Both in Relationships but Have Feelings for Each Other?
Entry No. 089 ·
By The IF Team
If you are both in relationships and have feelings for each other, the feeling is not the problem. Feelings for someone other than a partner are common, and naming them is honest. What matters is what you do next. Close the private channel between you — the late messages, the coffees for two. Let each of you decide about your own relationship, alone, with no pact. And if you want the feeling said, say it once, in a way that waits until you are both single.
The lines are simple: cheating is wrong, and so is lying, to your partners or to each other. Everything short of that is yours to decide, and nothing about the feeling needs hiding. IF, the dating app for singles and people in relationships alike, sits on the honest side of that line: no conversation can open on IF while either of you is marked as in a relationship, but either of you can send the other a sealed IF that waits until you are both single.
You are not a bad person for feeling this, and you are far from alone. Often it is the colleague you have sat beside for three years, half of the couple you go on holiday with, the ex who looked at you across a friend’s wedding the way they used to. Commitment does not stop anyone noticing people: a study of adults in exclusive relationships found that crushes on someone other than a partner were common. What makes your situation different is that the feeling has been returned, and there are four people in it, not two.
This is the sharpest edge of a crush while you are in a relationship, and what follows keeps it honest for everyone involved.
Why a returned feeling is harder to carry
A one-sided crush tends to quieten on its own. You notice someone, nothing comes back, and the feeling slowly runs out of fuel. A mutual feeling feeds itself. Every message answered, every look held a second too long, is fresh evidence, and evidence keeps the story going.
Secrecy adds its own charge. Two people who share something nobody else knows start to feel like a small country of two, and the closeness feels like proof. Some of that closeness may be the secret talking, and some of it may be real; taking the secrecy out is how you find out which. Your relationships carry the bills, the in-laws and the ordinary Tuesday nights. The feeling between you carries only the spark. It is not a fair comparison yet.
And because it is mutual, it is tempting to keep talking it through in private: you both know, nothing will happen. But a feeling two people keep discussing in private is not being managed. It is being tended.
Close the private channel first
The private channel is any part of your connection that lives outside the rest of your lives. You probably have one if you recognise any of these:
- Messages you would not want your partner to read, or that you delete.
- Time alone together that you arrange, rather than time that simply happens.
- Conversations about your feelings for each other, or about the problems in your relationships.
Closing it does not require a scene, or pretending the feeling was never there. It requires a decision, then a lot of small, dull follow-through.
- Have one short conversation, or none. If you have already named the feeling, one brief, sober exchange is enough: you both feel it, you are both with other people, so the private part stops here — not a long goodbye over dinner. If it has never been said aloud, you can say it, but saying it face to face, inside two relationships, has real risks: it cannot be unsaid and it puts you both on the spot. You may be better off putting it in an IF, sealed until you are both single, so that if your timing ever lines up you are already there to show them how long you have felt it.
- End the one-to-one contact that life does not require. No late messages, no walks for two, no “just checking you’re okay”.
- Move whatever remains into the open: group chats, work channels, evenings with both partners there. If your partner could not read it over your shoulder, do not send it.
- Mute, and stop monitoring. Checking their profile, their online status or their partner’s photos keeps the channel open from one end.
- Say it out loud to someone you trust — a friend, a sibling — or write it down, so the feeling has somewhere to go that is not each other.
An advice column from UC Berkeley’s University Health Services suggests that when one person is taken and you both feel the connection, it may be wiser not to move forward while a partner is in the picture. With two partners, that holds twice over. Not moving forward is not giving up. It is letting the feeling wait.
If you work together or share a circle
Sometimes you cannot step out of each other’s lives. If you share an office, keep one-to-ones about work, skip the drinks for two and stop being each other’s confidant. If you share friends, see each other in groups, and leave when the group thins out. You are not cutting anyone off. You are taking the privacy out of it. If you want the feeling said without a conversation across the desk, an IF can hold it until you are both single. People can guess from context, and workplace relationships carry their own risks, so weigh that; then the choice is yours.
Has it already become an emotional affair?
Perhaps. Nothing physical needs to have happened for it to cross a line. The simplest test is secrecy: if your partner read every message tonight, would they see a friendship? Other signs are telling each other things you do not tell your partners, planning your week around seeing each other, or describing time together as shorter or more casual than it was.
If that sounds familiar, it does not make you a bad person. It does mean the secrecy needs ending now: one short exchange at most, not a last long talk. Our guide to the signs of an emotional affair will help you work out where you stand.
Each of you decides alone
Once the channel is closed, the hardest part remains. Each of you has to decide about your own relationship, separately, as though the other did not exist. Your relationship is not theirs to weigh, and theirs is not yours.
Why an ‘I’ll leave if you leave’ pact backfires
The most tempting idea, and the riskiest, is an agreement: “I’ll leave if you leave.” In practice it makes two separate relationships hostages to each other, turns a breakup into a transfer, and leaves one person stranded if the other has second thoughts. Neither of your partners should have their future settled in a conversation they were not part of. An IF is the opposite of a pact: it asks nobody to leave anyone.
Ask the question without them in it
Try this: if they moved to the other side of the world tomorrow, would you still want to leave? If the answer is no, your relationship may have more in it than the feeling suggests, and an IF can hold what you feel, sealed, while you find out. If yes, it may have been ending anyway, and deserves to end on its own terms. Should you break up because you like someone else? walks through it.
If you stay
Staying is not the cowardly option, and it deserves to be chosen fully. Turn towards your partner, notice what this connection has shown you that you want more of — attention, novelty, being understood — and ask for some of it at home. Staying does not mean pretending the feeling never existed: you can put it into a sealed IF, which opens nothing while either of you is in a relationship, and get on with the life you are living.
If you leave
Leave because the relationship is not right, and say so honestly, as your own decision rather than a move towards anyone. Then let yourself be single properly, and if the feeling is still there, let an IF wait for them while you get on with your life: if they ever become single too, you can show them how long you have felt it.
Why an IF is the clean way to get there
It is natural to wonder what happens if you both end up single one day. It might happen, and it might be good — and the best start is one where nobody was talked out of anything. Research on relationships that began with one partner being lured away from someone else suggests that beginnings matter. That is exactly why an IF waits: it opens only once each of you has become single on your own terms, so whatever starts between you starts free and clear.
If you are both married
Marriage raises the stakes without changing the answer. There may be children, a shared home and years of history on both sides. Go slower, not faster, and make no big decisions in a rush. Your feelings are no less real for the stakes: an IF lets you say it without touching anything either of you has built — it stays sealed unless you are both single one day, and then you can show them you felt it all along.
If the four of you are friends — the couple you go on holiday with, say — the friendship between your households may need to cool for a while. Your spouse will probably notice. Do not invent a reason, because a made-up excuse is the private channel by another name. If it needs explaining, explain it honestly.
Give yourself time and support: talk to someone you trust, and if you want to save your marriage, work on it with your spouse, in the open. If what you feel has grown far beyond a crush, our guide for when you are married but in love with someone else is written for that harder reckoning.
If you and your ex are both with someone new
Feelings between exes who have both moved on are sometimes feelings for a time rather than a person: who you both were before the move, the mortgage or the argument that ended it. Before you trust the feeling, remember why it ended, and ask honestly whether those reasons still hold. Sometimes you have both grown.
With an ex, the private channel is often a screen rather than a table: checking their profile, their photos, their new partner. A study of Facebook users found that keeping tabs on an ex-partner there went with more distress, more longing and less personal growth. Mute them. If you share children or practical ties, keep contact to those, and keep it in the open. If the feeling survives all that, an IF can say it without reopening anything, and our guide to feelings for an ex while you are in a new relationship goes further.
When the feeling will not let go
For some people, a returned feeling becomes consuming: rereading old messages, rehearsing conversations in your head, organising the week around the chance of seeing them. That is not a flaw in your character, and you do not have to carry it alone; talk to someone you trust. Fill the evenings the private channel used to take up with people and plans of your own.
Where IF fits
IF is a dating app for everyone, single or in a relationship, built so you can say how you feel whatever the timing, without anyone having to lie. No Like, match or chat is possible while either person is marked as in a relationship, so IF can never become your private channel.
Instead, it gives the feeling somewhere honest to go: either of you can send the other an IF, a private, sealed message of up to 250 characters that waits, asking nothing of either relationship, until you are both single. If you become single first, you get 24 hours to reveal it when they do; if they get there first, it reveals when you mark yourself single. How an IF works covers the rest.
That is the release valve a secret never offers: you say it once, mean every word and get on with your lives while the IF does the waiting. Having IF on your phone is not cheating, and an IF is sealed, not secret: nothing about it needs hiding. If your timing ever lines up, you are already there, and maybe it leads you where you were meant to be all along.
It is worth knowing how it lands. If they are on IF, they will usually be told an IF is waiting, never who sent it or what it says, though they may well guess it is from you. They can also delete it without ever seeing who it is from. Let it be the one honest thing you say instead of a hundred private ones. If they are not on IF yet, an IF to their email sends one short invitation; to a phone number or Instagram handle, nothing. Your first IF is free, and the choice is yours.
Questions people ask
Can you be in love with two people at the same time?
Yes. Many people feel something real for two people at once, and neither feeling has to be false. Acting on both behind anyone’s back is cheating; saying it honestly in a sealed IF that waits until you are both single is not. What you do next is your decision, made on your own.
Can you have feelings for someone else while in a happy relationship?
Yes. Being happy does not switch off your ability to notice people, and a returned feeling flatters you in a way that has little to do with your relationship. It is nothing to be ashamed of. What matters is keeping it in the open, and keeping it honest.
Should we wait for each other until we are both single?
If this feels like the right person at the wrong time, waiting is not foolish. It is hope. A pact puts both relationships on a timer. The honest version is to wait separately: write it into an IF, keep living your own life, and if you are ever both single, it can open. Right person, wrong time? Wait for them on IF.
How do you stop having feelings for someone when you are both taken?
You cannot switch it off, and you do not need to be ashamed of it. What helps is giving it less to feed on: close the private channel, keep necessary contact in the open, stop checking on them, and give it months rather than weeks. Writing it into one sealed IF can be what finally lets it rest.
Should I tell my partner I have feelings for someone else?
Often, yes — but on your own, not as a joint confession. Feelings are nothing to hide, and if there has been a private channel, such as messages you deleted or time together you played down, your partner deserves to hear it from you rather than find it. It is also worth telling them if they know the other person well, or if you are seriously thinking about leaving.
Talk about what it has shown you about your relationship, not about the other person. Our guide to telling your partner about a crush covers when and how.
Feelings like this are nothing to hide and nothing to be ashamed of. Say it once, honestly, in an IF, and let it wait for the day you are both single.