I fed into my coworkers crush and now I need to end it for good

(English isn’t my first language, TLTR at the end)

For 3 months I have been working three days a week after being a stay at home mom. It’s another location of the company I have been working for many years before I had my child.

During the first two weeks I didn’t noticed D. at all. Looking back, we had two small encounters were I asked him something. One time he seemed a bit annoyed and the other time he replied a „No, thanks.“ with a smile.

Things chanced the first time we directly worked together in week three. He touched my shoulder, smiled and asked how I was, made an effort to be helpful, first looked at me than looked away and smiled… I get hit on regularly and figured that he was probably divorced and simply enjoyed the small interaction with a younger women (I’m almost 30 and he’s in his mid to late 40s). Despite being a bit older he’s good looking/my type and I took his attention as a compliment.

We rarely saw each other for the following two weeks but every time we did, it was obvious that he had developed a little crush on me. I didn’t intend to feed into it, kept it professional, never asked him personal questions and kept every one of my answers short whereby it should be noted that he as well rarely asked me personal questions although he knew from the start that I was married and a mother. To this day we basically know nothing about each other.

My marriage wasn’t in the best place at that time. After a weekend of my husband and me fighting I made the mistake of seeking eye contact with D. at work. We still rarely interacted besides that.

One day, things escalated. We had regularly eye contact and shortly before leaving I starred at him in a group conversation He was standing in front of me across the room and watched my coworker to his left talking. When he looked at me and noticed my eyes he looked away ashamed before looking back at me. After he noticed I was still starring his eyes flared.

The next time we saw each other it was basically the same thing. No long interactions and some eye contact during the day. Shortly before leaving I passed by him in the hallway. When he noticed that I was looking at him he smiled and said „Hi“. When we passed by each other again he shortly asked me how I liked the workplace and how many hours I was working.

During that short conversation he gave me the „death stare“ and it freaked me out to a point where I just turned around and left. Around 20 minutes later we had the same group conversation like the day before but it was him who starred at me first with me replying the eye contact for a short while. Never „eye fucked“ someone before. That was certainly something else.

Before we saw each other again at work I got cold feed. He struck me at that kind of person who would immediately fuck me over if I continued this thing we had going on just to turn him down along the road.

I told my husband and he insisted that I was overreacting and just to keep things professional until everything cools down. The next time we saw each other I grey rocked him. At first he was obviously confused, tried again and again to start conversations but then he took the sign, avoided eye contact and left early that day.

The next time he was seemingly angry and didn’t talk to me at first. After I had to ask him a work related question he asked me „X, how are you?“ while I had already turned around to leave. While I answered he smiled at me and obviously took my answer as encouragement to continue our little thing (He probably thought that I just had a bad day)

After a full day of him trying to get conversations going he unexpectedly left early that day again. Something he apparently never does.

The next day we saw each other he kept thing short and professional. Shortly before leaving in the afternoon he came to me and out of nowhere told me that he was married. I felt like a fool but was ultimately happy since it would be easier for him to forget about me.

What followed was mix of ignoring each other, uncomfortable interactions and him leaving early quite often to the point that it became a running joke with our other coworkers.

Every small positive interaction would encouraged him to go further just to be devastated in the end.

Because of his vacation and different shifts we didn’t saw each other for one month.

I don’t know what happened during that time but he has gotten „nuts“ since than. The first time we spoke after seeing each other again on a Friday he said with a forced smile „What up with you, have you left us?“

In the afternoon he followed me into the office and asked me how I was to which I replied with a „How was your vacation?“ He sad down and we had a little conversation.

That leads us to the following Monday. Hard to say what chanced but I never saw him that depressed. He took any chance he got to get physically close to me.

He overheard that I had to go to a certain place? He was there. I was talking to a coworker? He would stare at me or happened to walk past me or come to join the conversation.

In the afternoon he randomly appeared to help me with a certain task without any explanation (That day he wasn’t even assigned to the same division). After he got annoyed by two coworkers that stood nearby and how nervous and depressed he appeared it became obvious that he wanted to talk to me privately.

5 Minutes before leaving I came to the area where he was standing with the two other coworkers that „interfered“ before, to talk to him. I stood a few meters away and drank some water. He immediately came to me and we exchange a few words with him asking me if I would be working tomorrow and when my next shift would be (We all work 9 1/2 hours a day).

After a short pause I started with the words “Do you…” while looking down (I intended to ask if he had children to get a positive conversation about his wife going) with him immediately interrupting me and asking me to go to the area we wait before going to the locker rooms (aka he wants to speak to me in private with no one overhearing it…)

I wasn’t prepared for that, froze and looked down. He turned around, walked during that direction and pretended to read something while he obviously waited for me to follow. That situation overwhelmed me and I stayed right were I was. While I started a conversation with one of the coworkers in the room he starred at me, made sure that I saw him and then left.

Although I need to end this mess I created I’m absolutely not prepared for anything he would say to me in private. In the end he didn’t do anything wrong and all we had was mutual. I enjoyed his attention and in other circumstances I would have been out with him.

This thing we have with each other destroys him.

To have a honest conversation would make things worse since it would raise his hopes. Just telling him „No, that thing between us isn’t going to lead to something.“ makes me afraid of his possible anger towards me. I saw that one for a short time after I started grey rocking him.

TLTR: I’m the new coworker and we are both married. I knew that he had a crush on me but I still encouraged him to go further with intense eye contact. Now he’s depressed and wants to talk to me in private.