Running over a co-worker isn’t as harmless as you might think, a new study suggests.
Researchers from the University of New Brunswick in Canada found that the more time a person spends with their lover at the office, the worse the quality of the relationship with their partner at home.
During a four-month study period of 542 young people aged 22 to 35 with office crushes, the study authors found an increasing decline in the sexual desire of the crushes’ partner.
This led to around one in ten couples breaking up by the end of the study, published in the Journal of Sex Research.
Participants completed two surveys, one at the start of the study and one four months later.
Perhaps one of the most famous film and television crushes plays out in the hit 2003 romantic comedy Love Actually, between Harry, played by Alan Rickman, and his colleague Mia, played by Heike Makatsch.
Although 49 percent of participants acknowledged that they and their partner had an exclusive arrangement, most reported being attracted to one or more people outside of their relationship.
Surprisingly, about a third of people with crushes said their partner was aware of their romantic feelings for another person.
“Its attraction is hard to ignore, even for those in exclusive relationships,” wrote the authors, psychology researchers Charlene Belu and Lucia O’Sullivan.
A third of those surveyed said they met their crush at work, while the minority met through a friend, at school or online.
At the start of the study, 57% of participants wanted no change in their relationship with their partner or crush. Most participants also did not view their crush as detrimental to their relationship.
Another recognizable example of office crushes comes from the NBC series, The Office, and the love story between Pam and Jim.
But over a four-month period, the authors found that the more a participant was attracted to someone outside their relationship, the worse the quality of their relationship.
Some of the relationship quality measures included were sexual satisfaction, investment in the relationship, and overall sense of fulfillment.
So over time, respondents who were truly attracted to their crush began to feel less satisfaction in their relationship, sexually and otherwise.
The authors caution that these are subjective measures and because only one individual in the couple completed the survey, it may not be entirely balanced.
Even though these crushes made relationships worse, only 12 percent of participants broke up with their partners during the study.
Even fewer actually acted on their crush: Three percent of participants cheated during the study.
However, 13% of those surveyed said they would follow through on their desire if their crush provoked it.
Previous research has highlighted how often people form romantic relationships in the office.
A recent survey from the Society for Human Resource Management found that about 41 percent of Americans have had some sort of romantic encounter with a coworker.
A third of people surveyed in the SHRM study said they got involved with their coworkers because they were in love, and another third took the plunge for the excitement of being with someone new .
A study carried out in 2023 by Forbes Advisor A survey of 2,000 American workers found that 40% had cheated on their partner with a co-worker.