Your Cheating Heart: A Look at the Emotional Affair
Emotional infidelity occurs when we crave intimacy with someone other than our spouse. For some the workplace provides the most opportunity to develop a friendship outside the marriage and for others online chat rooms make a wonderful meeting place. You meet someone who makes you feel special and before you know it you are sharing the intimate details of your life. Because there is no physical contact it's easy to convince yourself that what you are doing is harmless. But is it? When two people start sharing their marital problems and other details of their life, they begin to form a bond. They start to believe that they have an emotional connection that is lacking with their current partners and that they understand each other on a deeper level. There may be no sex but when secretive emotional bonds are formed - that counts as cheating too.
Not always easily identified or seen as harmful, this type of affair is a result of a communication breakdown or an escape from the stressful pressure of family responsibility. Think of it as an affair of the heart and the mind - it's as exciting and stimulating as sex but requires no physical contact, whereas sexual cheating is exciting and secretive but doesn't necessarily involve any emotional intimacy. The spouse entangled in this type of affair no longer feels comfortable telling their partner about this person and justifies the relationship as "we're just friends" or "it's just innocent fun". They work hard to rationalize what they are doing and push their guilt awareness to the back of their mind.
The truth is, when emotional cheaters move beyond friendship into more dangerous territory, things get more complicated. It may not initially lead to sex but this secretive relationship can still devastate a marriage. When someone has been emotionally cheated on, the betrayal is deep and personal. To know that your spouse has been talking to his or her emotional lover about the intimate details of your marriage, personal habits and your sex life is quite a blow. The person they have built their life around and felt completely safe with has broken a sacred trust, leaving them shattered and humiliated.
In recent years, a new crisis of infidelity has emerged. There are more women in the workplace once dominated by men and with the explosive growth of the internet a new type of affair has evolved. People who never intended to be unfaithful have unintentionally crossed the line from friendship to romance, believing emotional infidelity to be the safe alternative to cheating on your spouse.
Published by Dawn Gilbert
Dawn Gilbert has been a successful webmaster for 7 years. She loves to write and is the author of two blogs. View profile
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18 Comments
Post a Commenthe emotionally cheated on me and then we found out I was pregnant. The girl ran around speading rumors that I didn't know who the father was and would do stuff like point at me and talk about me in public and he defended her and told me she was too nice a person to do that. Now the baby is about here and it is beyond repair and I am being blamed for everything and told I am crazy while they are confiding in each other more. Emotional cheating is worse than physical when it comes to the heart. Just be a man and break up instead of trying to justify it and make the other person the bad guy!!
I am emotionally involved with a male friend.
I am not sure when it began! just sharing things that should share with my spouse, but he is not a good listener and my friend is... It came on slowly and now I feel it is hard to be close to my husband. very upsetting to be in this situation, but I dont want to give up my friend.
I`m feeling like absolute crap after finding out my ex-husband had an affair with his high school sweetheart.We had been trying to work things out and we never really lived separately and he always told me every chance he could that he had no one and love no one else, but I recently found emails(perverted beyound belief) of this woman who is married by the way, and of course he could not deny it.I am his second wife and after the crap hit the fan i later found out he also cheated on his first wife with her. My nine year old daughter and I are hurt and angry. NEVER in my wildest nightmares did i think he was capable of doing this. He tries to deny that they have no bond, but what else am i suppose to think. He has always had trouble performing in bed, but it was something i always overlooked because i loved him so. There is a sixteen year age difference between us. I am sooooo hurt to even fing the strenghth this late in the game to try to figure out why this has happened.
Beware of disgusting coworkers. The love of my life was caught in his lies of getting personal with a female coworker that comforted him by performing personal massages to relieve his stress. Sick!! It has caused much more stress now on me and him and our relationship.It breaks a bond of trust that may never come back, especially at the work place. Women beware of disgusting pigs at your spouses work place Or the same for men with cheating wives.It hurts!
Well all the pllicy I aprove of is dont talk toothers about your marred problems, as you have to solve them , and know marriage is perfect, it is hard , so don't let any one tell you thay don't have problems in their marriage and are having a perfect marriage, As this is a lie so don't react to it but know it is a lie, and tell them you dont want to hear about their marriage and tell then thay should show more love for their spouse as this will inprove the marriage im sure, bye prayers help also, bye Tom.
Great article. My husband of 35 yrs is emotionally cheating on me with our business partner even though he doesn't understand this term. I have caught them lying to me by ommission. I want and feel this relationship needs to come to a sudden halt. He feels that I should be able to work this out with her move forward. He is emotionally connected to her and her family. I believe he is more concerned about her feelings than mine.
This is a great article! Emotional damage is pretty hard to repair! There is a fine line and I do not think that becoming "emotionally" attached to someone is innocent.
In my perspective, emotional cheating hurts more than any physical cheating could. Thanks for a great article. Really hit me hard.
Thank you Dawn Gilbert for this and your other online articles. You have great insights and I too wish you received the credit and payment for this work that you deserved, despite "being Canadian" as you mentioned below. Let the public awareness you'll receive here spur you into new articles and books, and you'll be justly rewarded in due course.
I really enjoyed reading this article. Personally, I feel like I'm emotionally cheating on my partner. I'm completely confused, I hate the thought of cheating but I can't control my feeling for the other person. I really don't know what to do. I've been cheated on in the past and it sucks, but i don't want to do the same to my partner.