Ok so, I’m a (30f) homeowner and have a house that I’ve been thinking of renting or selling.

I started working with this property management company while I do the repairs, but turns out they also have a brokerage, flip houses, do lawn care etc. So I hired them to mow my lawn and the owner of the company came out, and to my surprise he was SUPER handsome. I was immediately attracted. I was expecting someone else to mow the lawn but he was the one who did it. We had a short conversation that day but I kinda felt like we both had an internal moment like ‘oh this person’s really attractive.’ 

A month goes by and I have him come look at the house to see if he wants to buy it and flip. I give him a tour of the house etc, but uhhh, the chemistry was intense. He seemed a little nervous and kept doing this thing like pulling up his jeans (easier to demonstrate in person) - I wasn’t sure if this was a nervous tick, he needed a belt, or he was…adjusting. But he did it a decent number of times and I just pretended not to notice lol.

We were walking around the house together and he followed me up the stairs.. then I was showing him something out the window so ya know, the physical tension was kindof a lot. We went to the front door and I thanked him for coming by etc and he eventually said ‘it was good to see you’ - which is not something that people say a whole lot in this industry. It could be something that he says to people in general but idk, it seemed a little flirty? 

Here’s the thing… that day I noticed that he had a ring on, so I’m just like okay welp…not interested. 

But the crush is already there, and it’s been REALLLLY hard to have a normal work dynamic with him - we communicate thru his work phone/email which his whole team has access too. He’s been very professional and is REALLY good at his job - the service, communication, low pressure, everything has been top notch. So I really want to keep them as my company no matter which route I go, but this is presenting some challenges. He was there the other day to mow the lawn and I just so happened to look out the window when he took his shirt off and UGH he looked so good 😭

So I’m honestly realizing that having this crush is not good for my mental health - naturally when I like someone I want to get to know them, but I can’t risk that in this situation and I don’t want to put myself in a tempting situation moving forward. It’s just too risky.

So I’m just wondering, what would you do in this situation? My strongest inclination is to just be 100% real with him and tell him in person (so his team doesn’t know the tea), that I’m attracted to him, and out of respect for his marriage and myself, I can’t continue communicating with him etc. 

I would like to explore options like seeing if I can communicate with someone else on his team and have someone else mow the lawn, but to be honest that’s very unlikely since it’s such a small company and he handles most of the business and lawn care. It’s a bummer bc he provides a great service and I feel comfortable with him especially as a woman in this industry where people see me and immediately think they can make money off me due to ignorance. He doesn’t really treat me that way which is nice. Plus his real estate fees are very competitive. So it would be unfortunate to lose the opportunity business wise but I genuinely do think it’s the best decision for my mental/emotional health and for the sake of not being tempted.

Or I could just tell him, I really appreciate him and his team but I’ve decided to move in a different direction - something like that to keep it vague. But ugh, idk. I prefer being super transparent tbh. Plus I want him to know I’m not doing this because the service is bad. It’s almost just TOO GOOD. Lol. So I guess my question is, how would you communicate about this? I don't want to say too much, or too little...