Emotional Cheating: What You Need To Know
What Is Emotional Cheating?
Emotional cheating is when a person becomes emotionally attached to a friend, a co-worker or even an ex boyfriend, ex girlfriend or ex spouse.
Often, a physical attraction comes into play, as the emotional bond grows stronger.
A person who is involved in emotional cheating is thinking about their “friend” more and more often, even to the point where their new object of affection is thought of several times a day.
Is having an emotional affair a betrayal of wedding vows – is this as bad as actually going out and having sexual intimacy with the person? Some experts say yes, it is a betrayal of your spouse in a very real way, because you aren’t being honest about your true feelings.
In most cases, as the emotional attachment grows stronger with the “friend” – the attachment to the partner or spouse weakens.
Emotional cheating can pave the way for an affair to take place, and it can become a very real threat to any relationship or marriage.
Emotional cheating is an investment of emotional time and energy with another person other than your spouse. These types of friendships where a strong bond develops can definitely cause damage to intimacy within your marriage.
How Does Emotional Cheating Start?
It’s probably true that people who end up having an emotionally based affair don’t plan to have them. Most of the time these situations arise due to circumstances.
These types of attachments usually develop slowly over time – your partner begins to see something extra special about this person they are getting more emotionally bonded to.
They begin to feel more than just a friendship attachment with this person.
In other words, the nature of the relationship shifts from being “just friends” to feelings that this person is “more than a friend”.
The desire to see this “friend” tends to increase over time, as the imagination starts to kick in. Often, they imagine what life might be like with this other person, and the thoughts continue to build along these lines until a strong emotional attachment develops.
Signs Of Emotional Cheating
If you think your spouse is involved in emotional cheating or starting to have an affair of the heart, there are some telltale signs to watch for.
- Your partner is more unavailable than usual. They may be staying late after work, or instead of having lunch with you, they are having lunch with the “friend” more frequently.
- You discover that your partner is spending more free time with one person in particular, over other friends.
- You find email correspondence or similar that seems more intimate and revealing than a “normal” exchange between platonic friends.
- Your partner is online more than usual.
- Your partner is secretive in a way that you can’t quite put your finger on – something has shifted emotionally between you.
- Your spouse keeps you waiting or won’t answer texts or calls while spending time with this person.
- Your spouse goes out of their way to do favors for this person.
- Your spouse becomes more involved with this person’s family and friends.
These are some of the more telltale signs of cheating to watch for.
How To Stop Emotional Cheating
If you suspect that your partner or spouse is having an emotional affair, there’s only one way to find out and that is to ask them. You probably don’t want to use the phrase “emotional cheating” – be gentle and ask your partner if he or she is growing emotionally attached to their friend.
When you take the right approach, you won’t put your partner on the defensive or on the spot by asking this question. By asking it, you might even be giving your partner a chance to come clean and talk about their feelings in a safe and supportive environment.
We can’t always help what we feel for another person, or know exactly the right way to handle things.
It’s not “wrong” to develop an emotional connection with another person – what most would agree is wrong and deceptive is allowing it to continue it while you’re in a committed relationship.
If you are the person finding yourself involved in emotional cheating, here’s a quick list of actions you can take to make sure you don’t lose your primary relationship over it:
- Prevention is the best course of action. If you find you are attracted to a person – a co-worker, or a friend then it’s best to break off contact, at least for awhile, until you get to the point where you no longer have these feelings.
- Try to better understand yourself. There are reasons why you’ve grown emotionally attached to this other person. Are you dissatisfied with your relationship? Do you feel that you’re no longer right for each other? When you get to the bottom of why this happened, you’ll be in a better position to heal your relationship and address the issues that need addressing.
- Confide to your partner that you have been involved with emotional cheating. This is something you might not be comfortable doing, and yet, it’s probably the best thing you could do for the health of your relationship. Honesty is usually the best policy. This way, you give your relationship a chance at a fresh start, after emotional cheating takes place.
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