Is it obligatory for the questioner to leave her job, despite her need for her salary, because of her emotional attachment to her married colleague whom she wishes to marry but he refuses, knowing that she has sought God's guidance (istikharah) concerning her matter?

It is advisable to turn away from the man after repeated istikharah (guidance prayer) and his unwillingness to marry. It is permissible in Islamic law for a woman to offer herself to a righteous man. Poverty should not prevent marriage for someone whose character is approved, for Allah promises to enrich the married person who seeks chastity. Every means that leads to the heart's attachment to a foreign man must be cut off, and one must strive against the self to get rid of this feeling by remembering the dire consequences and serious corruptions. One should also increase in supplication and fasting, and be content with Allah's decree, for perhaps what happened was a good thing and a diversion from evil.