I’ve got feelings for a teacher at my children’s school. What should I do? | Ask Annalisa Barbieri

I’ve been married for 20 years and have two children. By most measures, our marriage is stable and successful. But lately I have found myself developing strong feelings for a teacher at my children’s school. While our interactions there are limited, we also attend a weekly non-school activity. What began as casual conversation has become much more significant in my mind. I find myself looking forward to seeing them, thinking about our conversations later, and wondering what might have been if we’d met in different circumstances.

They are married with children too. Nothing inappropriate has happened, and neither of us has acknowledged any romantic feelings. However, I cannot shake the sense that there may be a mutual connection.

I am struggling with what these feelings mean. Are they evidence that something is missing in my marriage, or simply the result of encountering someone new after years with the same partner? Is this a genuine connection that deserves attention, or a fantasy that has never been tested by real life?

Most importantly, what should I do next? I don’t want to hurt my wife, my children, this person, or their family. Yet pretending these feelings don’t exist hasn’t made them disappear.

The first thing to address is your use of the pronoun “they”. This makes me wonder if it’s a man or a woman you’ve developed feelings for. If it’s the former, and you’ve lived as a heterosexual man thus far, and that’s what your wife believes, then you need to be really honest with yourself and then your wife about what this all means beyond the crush.

I went to psychotherapist Mark Vahrmeyer, who said: “It’s a romantic idea that once we have found the right person we should only ever desire them. In reality, that’s not how desire works. You can love your wife, value your marriage and still find yourself drawn to someone else. The existence of the feeling does not in itself mean your marriage is failing, or there is something wrong with you.”

Neither is it an instruction to do something about it other than wonder what this is trying to tell you.

“A crush,” said Vahrmeyer, “can be harmless and even enjoyable. It can feel like something private within the constraints of a committed life. The difficulty begins if you start feeding it, seeking signs that it is mutual, creating more contact or treating the fantasy as though it were already a relationship.”

Real-life, long-term relationships, as you know, have to deal with a lot of everyday-ness. Crushes operate outside that and can feel freeing and heady.

This “imagined relationship”, said Vahrmeyer, “is largely untested. You know this person only through limited, favourable circumstances, not through the demands and compromises of everyday life. They can become almost anyone you need them to be. Infatuation can make the unfamiliar seem vivid and the familiar seem dull, but that does not mean the unfamiliar would survive reality any better.

“You do not need to deny the feeling, but nor should you test whether it is mutual,” advised Vahrmeyer. “Seeking signs, creating more contact or disclosing your attraction would begin to turn fantasy into action. The task is not to repress the desire, but to contain it: to think about what it may be telling you while taking responsibility for the boundaries that protect everyone involved.”

Whether this feeling is mutual, or for a man or a woman, I would heavily counsel against you doing anything about it. Starting a relationship with a trusted “other” at your child’s school will have deep and long-lasting effects, not least for your children.

Every week, Annalisa Barbieri addresses a personal problem sent in by a reader. If you would like advice from Annalisa, please send your problem to ask.annalisa@theguardian.com. Annalisa regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence. Submissions are subject to our terms and conditions. The latest series of Annalisa’s podcast is available here.