How My Work Romance Improved My Career (Not What You Think)

And why I don’t think it should’ve been a secret in the first place.

A Secret Relationship I Wasn’t Supposed to Have

It started quietly. Glances during meetings, inside jokes over Slack, late-night work sessions where the lines blurred. I wasn’t looking for anything. Neither was she. But something pulled us in.

She worked in HR, which made the whole thing more complicated. Company policy didn’t explicitly forbid it, but we both knew it would raise eyebrows if anyone found out. So we kept it to ourselves. No flirting in the office. No signs on social media. Just two people in the same building, pretending we were nothing to each other in public and everything behind closed doors.

It wasn’t just physical. I trusted her. And one night, after I let my guard down about something that had been weighing on me, she said something that would change everything.

Financial Pressure Was Catching Up to Me

I told her what I hadn’t told anyone else. That I felt like I was slipping. Not in my performance, but in life.

Everything cost more. Rent. Groceries. Even breathing felt expensive. I wasn’t spending recklessly. I wasn’t being careless. I was just stuck in a cycle where I was working harder every month, yet barely keeping up. No savings. No buffer. Just one unexpected emergency away from panic.

I had asked for a raise before. The response was always the same. Let’s revisit it later. We’re reviewing budgets. Hang in there. But later never came.

That night, she looked at me differently. Like she knew something I didn’t.

The Secret She Wasn’t Supposed to Share

She hesitated before speaking. Then she told me how raises really work.

Not the HR-approved version, but the internal logic no one admits out loud. That when an employee asks for a raise, the first thing a manager thinks isn’t “Do they deserve it?” but “What would it cost us if they left?”

Replacing someone is expensive. Hiring, onboarding, downtime, mistakes, the months it takes to get someone to full productivity. It adds up. And most of the time, quietly approving a 10 to 15 percent raise is cheaper than starting from scratch.

She said if leadership believes you have other options, real offers on the table, they’ll act. Not because they want to lose you. But because suddenly, losing you has a clear price tag.

It wasn’t career advice. It felt like a confession. And by the look in her eyes, I knew it wasn’t something she told people often, if ever.

Trying to Make the Strategy Work on My Own

After that night, I couldn’t shake it.

I decided to test her theory, but quietly. I didn’t want to be reckless. I just wanted to see if the market saw me the way I hoped it did.

I updated my resume. Wrote a few cover letters. Spent late nights combing through job boards, clicking apply, clicking again and again. One job here, another there. It started to feel like a part-time job I wasn’t getting paid for.

Over two weeks, I sent out about a dozen applications. I got a few rejections, mostly silence, and one interview I walked out of feeling like I had wasted everyone’s time, mine included. I wasn’t prepared, I wasn’t focused, and I was losing sleep juggling it all.

Meanwhile, work was piling up, and the pressure I was trying to escape was only growing.

The Breaking Point and the Solution I Didn’t See Coming

I almost gave up. Not on the idea, but on the process. I didn’t have time to run a full-time job search alongside a full-time job. The burnout was real.

That’s when I stumbled across something called PayLeap. A friend mentioned it casually. Said it helped him get offers without spending every evening glued to his laptop.

I was skeptical, but too tired to ignore a potential shortcut.

I signed up, uploaded my resume once, and set filters for the kind of roles and salary I was aiming for. PayLeap handled the rest. It automatically matched me with relevant jobs and sent out tailored applications without me having to write a single cover letter. Its AI even adjusted my resume for each job.

Suddenly, job hunting didn’t feel like a second job. It felt like a silent assistant doing the heavy lifting in the background.

Proof That Changed the Conversation

Within five days, I had two interview requests and one written offer on the table. It wasn’t just a better title. It was a €9,000/year increase from what I was making and better benefits.

This time, when I walked into my manager’s office, I didn’t ask for anything. I presented the offer. Calmly. Professionally. I told them I liked my job, but I had to consider my options.

No anger. No threats. Just numbers.

Two days later, I got a raise. Seventeen percent more. Approved with no drama.

The system she described worked exactly as she said it would.

Why I Broke the Promise I Made

Looking back, maybe I should have kept it to myself. Maybe I should have protected the trust between us, kept what she told me as something private and personal. But the truth is, I couldn’t.

People around me were dealing with the same pressure I had been living with for months. They were working late, saying yes to everything, waiting for recognition that never came. I didn’t share the whole story. I didn’t mention where the advice came from. But I did tell them what I’d learned about how raise decisions really work. I explained the logic. I shared what I used. I told them about PayLeap.

Word spread faster than I expected. A few started getting interviews. Others told me they felt hopeful for the first time in a long while. And for a brief moment, it felt like I had passed on something that actually mattered.

Then one night, I got a message from her. Just a few words. Nothing dramatic. But the meaning was clear.

We haven’t spoken since.

Some Secrets Shouldn’t Be Secrets

She felt betrayed. I understand that. What she shared with me wasn’t meant for the whole office. But I still believe I did the right thing.

Because this is bigger than us.

Most people stay underpaid not because they’re lazy or not good enough, but because they don’t have leverage. They don’t know how the system works. And no one ever tells them.

You shouldn’t need a secret relationship to hear the truth.

You shouldn’t need to burn yourself out trying to find an offer on your own.

You should have a way to quietly, efficiently, and privately test your value. And that’s what PayLeap gave me. Not just leverage, but time, energy, and a way out of financial stress without setting fire to my life.

I didn’t use it to leave. I used it to stay, on terms I could finally accept.