Although emotional cheating, also known as ’emotional infidelity’ or ’emotional infidelity’, may at first seem less damaging than a full-blown physical affair, it is still a way of being unfaithful in marriage. If not nipped in the bud early, it can develop further and eventually destroy the marriage.
If you feel like you might be the victim of an emotional affair, then you can relate to the following scenario.
While Mary’s husband, Steve, was at the gym, she checked his work phone. Mary couldn’t resist checking it out while he wasn’t near her. She would never dream of spying, but lately she had felt uncomfortable because he seemed to get a lot of text messages on the weekends and late at night. He normally never got work calls or texts on the weekend. When she checked her messages just to reassure herself, she felt sick…the same woman’s name kept coming up over and over again. Alarm bells rang in her head and she, although she felt a bit embarrassed, she went ahead and read the private messages. They were definitely not work related, seemed to be from a very close friend (one she had never heard of) and had a caring tone and always ended in kisses.
When Mary confronted her husband, he yelled at her and told her that Mary was invading his privacy and accused her of spying. Mary burst into tears and demanded to know who this other woman was. She got defensive and said that she was just a friend and that she listened to her problems, something she felt Mary no longer did. She insisted that nothing physical had happened or would ever happen, but her Mary did not feel reassured at all. The other woman’s texts seemed flirtatious and cheeky, and Mary was sure she wouldn’t send such texts unless Steve gave her the same reply. She had no proof that anything physical was going on, but she still felt worried, insecure, and she began to lose confidence in herself.
Like Mary, many husbands and wives are tempted to check their spouse’s messages, phone calls, and emails if they suspect they are having an affair. Cell phones, Internet chat rooms, email, and online instant messaging now make it much easier for a spouse to secretly cheat. When she finds out that her husband has developed a close “friendship” with another woman, who could be a friend or co-worker, she can feel quite uncomfortable.
Discovering an emotional affair can make you feel:
1. Anger: That your husband seems to spend a lot more time talking or being with the other person than he does with you.
2. Defense: She is upset that her husband has verbally attacked her for “spying” on him.
3. Sadness: Your husband shares a close bond with someone else and not you.
4. Guilt – You may feel ashamed and feel that you have broken your husband’s trust by “running through” his personal things.
5. Neglect: You realize that your relationship with your husband has become boring: the only news you share is about what the kids did, what food you need, or what’s on TV.
If your husband has a very personal and quite intense relationship with another woman, it is likely that the relationship has become an emotional affair. The reason this hurts and feels so uncomfortable is that you rightly feel that this kind of intimacy, the sharing of innermost thoughts and feelings, belongs to you, to her wife, and not to her!
When confronted about having an emotional affair, the husband usually tries to make his behavior seem perfectly reasonable by saying, “What? Am I not allowed to have a friend of the opposite sex now?” and as a result, many wives back off because they don’t know what to say in response. If a husband leaves the marriage to seek satisfaction for something that he feels is missing in his marriage, be it of a sexual or emotional nature, I consider that to be an emotional cheating in the intimate relationship that he should be sharing with his wife.
“How can I tell if my husband is having an emotional affair?”
Compared to sexual cheating, the definition of “emotional cheating” may seem much less clear-cut, so to help you determine if your husband is involved in an emotional affair, you should ask yourself the following:
Does she hide the relationship or is she open about it? Does she Say, for example, “Oh, I just got a text from Janet, she’s very sweet and she’s a good listener” and then she reads the message to you? Quite unlikely, I guess. If she is cheating, she will know that her behavior is wrong and will try to hide it from you. And then when she finally finds out about her emotional affair, he will jump on him for ‘spying’ and get defensive “she’s just a friend!”.
“My husband is having a physical relationship with her?”
Without really catching him red-handed, it’s very hard to tell if the emotional affair has crossed the line and turned into a physical relationship, especially since he’ll probably go to great lengths to hide it.
If he is having an emotional affair, then clearly there has been a break in the level of intimacy in your marriage and therefore there is a possibility that he wants to go further. If her husband can admit that he is having an emotional affair, he can at least try to repair the intimacy within their relationship and work to save their marriage by starting with these steps:
Step 1: Assess your emotional connection
First of all, it’s not your fault: there is no excuse for him to have an affair, be it sexual or emotional. You need to sit down and look at your relationship. Where do you both see areas of neglect, do you communicate a lot, and if so, what do you talk about (eg, things that really matter or just day-to-day trivia)?
Your husband left the marriage to find the feeling of being “special” with another woman. So an honest review of your marriage will show both of you how you can make your partner feel special and more forthcoming. Both must work to fix their relationship.
Step 2: Understand the types of communication
Don’t forget that in addition to verbal communication (talking) there is non-verbal communication, for example, spending time with your husband, watching a movie together, hugging, flirting with your partner over dinner, or leaving a card in the kitchen. table to say “I love you”.
You need to strengthen your intimate bond by trying different types of ‘communication’. Can you remember the last time you held hands and watched the sunset together, or took a walk in the woods, or had a lively discussion about a book you read and love? If not, this would be a good time to make an effort to do more activities that involve you being together.
