I (27F) have been married to my husband Will (28M) for a little over a year now, and we’ve been together for four years total.
When lockdown started, Will’s younger brother Liam (26M) asked if he could stay with us temporarily because his roommate is an essential worker and Liam is considered high-risk due to Crohn’s. Before this, Liam and I had met maybe less than ten times total, definitely not enough to know each other well.
But since he moved in, things changed.
My husband is a lawyer and spends most of the day shut away working. Liam and I are both technically still working too, but things slowed down a lot for both of us, so we suddenly had a lot of free time. He’s been living with us for over three months now.
The first week he moved in, I noticed something I wasn’t expecting. Liam and I are extremely similar. Same humor, similar interests, same energy overall. Honestly, way more alike than my husband and I are.
And to make things worse, he also looks a lot like Will.
Except since getting married, my husband has gained some weight, while Liam is extremely fit.
You can probably see where this is going.
I don’t know Liam well enough to know if he’s flirting with me or if I’m imagining things, but sometimes it really feels like it. He laughs at all my jokes, teases me constantly, and if I suggest doing something together, going to the store, playing a game, whatever, he immediately wants to join.
Sometimes the way he looks at me feels affectionate, occasionally intense.
We’ve also spent a lot of time outside tanning or hanging out by the pool, so we’re around each other in swimwear a lot.
At least on my side, the tension feels through the roof.
My s*x life with Will hasn’t been great lately either, which definitely doesn’t help.
On top of that, Liam and I have gotten emotionally close. We stay up late talking, usually after a few drinks or hanging out because Will goes to bed early. We’ve built a ton of inside jokes. We text each other even though we’re in the same house.
And recently I realized that whenever I see his name pop up on my phone, I get that excited, nervous feeling people get early in relationships.
I didn’t fully realize how serious this had become until last week.
Wednesday night, I had a really vivid s*x dream about Liam.
I woke up feeling incredibly guilty. Later, I initiated s*x with Will, but realized I was thinking about Liam the entire time. Afterward I felt awful and honestly disgusted with myself.
Then Friday night, all three of us had been drinking and listening to music. After Will went to bed, Liam and I stayed up dancing around and joking.
At one point we were “jokingly” grinding and messing around.
But it didn’t actually feel like a joke.
Since then I can’t stop thinking things I shouldn’t be thinking, like what my life would look like if I had met Liam first, or what he’d be like as a husband.
Today I talked to Will and suggested maybe Liam should move out soon under the excuse that we need more privacy and more time together as a couple.
Will seemed surprised because from his perspective Liam and I get along really well, and he basically shut the idea down because Liam doesn’t really have anywhere else to go.
Now I’m scared I’m getting dangerously close to crossing a line emotionally, if I haven’t already.
I genuinely don’t know what to do.
Edit: I am NOT considering physically cheating. I’m scared that if we keep living together and spending this much time together, my feelings will keep getting stronger and it’ll become harder to pull back. I realize now I definitely need to stop drinking, getting high, and staying up alone with Liam, but I’m not convinced that alone fixes everything. I’d appreciate advice on how to create distance tactfully.