April 14, 2006
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Emotional Affair
It seemed like nothing at first. The man and woman met on Xanga. The man, who is married, and the woman, who is single, spent time instant messaging about their personal life. The man began revealing his feelings of distress about his marriage. The female listened, empathized and sometimes offered up the pain-filled details of her relationships. They decided to meet each other once or twice. No physical contact. They continued sending each other email. They instant message. Each time they talked on the computer, the emotional connection deepened.
Psychologists call an affair without any physical touching extramarital emotional involvement, emotional infidelity or an emotional affair. An emotional infidelity is about consistently sharing with someone things that you are not sharing with your spouse. What is less understood is that an emotional affair can be even more threatening to a long-term relationship than a physical affair. In emotional affairs, deep, personal intimacies are traded, instead of fantasies of the flesh. Friendships found over the Internet begin and develop quickly when someone connects with a person who appears to be empathetic and who shares common interests.
It often develops slowly, even innocently, as a friendship with a co-worker or friend. There may not be a romantic or sexual attraction at first. But when the primary relationship is experiencing ongoing conflict, and one member of the relationship pulls away from their partner and consistently turns to their ‘friend’ for companionship, support and sharing of deep personal material, an emotional affair has begun. The emotional infidelity begins when two people share information about problems in their primary relationship that their respective partner would feel was a violation.
For many people, the emotional affair is a great source of relief and comfort during relationship difficulties. But the danger is that there is a finite amount of intimate emotional energy to go around, and when one begins to regularly invest their emotional energy in someone outside the primary committed relationship, the primary relationship can be seriously compromised.
If we find ourselves or our partner developing an emotional affair, we must put our attention on our primary relationship as soon as possible. We must get help to understand why we drifted to this other person in the first place. We must begin the work of re-investing emotional energy in our primary relationship. Turning to someone else during a time of conflict is merely escaping and avoiding other issues. These issues won’t go away. They will resurface again should we develop a real relationship with our emotional affair partner. We may as well learn to deal with them now, before putting ourselves and our partner through a terrible crisis.
What is your position on emotional affair?
Notes from the Relationship Institute.
Comments (26)
I find that emotional affair can lead to an actual affair if not prevented on a timely manner. We are human so it is easy for one to become vulnerable to online conversation and be connected to the other online party. However, if the two does it on a continous based then actual infidelity may occur. In prevention of this, the party whom is seeking comfort elsewhere especially emotional comfort in the opposite gender who shares the similar distress, must be well aware of his or his actions and talk to their own significant others about what is bothering them and to search for a solution instead of getting into more of a conflicts.
With the popularity of the internet, IMing, blogging, and text messaging there exists both the occasion and the setting for emotional affairs. Because of who I am, there are certain things I need to say and things I need to accomplish to fulfill my own sense of self. At times there are things I share on xanga that are important to me and that I need to talk about but my spouse does not show an interest in that side of me. Should I be sharing these things with her? Of course! But if she shows no interest in this aspect of me should I tuck it away in the bottom of a drawer somewhere or should I take the opportunity xanga offers to give expression and celebrate that side of me? I see infidelity as giving away something intimate and special about yourself that you have made a commitment to give exclusively to your spouse. But if my spouse is not interested in part of what I have and need to give away to be myself and giving it away in another way doesn’t hurt my spouse or compromise my commitment, am I guilty of infidelity? I don’t think so…
RYC: I love your choice of the word lend in describing how you approach God with respect to Ron and Chelsea.
I must say, this is one great entry. Something that I am sure is going on a lot these day in age yet no one have yet to put it in words. Nicely done, Anh! Happy Easter. =D
I think that people need to spend more time with their spouse and family and less on the internet then this would not happen, smile may never happen, Judi
I don’t know. Trim-Tab sometimes I feel like you are the only one who understands me….oh wait
In all seriousness though, I feel for people who turn to the internet to find emotional stability. Support is fine, and on the rare chance a relationship works out thats great, but humans were not meant to have their sole relationships through a P.C.
How do you feel on the issue of immigration? Peace.
-Pilgrim of Truth
It does not matter how many times I visited your xanga I still loved to listen to the background song.
This subject is hard to talk about without being critical and judmental. I could feel the hurt of the wife and the guilt of the other woman. I also feel the lack of communication or intimacy of the couple.
But who am I to make a judgement?
I agree 101% on this topic ….
WOw, i like many topics that you discuss on male and female relationship.
It is up to how much will the individual loves his or her partner. If I have wife and I am devoted to her 100%, I will never get involve with other women. And I have absoluted trust my wife that she will not do the same. Being faithful for a person is a disciplinary act—refering as to continue cherish his or her emotions again and again daily base. Not many people have such a commitment to love a person again and again, and rediscovery their love again and again….for lifetime sake. But few actually do…and that is very fortunated and that is like a timeless love. A happy ending…hehe
I hope I am not getting off from the topic…hehe
typo
“And I have absoluted trust my wife that she will do the same.”
Very nice entry as always… and no I’m not moving to Houston unless my job takes me there.
The most painful aspect of my relationship with my ex-husband was an emotional affair he had with a woman who was also my friend, or so I thought. It really hurt. But that was his intent. To hurt. Wow, I’m glad we’re not married anymore…
We interact with a wider community over the internet that exceeds any expectations of the past when we were locally constraint. The change of meeting somebody that connects more intimately with what we believe, think and feel is greater than in the past. Emotional affairs is therefor highly plausible to develop. There is no guarantee that it will not impact on your physical relationship with your partner. We should take at least the responsibility on ourselves to decide how much we want to share with our physical partners and then take responsibility for the consequence of that decision. In the end we are the authors of our own lives and our decisions will always influence others.
RYC: You must have a tracker! I’m busted!! yes, I saw you on someone elses site, and thought, I think I used to read her xanga! You have a lot of good stuff to say on here…….I will comment more lately, in a hurry this morning!
hehe, well, no I don’t think the Easter Bunny will come to my apartment. (aka I live alone so my mom isn’t here to give me an Easter basket!) Man I used to LOVE getting Easter baskets… anyway, maybe the Easter Bunny will be Fed Ex’ed this year??
What about you? And emotional affairs are tricky and very dangerous things to mess with, I’ve never really dealt with that but I think if I did I would definately exercise caution over continuance. But I don’t know that many people who are married, except now work people. Most people I know/hang out with my age aren’t married.
Emotion affair happens when we are not sure of ourselves. We exchange one attachment with another. It is a beautiful experience to exchange the life learning with others. However, when we use them for the substitute of our own inadequacy, we are walking into the path of suffering.
Have a blessed Easter.
L,r
do you think affairs happen because one partner isnt enough, or because they simply cant control themselves
FadeIntoADream , I like UnityOne‘s answer to your question.
I agree emotional affairs can be very damaging to a marriage. I think semi ex had one of those with the neighbors and it was NOT helpful to us as a coupld. RYC: Well now that you have the lowdown on the foods, you can buy some and try them. but i gave you my take so don’t say I did not warn you.
my ex had an emotional affair. he still thinks there is nothing wrong.
Happy Easter to you and your family, chi. !!
It should be avoided at much as possible. That’s why it’s healthy to keep friend network intact. And that’s why I think it’s ok to limit your interaction with opposite gender friends once you’re in a relationship, both online and in real life. I know people will dog me for saying this with “lack of confidence”, or “low self-esteem”. But as far as my experience goes, whenever someone says that, he/she is not into his partner as much as he/she should have been. He/she is planning for a safety net in case the relationship turns sour. At the very least, this is a sign of loss of interest.
Really good post. I too, think UnityOne has the right idea.
You should join my MSN group, Transpersonal Relationships and post this entire message there as it is very relevant to what kinds of threats can break even the strongest of unions.
I am wishing you and yours a wonderful Easter holiday. Keep in touch !
hugs,
Have a wonderful Easter, Judi
it’s funny how i actually know some people (which know of) on xanga were doing exactly the same to their hubbies/significant others.