Profile of Adrian Goh, Baptized name: Barnabas
– A family man and a Christian who volunteers overseas (Indonesia, Myanmar and other countries)
– Highly experienced in physical security, workplace safety, facilities management, human resource management. He is also workplace safety and fire safety certified
– He is equally comfortable in leading in major operations and administrative work
–He had written several articles on fire safety, workplace safety, human resources, micro expression and articles on the bible.
– He is a writer and storyteller who loves to share stories encountered
Office romance is already risky; office romance between two married colleagues is like bringing durian onto the MRT: technically the issue is not the durian itself, but everyone knows something explosive is about to happen. If this happens to you, the least funny but most useful answer is: stop, create distance, and deal honestly with your spouse and the other person before work, reputations, and families become collateral damage.
## The accidental workplace affair
It begins, as most bad ideas do, with a harmless conversation.
You are both married. You are both respectable professionals. You both have matching water bottles, annual leave plans, and a shared hatred of the office printer. Then one rainy Thursday, while waiting for your Grab home because the ERP has become a personal attack, your colleague says, “You seem stressed. Everything okay?”
This is a dangerous sentence.
Not because caring is wrong. Caring is lovely. But because you have not had an adult conversation with your spouse in three weeks that did not involve groceries, children’s enrichment classes, or whose turn it is to pay the electricity bill.
So you reply, “Actually, no.”
And suddenly your colleague understands you. They understand the pressure, the deadlines, the impossible boss, the 11.47 pm email that apparently could not wait until morning. They listen. They nod. They say your ideas are good.
By next week, you are no longer discussing work. You are discussing feelings.
By the week after that, the office pantry auntie is watching both of you with the alertness of a woman who has seen 25 years of corporate nonsense and can identify emotional cheating from the way someone says, “Do you want kopi?”
This is how it happens. Not usually with violins. More often with Teams messages, shared deadlines, emotional exhaustion, and the seductive thought that someone else has noticed you are tired.
## Why work makes it feel intense
An office creates artificial intimacy. You see your colleague at their competent best: delivering presentations, solving crises, making sense of an Excel file that looks like it was designed by an angry octopus. You do not necessarily see them arguing about laundry, worrying about mortgage payments, or becoming mysteriously helpless when asked to book a dentist appointment.
At work, they may seem calm, attentive, witty, and deeply appreciative of your contribution to the Q3 strategy deck. At home, your spouse may be asking why you bought the wrong brand of milk again.
The contrast can feel unfair. Your colleague gets your best shirt, your professional voice, and your ability to listen without scrolling through your phone. Your spouse gets you after two meetings, three deadlines, peak-hour commuting, and an argument with a food-delivery rider about missing drinks.
That does not mean the feeling is imaginary. It means the setting may be flattering it.
Office closeness can become especially powerful when both people are stressed, lonely, overlooked, or dissatisfied in their marriages. But a workplace connection is not automatically proof that you have met your soulmate. Sometimes it is proof that two exhausted people should have slept more and booked counselling before exchanging heart emojis in a Microsoft Teams chat.
## The Singapore version of secrecy
Singapore is a small country with a very large gossip network.
You might believe you are discreet. You do not hold hands. You do not say anything romantic in meetings. You have stopped using matching phone wallpapers. You only meet outside the office, in places far away, such as… Tiong Bahru.
Unfortunately, your colleagues have noticed:
– You both take leave on the same suspicious Friday.
– You suddenly know a great deal about each other’s children, renovations, and preferred bubble-tea order.
– You leave meetings together saying, “We’re just going downstairs.”
– You start defending each other’s work with the fierce loyalty of two people who have become emotionally overinvested in the same PowerPoint deck.
– You say “No lah, we are just close colleagues” with the strained confidence of someone trying to smuggle a giant panda through Customs.
No office has better surveillance than a Singapore office pantry. CCTV records movement. The pantry records vibes.
And even if nobody knows, secrecy changes you. You start calculating messages, deleting chat histories, inventing reasons for late nights, and feeling a little jolt of panic whenever your spouse picks up your phone. The relationship stops being a source of comfort and becomes a full-time administrative burden.
It is hard to feel romantic when you are constantly doing risk management.
## When it becomes a workplace problem
A relationship between consenting adults is not automatically an HR matter. But it becomes a workplace matter when it affects fairness, creates a conflict of interest, causes harassment, disrupts the team, or involves a power imbalance. [shrm]
For example, it is a serious problem if:
– One person manages, appraises, promotes, disciplines, or assigns work to the other. [businesstimes.com]
– Favouritism becomes visible: better shifts, plum projects, more flexible leave, or mysteriously generous performance ratings. [linkedin]
– Work messages become romantic, sexual, hostile, threatening, or unwelcome. [elearnposh]
– A breakup turns into retaliation, exclusion, public arguments, stalking, or attempts to damage the other person’s reputation. [shrm]
– Colleagues are dragged into keeping secrets, taking sides, or covering for unexplained absences.
If one of you supervises the other, this is not the time for “We can handle it professionally.” Every couple believes they are the exception until their annual appraisal turns into an episode of *The Good, the Bad and the Bonus*.
Good workplace practice is to disclose a genuine relationship where policy requires it, especially where reporting lines or influence over employment decisions exist. HR can change project assignments or reporting arrangements to reduce conflicts of interest. That conversation may be awkward, but it is still less awkward than explaining why half the sales team thinks the promotion process is a dating show. [shrm]
## What if this happens to you?
First, do not turn the situation into a comedy of escalating bad decisions.
You may be tempted to say, “Nothing physical has happened, so it is fine.” Perhaps. But if you are hiding conversations, seeking emotional comfort from this person instead of your spouse, or building a secret relationship that you know would hurt your partner, then something significant is already happening.
The question is not only, “Have we crossed a line?” The question is, “Why are we walking towards it with Google Maps open?”
### Stop adding fuel
Put immediate boundaries around the relationship.
– Stop private late-night messaging.
– Do not meet alone outside work under vague “catch-up” arrangements.
– Keep communication work-related and use work channels only for work.
– Avoid alcohol-fuelled “team bonding” that somehow becomes a two-person supper at 1 am.
– Do not confide intimate marriage problems to the colleague you are attracted to.
This is not because you are weak or immoral. It is because humans are remarkably bad at making wise choices when we feel lonely, validated, and admired by someone we see every day.
Also, do not use work resources for the affair. Company email, Teams, Slack, expense claims, meeting rooms, and “client dinners” are not romantic props. Workplace guidance commonly stresses that private conduct should not misuse office resources or interfere with professional responsibilities. [elearnposh]
### Face the marriage honestly
You have two marriages involved, not just two people having feelings.
Your colleague may seem like the answer to a difficult relationship, but they are not a substitute for dealing with your own marriage. Ask yourself what is missing: affection, communication, respect, attraction, peace, shared responsibility, or simply time together.
Then do the uncomfortable adult thing: speak to your spouse honestly about the state of the marriage. You do not have to make a dramatic midnight confession while holding a suitcase and playing sad Mandarin ballads. But you should not use silence as a strategy.
If you want to repair the relationship, consider couples counselling. If you believe the marriage is over, take responsibility for that decision independently rather than maintaining a secret affair while waiting for a new relationship to make the decision for you.
Your colleague should do the same with their spouse. You cannot resolve two marriages by holding hands outside the office lobby and hoping life becomes less complicated.
### Protect everyone’s dignity
When people find out about an affair, the instinct is to control the story: deny, minimise, blame a difficult marriage, blame alcohol, blame “work stress”, blame Mercury retrograde.
Avoid this.
Do not humiliate spouses, do not recruit friends to cover for you, and do not ask colleagues to lie. Do not share intimate details of your marriage around the office. A workplace is not a group-therapy circle, and your co-workers did not consent to being cast as supporting characters in your emotional crisis.
If the relationship must be discussed at work because of a policy or conflict of interest, keep the discussion factual and limited. HR needs to know about professional risks, not every detail of who sent what message from which hotel lobby.
One Singapore-based workplace commentator makes the distinction clearly: an affair is primarily a private matter unless it affects fairness, team morale, conflicts of interest, or creates a hostile workplace. If it affects work, raise the work impact – such as favouritism or compromised decision-making – rather than spreading personal gossip. [linkedin]
## The “but we really love each other” situation
Now let us address the possibility that this is not a fleeting crush. What if you both genuinely believe you have fallen in love?
That can be true. Human emotions are not fake just because their timing is inconvenient. But genuine feelings do not remove the responsibility to behave ethically.
If you want a future together, build it with honesty, not with a secret arrangement that depends on your spouses remaining in the dark. Each person should resolve their own marriage honestly and independently. Do not make promises such as, “I’ll leave my spouse once the kids are older,” “after the next bonus,” or “when the property market improves.”
Those are not plans. Those are season finales.
And do not assume that because you work well together, you will live well together. Shared dislike of your boss is not necessarily a foundation for a blended family. Neither is mutual admiration for pivot tables.
Before you reorganise your entire life, ask whether you know this person outside a work setting. Have you seen them handle boring domestic responsibilities? Have you disagreed without a work deadline forcing you to cooperate? Have you spent time together without the adrenaline of secrecy?
Romance can survive reality. But it should be given the chance to meet reality first.
## If it ends badly
Affairs can end. Sometimes one person pulls away. Sometimes a spouse discovers the relationship. Sometimes the company reorganises and suddenly you are both in the same weekly meeting, presenting “Values and Trust” to the leadership team.
If a relationship ends, the goal is not to become best friends immediately. The goal is to remain professional and safe.
Do not retaliate. Do not withhold work information. Do not bad-mouth the other person. Do not forward private messages to colleagues. Do not use a team chat to communicate emotional pain through suspiciously targeted song lyrics.
If behaviour becomes unwanted, threatening, humiliating, retaliatory, or disruptive, document the conduct and approach HR through the appropriate grievance channel. Singapore’s workplace framework emphasises fair processes and protection for people who report harassment or discrimination. Employers should take such concerns seriously and may use measures such as adjusted reporting lines, no-contact arrangements, or other safeguards. [shrm]
## The least romantic conclusion
An affair with a married colleague can feel thrilling because it offers attention, understanding, escape, and a temporary version of yourself who is not tired, responsible, or stuck. But that temporary world comes with real costs: spouses, children, co-workers, trust, careers, mental health, and your ability to look at the pantry auntie without wondering what she knows.
If this happens to you, do not let the office become the place where you avoid the truth. Draw boundaries. Stop the secrecy. Deal honestly with your marriage. Keep work professional. Seek counselling or personal support if you need it.
And remember: the person who knows you best in the office may not be HR, your manager, or your favourite colleague.
It is the pantry auntie.
She has seen you ordering two kopi-o kosong, and she has already reached a conclusion.