Dear Prudence,
I am a 45-year-old woman in a stable relationship (I have been living together with my partner for four years), but I fell in love with someone else more than a year and a half ago.
This person is in many ways not a good match: He is 20 years younger than I am (though my current partner is also much younger than me), and he is on the Autism-ADHD spectrum, which I suspect makes him both more attractive and less easy to interact with than anyone I have ever had a close relationship with. And yet, here we are.
We meet weekly at the place where I practice my sport. We have gone out together a couple of times recently (the first time became an 8-hour long walk around the city, with several stops) and talked about life, politics, and ourselves in a way that seems to me astonishingly honest and intimate. I like him so much, and even if we have never crossed any boundary, I think I am being quite obvious. He also likes me, I think, but I am not sure what I am to him.
Everything he does or fails to do has a huge influence on my mood. I am now going away for three weeks, primarily so I can put some distance between us and regain a sense of balance.
I have done this before, but I cannot say it has worked; I literally thought about him every day, even though I share my life with someone else, whom I also love. I know I need to extinguish this, but I am suppressing a part of myself. I cannot stop practicing my sport because it is too important to me, but I could try to avoid seeing him there. I wouldn’t write to you if this was a two-month crush on someone, but it has become such a big thing in my life. I feel lost, guilty, and eager, all at the same time. Any advice?