I am feeling extremely remorseful about something that I’ve done, and I am looking for some advice and/or support. A little over a year ago, an engaged man (I’ll call him Tim) whom I worked with starting reaching out to me, saying that he was lonely and had no one to talk to. This struck me as odd, considering that he was engaged, but he seemed very depressed and I was afraid of hurting his feelings. So he and I started texting each other outside of work (unbeknownst to his fiancée). The texting was originally friendly, nothing sexual at all, and he and I seemed to be becoming friends. Within a few weeks, I started having romantic feelings for him. He eventually told me that he and his fiancée were having a lot of problems and that he suspected she had cheated on him. He told me that I was making him feel happy again. The hope that their relationship wouldn’t work out and the excitement of the feelings that I was having for him caused me to keep communicating with him, even though I knew it was wrong. I became addicted to the attention that he was giving me (sending me texts simply to say that he couldn’t stop thinking about me). I met Tim’s fiancée at a work party and noticed the distance between them. I used this as an excuse to allow things to get physical with him. We would sneak off to private places at work and fool around, though we never had sex. We would exchange sexual texts, sometimes when his fiancée was at work, sometimes when she was lying in bed next to him. I eventually called things off because of guilt and the fear of getting my heart broken. I could feel myself falling deeper for this guy, yet I had the suspicion that he was only using me and was still planning to marry his fiancée. So for a good six months, we had very little contact with each other, except when necessary at work. He would flirt with me every so often, mostly because I think he didn’t want me to stop wanting him. He got married in August. I accepted this, though I still had feelings for him, and did my best to move on. I started seeing someone outside of work and seemed to be making a little bit of progress. When Tim found out that I was moving on, he started flirting with me again, telling me how lonely he was and how unsatisfied he was with his wife and their sex life. I still had feelings for Tim, and I gave in. We started sexting again. At this point, the guy that I had been seeing outside of work and I were no longer together, but I exaggerated our relationship to make Tim jealous. The more unavailable I seemed to Tim, the more he wanted me. One night during some hot and heavy sexting, he fell asleep without deleting incriminating messages from his phone, and his wife found them. She called me, screamed at me, called me all kinds of names. She threatened to go to my and Tim’s boss and tell him everything, ensuring that we would both get fired. Everything hit me at that point. All the horrible things I’d done, the lies I’d told, the way I was sneaking around, the damage I’d caused. I tried to apologize, but she didn’t want to hear it, and I can’t say that I blame her. I eventually went to my boss myself and told him everything. I figured it was better coming from me than from her. Tim and I both got fired, and now I am left with so much shame and regret that I feel lost and hopeless. I have always considered myself to be a good person who is kind and respectful, but now I feel like I’ve lost myself. My friends and family keep telling me that this was just a horrible mistake, and that I shouldn’t let it define me, but I can’t seem to let it go. It’s been over for two months now, but I keep replaying everything over and over again in my head. What if I had told him to stop texting me before I fell for him? What if I had made better choices about not fooling around with someone at work, someone who was engaged and eventually married? The worst part of all of this is not that I lost my job, not that I had my heart crushed by someone who eventually admitted that I meant nothing to him. It’s that I hurt his wife. It was never my intention to ruin their relationship. I know that sounds crazy considering what I did, but I honestly had no malicious intent. I just got wrapped up in my feelings for Tim, and now I don’t know what t do with this guilt. It’s turning me inside out. I would appreciate any help or advice that anyone is willing to give.