Written by The Honest Boss
Can you ever come back from crossing such a personal boundary?
“I’ve had an affair with someone in the office and no one’s found out, but I feel like I have to leave now it’s over. The break-up was bitter and the atmosphere is now unbearable between us – where she once felt like my closest ally, she now feels like an enemy and I’m worried it will impact my career. She wasn’t my direct boss but she is more senior in the company than me, so her opinion holds much more weight than mine.
I love my job and I don’t want to go but this is really hard. Do you have any advice, how do I take back control of what’s happened?”
Emily, 34
So much of your next step will be decided by how emotionally strong you’re feeling since the break-up. If seeing your ex every day is like a stab to your heart and prevents you from moving on, then perhaps starting afresh somewhere new could be just what you need.
The tone of your email, however, suggests to me that this break-up is more about anger and bitterness than it is about heartache. If that is the case, I suspect that leaving a job you love will make you feel even angrier and more resentful. You need to harness those negative feelings to develop a strategy that helps you to move on without further malice.
I have worked in so many teams where affairs have started and ended with the fallout being usually unpleasant for both parties, and not particularly easy for the rest of the team.
On one occasion, a man broke up with one colleague one week and promptly started to date another woman on the team, which meant that the first ex had her face rubbed in their love affair every day. That was no fun for anyone and inevitably the second relationship floundered as well.
The office affairs that tend to work out are the ones when both parties agree to keep the relationship strictly under wraps. The good news for you is that none of your other colleagues know about your break-up,because being the subject of everyone’s lunchtime gossip would mean even more pain getting heaped upon your already open wound.
Torturous as it may sound, if you’re serious about taking back control, you should think about smoothing things over with your ex. In your current frame of mind, I can imagine this sounds like an impossibility but it is the surest way of you moving on.
Start by composing a straightforward email to her suggesting that there are things you would like to discuss and proposing a quick coffee or drink on neutral ground, away from the office. Make sure you keep the tone strictly business-like without displaying any bitterness. Hopefully your ex should be curious enough by this approach to agree to meet you. However, if she refuses, then you should proceed by emailing her a summary of what you would rather say in person.
Whether in person or by mail, you then need to express your desire to return to the positive work relationship that you had both enjoyed before the affair. Suggest that this is just as important for her career as it is yours.
Indeed, as the senior person in the relationship, she could be more at risk as may be judged harshly by her bosses for dating someone more junior and creating a subsequently bad atmosphere. Remind her that while you both think no one else at work knows about your relationship, if you carry on being so hostile to each other, then people around you will gossip and speculate about what has been going on.
Commit to her that you will never reveal the affair or do anything at all malicious that might damage her, and ask that she do the same. With any luck, your ex will appreciate and mirror your maturity, and respond positively.
Even if she chooses to remain hostile towards you, be sure you do not retaliate. Continue to act calmly at all times around her and everyone else, never betraying your true feelings.
Focus on your work, remembering how much you love your job, and you will soon regard this affair as a best-forgotten chapter in your distant past.
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