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Kanchan Rai |663 Answers |Ask -Follow

Relationships Expert, Mind Coach - Answered on Nov 10, 2025

Kanchan Rai has 10 years of experience in therapy, nurturing soft skills and leadership coaching. She is the founder of the Let Us Talk Foundation, which offers mindfulness workshops to help people stay emotionally and mentally healthy.
Rai has a degree in leadership development and customer centricity from Harvard Business School, Boston. She is an internationally certified coach from the International Coaching Federation, a global organisation in professional coaching.... more

Question by Vidhan on Oct 30, 2025Hindi

Dear Ma'am, I have been married for 10 years and have a 4-year-old son, with another child expected soon. About six years ago, I was working with an organization where I became acquainted with a female colleague during our daily commute. Our interactions were initially professional, occasionally casual, and over time, we developed a friendly rapport. There were moments of physical closeness, such as holding hands, although she was unaware of my marital status at the time. After I left that organization, our communication became infrequent. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she experienced a medical emergency in her family, and it was during that emotionally vulnerable period that I unintentionally expressed my feelings for her. She is now nearly 40 years old and dealing with multiple health issues, including being overweight and other medical complications. Although she knows that I care about her, she has not accepted my proposal, fully aware that I am married and unable to commit to a marital relationship with her. Despite this understanding, she often invites me out for movies, dinners, and expects gifts. Recently, our interactions have involved romantic gestures such as hugging and neck kisses. However, she continues to describe herself as asexual and uninterested in a physical relationship, while also expressing a desire to get married — which appears contradictory. She often says she wants to remain friends and doesn’t want me to leave her, but at the same time, her expectations and emotional dependency are becoming increasingly difficult to manage. I want to let her know that I’m looking for more than just a friendship because I feel emotionally vulnerable and need her commitment to feel secure. I believe that building a romantic and physical relationship between us could help her feel more supported. She’s going through a lot and doesn’t have much family support aside from her unmarried younger brother.

Ans: Dear Vidhan,

The first thing I want to tell you gently, yet firmly, is this: your connection with her has crossed boundaries that are not healthy for either of you. Emotional intimacy that grows within secrecy or ambiguity always creates confusion and pain. It’s not just about morality—it’s about clarity, safety, and truth. You are a married man, a father, and soon to be a father again. You’re carrying responsibilities that require emotional presence and stability. The relationship you’ve described, as kind as your intentions may be, is already creating emotional dependency and confusion—not love, but attachment mixed with guilt and need.
She seems to be emotionally fragile and perhaps lonely, and you’ve become a source of emotional comfort for her. But that comfort has blurred into something that neither of you can sustain without hurting yourselves or others. Her saying she’s asexual yet seeking closeness reflects her own confusion and emotional needs; it’s not something you can fix through physical or romantic gestures. In fact, trying to “build” that relationship further would only deepen her dependency and your inner conflict.
The best step forward is to bring the relationship back to clarity and boundaries. You can express this compassionately but clearly: tell her that you genuinely care for her as a person and want her to find peace, but that the emotional and physical closeness between you is not sustainable or fair to either of you. Offer her respect, not rescue. If she truly needs support, guide her toward professional help or emotional networks, not a relationship built on secrecy and unmet expectations.
You also need space to reflect on what led you here. Emotional vulnerability during midlife often arises from unmet needs—loneliness, stress, or feeling unappreciated in marriage. But the healing for that comes not from escape, but from understanding yourself and rebuilding emotional honesty at home.