tool. Try doing new things together outside of sex, like travel, whatever. It can ignite things.

5. Take up a sport to burn off the crush adrenaline. Watch Spanglish and cry. Listen to pop music. It is really, really ok to feel.

6. If in X months (6? 9?) you still feel this way, maybe you will want to leave your marriage and find the big feelings with someone. At that point I guess you could let Crush Guy know. But in my opinion. it's not really about this guy, it's about you. posted by warriorqueen at 4:28 PM on [24 favorites]

Are you me? I promise you I could have written every detail of this post. Seriously though, I have no advice for you, but I'll be checking answers for myself. And if you want someone to talk to, memail me!! the challenge for me is that the crush feels simultaneously so bad and so good. And such rush of emotions after being "turned off" for years. even though my relationship is good.

Anyway, I feel ya! You're not alone. And you're not a bad person. You're alive! posted by katypickle at 5:19 PM on [2 favorites]

I've found that understanding the biology of what's going on helps, so I encourage you to read up on limerence. Your crush on this man is acting on your brain like a cocaine addiction, so keep that in mind and don't do anything irrevocable while under its influence. Also https://getbride.org/no/blog/tyske-kvinner-kontra-amerikanske-kvinner/, do whatever you can to stop feeding your addiction to him.

I'm very limerence-prone myself and this used to be a big problem for me (and my husband!) until I redirected it toward crushing on fictional characters instead of real people I interact with. provides all the same excitement with none of the threat to my on [8 favorites]