I have found the following good article on the Internet and thought it might be good to share it here. Maybe it will be of some insight, help or understanding to new people on this board who currently find or previously have found themselves in similar situations.

INFIDELITY REACHES BEYOND HAVING SEX:

EMOTIONAL INTIMACY, VIRTUAL AFFAIRS TAKE HOLD IN THE WORKPLACE

Cybersex and so-called virtual affairs on the Internet are all the buzz among professionals who study spouses who stray. But the truly fertile ground for dangerous emotional attachments outside marriages is much more conventional: the workplace.

As more employees labor longer hours together, close friendships increasingly are taken for granted. And as more women move into professions once dominated by men, there are greater temptations for both sexes.

There is a new ''crisis of infidelity'' breeding in the workplace, says Baltimore psychologist and marital researcher Shirley Glass. Often it does not involve sexual thrill seekers, but ''good people,'' peers who are in good marriages.

''The new infidelity is between people who unwittingly form deep, passionate connections before realizing that they've crossed the line from platonic friendship into romantic love,'' Glass says.

Glass' 25 years of research on ''extramarital attachments'' adds to a growing understanding of just what constitutes infidelity and why it happens.

She believes affairs do not have to include sex. ''In the new infidelity, affairs do not have to be sexual. Sometimes the greatest betrayals happen without touching. Infidelity is any emotional or sexual intimacy that violates trust.''

This revised concept of an affair is embraced by increasing numbers of Glass' colleagues. People are ''incredibly devastated by their partner's emotional affair,'' says Peggy Vaughan, who has researched infidelity for 20 years. ''They separate over it, divorce over it, this breaking of a trust, a bond.'' The third edition of Vaughan's The Monogamy Myth will be released this month.

A platonic friendship, such as those that grow at work, edges into an emotional affair when three elements are present, Glass says:

* Emotional intimacy. Transgressors share more of their ''inner self, frustrations and triumphs than with their spouses. They are on a slippery slope when they begin sharing the dissatisfaction with their marriage with a co-worker.''

* Secrecy and deception. ''They neglect to say, 'We meet every morning for coffee.' Once the lying starts, the intimacy shifts farther away from the marriage.''

* Sexual chemistry. Even though the two may not act on the chemistry, there is at least an unacknowledged sexual attraction.

Glass sums up her research and that of others in Not ''Just Friends'': Protect Your Relationship from Infidelity and Heal the Trauma of Betrayal (Free Press, $24), now arriving in bookstores.

''This is the essence of the new crisis of infidelity: friendships, work relationships and Internet liaisons have become the latest threat to marriages,'' Glass says.

Affairs that take place in chat rooms on the Internet are classic examples of emotional infidelity. How many have affairs, either emotional or sexual, is difficult to gauge. After reviewing 25 studies, Glass believes 25% of wives and 44% of husbands have had extramarital intercourse.

About two-thirds of the 350 couples she has treated include one or both partners who have had some type of intense affair, sexual or emotional. The most threatening to marriages combine both, she says. Sixty-two percent of the unfaithful men and 46% of the women met their illicit partner through work.

Researchers identify many factors contributing to infidelity. Proximity at the office is key for Glass. ''My research and the research of others point to opportunity as a primary factor. . . . Attractions are a fact of life when men and women work side by side.''

Many other risk factors may be in play. They include:

* Family patterns. Unfaithful parents tend to produce sons who betray their wives and daughters who either accept affairs as normal or are unfaithful themselves, Glass says.

* Biochemical cravings. Changes in brain chemicals during an affair can create a ''high that becomes almost addictive,'' says Atlanta psychiatrist Frank Pittman, author of Private Lies: Infidelity and the Betrayal of Intimacy.

Bonnie Eaker-Weil, author of Adultery: The Forgivable Sin, says the biological need for connection can result from ''severe stress, loss or separation'' that often can be traced back to childhood.

* Internet temptations. Increasing numbers of cyber-affairs are breaking up stable marriages, says psychologist Kimberly Young, author of Tangled in the Web: Understanding Cybersex From Fantasy to Addiction. She cites the anonymity and convenience of the Internet, as well as the escape it provides from the stresses of everyday life.

* Increasing premarital sex. The more premarital sexual activity, the greater the chance of an extramarital affair, Glass says. ''Because girls are more sexually active at younger ages than they used to be, married women are not nearly as inhibited about crossing the line.''

* Child-centered marriages. Parents with dual careers and limited time ''often collude to give what time they have to the children. Their bond is built on co-parenting, and they don't make time for themselves,'' Glass says.

Stereotypically, the husband finds somebody at work to share his adult interests.

Some affairs happen, Glass says, ''because people have certain beliefs they think will protect them. They believe if they love their spouse and have a good marriage, they don't have to worry. They don't exert the caution that might be necessary or create the boundaries to make their marriages safe.''

Basically monogamous partners drawn to interesting colleagues at work find themselves in ''great internal conflict.'' Her best advice: ''The more attractive we find somebody, the more careful we have to be.''

HOW TO KEEP TEMPTATION AT ARM'S LENGTH

There is no such thing as an affair-proof marriage. But couples who want to protect their unions from infidelity can be mindful of the dangers. To keep a marriage healthy:

* Stay honest with your partner. ''Honesty is the trump card for preventing affairs,'' says Peggy Vaughan, who has studied affairs for more than two decades. Her Web site is dearpeggy.com. ''Make a commitment to sharing your attractions and temptations.'' That helps to avoid acting on them. Dishonesty and deception cause affairs to flourish, Vaughan says.

* Monitor your marriage. ''Realize if there is something missing,'' says psychologist Kimberly Young of St. Bonaventure University in southwest New York state. ''Be willing to try to fix it.'' Assess whether needs are being met.

* Stay alert for temptations. ''Be very careful of getting involved in the first place,'' Young says. ''Know the dangers. You can be drawn to an affair as to a drug. And once you are past a certain point of emotional connection, it is very hard to go into reverse.''

* Don't flirt. ''That is how affairs start,'' says Bonnie Eaker Weil, whose Web site, www.makeupdontbreakup .com, features tips for preventing infidelity. ''Flirting is not part of an innocent friendship. If you think there might be a problem with someone you flirt with, there probably is a problem.''

* Recognize that work can be a danger zone. ''Don't lunch or take private coffee breaks with the same person all the time,'' psychologist Shirley Glass says.

* Beware of the lure of the Internet. ''Emotional affairs develop quickly, in maybe a few days or weeks online, where it might take a year at the office,'' Young says. ''There is safety behind the computer screen.''

* Keep old flames from reigniting. ''If you value your marriage, think twice about having lunch with one,'' Glass says. Invite your partner along.

* Value the intimacy of your marriage. ''Reveal as much of yourself to one another as possible,'' Atlanta psychiatrist Frank Pittman says. ''You will find it less necessary to form an intimate friendship with someone else.''

* Make sure your social network supports marriage. ''Surround yourself with happily married friends who don't believe in fooling around,'' Glass says.

Good thread, suzet.!! thanks
tsc

It's really sad that these author's books are not required reading before couples are allowed to marry for there would be less people unwittingly setting themselves up for affairs. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="images/icons/frown.gif" />

Coffeeman,

I SO agree with you. I&#8217;ve said in one of my replies on the &#8216;in recovery&#8217; board that so many times before I&#8217;ve wished that I could know all these things before I became involved in a similar situation myself. Now that I&#8217;m aware of this and have learned my lesson the hard way, I&#8217;m SO aware and curious (sometimes overly aware) of people around me (especially in my workplace) who&#8217;re &#8216;good friends&#8217; and on &#8216;dangerous grounds&#8217; without knowing or realising it&#8230; But sometimes the best way to learn is through own mistakes, it&#8217;s just sad that most of the time it happen at cost of other innocent people and came with a very high prize... Something which could have been avoided if people were aware of this before marriage <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="images/icons/frown.gif" />

I&#8217;ve also said my father was involved (and is still involve) with a &#8216;close woman friend&#8217; since I was 10 years old&#8230; I was thus raised with the idea that it is ok or normal to have a close friend of the opposite sex. After my experience I&#8217;ve realised that my father is involved in a very serious and damaging EA and that intimate opposite sex friendships is NOT ok AT ALL and must be avoided at all costs! Although I&#8217;ve tried to speak to my father a few times about this, he is in total denial and still lives with the illusion that there isn&#8217;t anything wrong with his &#8216;friendship&#8217; with this woman. He lives in this &#8216;illusion&#8217; for 45 years now, so I don&#8217;t know if he&#8217;ll ever came out of it&#8230; <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="images/icons/frown.gif" />

<small>[ September 10, 2003, 09:13 AM: Message edited by: Suzet ]</small>

http://www.survivinginfidelity.com/healing_library/confrontation/emotional_affairs.asp

Here are 10 rules for avoiding emotional infidelity.
1. Keep it all business in the office.
2. Avoid meetings with members of the opposite sex outside the workplace.
3. Meet in groups.
4. Find polite ways of ending personal conversations.
5. Take particular care not to have regular (perhaps daily or even weekly) conversations about your life outside work.
6. Don't share your personal feelings.
7. Be unflinchingly honest with yourself.
8. Avoid cordial kisses and hugs, or dancing with members of the opposite sex.
9. Don't drink in mixed company.
10. Show your commitment to your spouse daily.
Are you a woman who shares secrets with a male friend? Are you the kind of man who reviews his weekend plans with a female co- worker? Or do you go out for drinks with a colleague of the opposite sex?

If you are married and answer yes to any of these questions, then therapist M. Gary Neuman has a word to describe your behavior: unfaithful. "We can't fool ourselves into believing that we can have intimate relationships at work and still have a great relationship at home," says Neuman. "My message is that if you want to infuse passion and have a buddy for the rest of your life, you have to keep that emotional content in your marriage."

Neuman, a Miami Beach, Fla., psychologist, has raised hackles in the marriage counseling field with his book, Emotional Infidelity, (Random House) that decries male- female friendships outside marriage as a form of adultery. While Neuman's views might seem extreme, even his critics say his central premise -- that friendships between members of the opposite sex can harm marriages -- is probably valid.

"It's a concern,'' says Shirley Glass, an Owings Mills, Md., psychologist and longtime researcher into marital infidelity. "Many love affairs begin just that way.'' According to a 1998 survey by researchers at the University of Chicago, about 25 percent of married men and 17 percent of married women in this country admit to having been unfaithful. Glass' research suggests it is probably closer to 25 percent of women and 40 to 50 percent of men.

How many married men and women might admit to an emotional infidelity? Probably 55 to 65 percent, she says, and she thinks the numbers are growing. Her definition of emotional infidelity is more cautious than Newman's. Glass thinks a friendship between members of the opposite sex must have three traits to be infidelity: emotional intimacy that is greater than that within the marriage, sexual tension and secrecy.

"Friendship becomes a problem when it becomes a replacement for a marriage or takes place outside a marriage,'' Glass says. A married father of five, Neuman, 37, believes society has underestimated how harmful these emotional infidelities can be. He has counseled too many couples not to have noticed that marriages suffer when men and women seek intimate relationships outside the home.

Even if the relationship doesn't escalate to sex, it can be debilitating to the marriage. "If you put the majority of your emotions in the hands of someone other than your spouse, you're still shortchanging your spouse,'' he says. Consider, he says, the husband who gripes about work with a female co-worker and then comes home and doesn't really want to repeat his complaints all over again with his wife; she is isolated from a significant part of his life. Or what about the wife who flirts with other men? Will she feel better or worse about her marriage when she compares their reaction to her husband's behavior? He might seem much less fun.

In his book, Neuman refers to research that shows it's where the majority of extramarital affairs get started -- perhaps as high as 73 percent, according to one study. He sees opportunities for inappropriate behavior behind every lunch, every trip for drinks after work and every business trip where men and women are thrust into prolonged social contact without their spouses. "We have hard and fast decisions to make,'' he says. "What's the most meaningful thing in your life? We can't fool ourselves into thinking we can have these intimate relationships at work and still have a great relationship at home.''

Neuman admits his views are unconventional. But in the three months since his book hit the stores, the volume of hate mail he has received has surprised him. Many of those letters are from women who angrily accuse him of condemning the presence of educated women in the workforce and rekindling a kind of Victorian attitude toward them.

Even Glass thinks he overstates the harmfulness of a friendship. "It's fine as long as it's not a replacement for marriage.''

http://www.survivinginfidelity.com/healing_library/confrontation/emotional_affairs.asp

Here are 10 rules for avoiding emotional infidelity.

1. Keep it all business in the office.
2. Avoid meetings with members of the opposite sex outside the workplace.
3. Meet in groups.
4. Find polite ways of ending personal conversations.
5. Take particular care not to have regular (perhaps daily or even weekly) conversations about your life outside work.
6. Don't share your personal feelings.
7. Be unflinchingly honest with yourself.
8. Avoid cordial kisses and hugs, or dancing with members of the opposite sex.
9. Don't drink in mixed company.
10. Show your commitment to your spouse daily.
Are you a woman who shares secrets with a male friend? Are you the kind of man who reviews his weekend plans with a female co- worker? Or do you go out for drinks with a colleague of the opposite sex?

If you are married and answer yes to any of these questions, then therapist M. Gary Neuman has a word to describe your behavior: unfaithful. "We can't fool ourselves into believing that we can have intimate relationships at work and still have a great relationship at home," says Neuman. "My message is that if you want to infuse passion and have a buddy for the rest of your life, you have to keep that emotional content in your marriage."

Neuman, a Miami Beach, Fla., psychologist, has raised hackles in the marriage counseling field with his book, Emotional Infidelity, (Random House) that decries male- female friendships outside marriage as a form of adultery. While Neuman's views might seem extreme, even his critics say his central premise -- that friendships between members of the opposite sex can harm marriages -- is probably valid.

"It's a concern,'' says Shirley Glass, an Owings Mills, Md., psychologist and longtime researcher into marital infidelity. "Many love affairs begin just that way.'' According to a 1998 survey by researchers at the University of Chicago, about 25 percent of married men and 17 percent of married women in this country admit to having been unfaithful. Glass' research suggests it is probably closer to 25 percent of women and 40 to 50 percent of men.

How many married men and women might admit to an emotional infidelity? Probably 55 to 65 percent, she says, and she thinks the numbers are growing. Her definition of emotional infidelity is more cautious than Newman's. Glass thinks a friendship between members of the opposite sex must have three traits to be infidelity: emotional intimacy that is greater than that within the marriage, sexual tension and secrecy.

"Friendship becomes a problem when it becomes a replacement for a marriage or takes place outside a marriage,'' Glass says. A married father of five, Neuman, 37, believes society has underestimated how harmful these emotional infidelities can be. He has counseled too many couples not to have noticed that marriages suffer when men and women seek intimate relationships outside the home.

Even if the relationship doesn't escalate to sex, it can be debilitating to the marriage. "If you put the majority of your emotions in the hands of someone other than your spouse, you're still shortchanging your spouse,'' he says. Consider, he says, the husband who gripes about work with a female co-worker and then comes home and doesn't really want to repeat his complaints all over again with his wife; she is isolated from a significant part of his life. Or what about the wife who flirts with other men? Will she feel better or worse about her marriage when she compares their reaction to her husband's behavior? He might seem much less fun.

In his book, Neuman refers to research that shows it's where the majority of extramarital affairs get started -- perhaps as high as 73 percent, according to one study. He sees opportunities for inappropriate behavior behind every lunch, every trip for drinks after work and every business trip where men and women are thrust into prolonged social contact without their spouses. "We have hard and fast decisions to make,'' he says. "What's the most meaningful thing in your life? We can't fool ourselves into thinking we can have these intimate relationships at work and still have a great relationship at home.''

Neuman admits his views are unconventional. But in the three months since his book hit the stores, the volume of hate mail he has received has surprised him. Many of those letters are from women who angrily accuse him of condemning the presence of educated women in the workforce and rekindling a kind of Victorian attitude toward them.

Even Glass thinks he overstates the harmfulness of a friendship. "It's fine as long as it's not a replacement for marriage.''

Emotional infidelity in the workplace is very real.

I am one of those spouses whose husband cheated with a woman from work. He had an emotional attachment to her (while he detached from me)... , lied to deny and cover up the relationship (even while I suspected it from the beginning and confronted him to end it)..., and denied a sexual relationship because he said he did not have sex with her, (yet she emailed him and told him he was sexy and he was having secret meetings with her outside of work)...

Any time a person has to hide a relationship from their spouse, it is an affair, period. You should not have any relationships that your spouse cannot know about. If the meetings have to be secret, the phone calls to you marked as "Private" or "Unknown" so your spouse can't tell who is calling you, or if they would be hurt if they could hear your conversation, it is an affair. Your relationship with the other person is crossing boundaries that your spouse would not agree to. And once it is found out, irreparable damage is done to your marriage. Even if they forgive you, the marriage has been violated, trust has been broken, and they will never forget. Yes, they may try to make the marriage work, but the hurt, betrayal and resentment remains permanently as a part of their life, no matter how hard you try to make it up to them. They learn how to forgive you and make the best of the marriage, but the memories will always be there. You...the person who was supposed to love, honor and protect them didn't. Instead, you chose to find someone else, and then pretend it is no big deal (no matter who you hurt), because you haven't had sex. How could they ever forget that? Could you?

Warning Signs of EA

The following is from Shirley Glasse’s webpage and author of the book NOT "Just Friends":

Just Friends or Emotional Affair?

Is Your On-Line Friendship Too Friendly?

Good people in good marriages are having affairs. More times than I can count, I have sat in my office and felt torn apart by the grief, rage, and remorse of the people I counsel as they try to cope with the repercussions of their infidelity or their partner’s betrayal. In two-thirds of the couples I’ve treated in my clinical practice over the past twenty years, either the husband, the wife, or both were unfaithful. Broken promises and shattered expectations have become part of our cultural landscape, and more people who need help in dealing with them appear in my office every day.

Surprisingly, the infidelity that I’m seeing these days is of a new sort. It’s not between people who are intentionally seeking thrills, as is commonly believed. The new infidelity is between people who unwittingly form deep, passionate connections before realizing that they’ve crossed the line from platonic friendship into romantic love. Eighty-two percent of the unfaithful partners I’ve treated have had an affair with someone who was, at first, “just a friend.” Well-intentioned people who had not planned to stray are not only betraying their partners but also their own beliefs and moral values, provoking inner crises as well as marital ones.

This is the essence of the new crisis of infidelity: friendships, work relationships, and Internet liaisons have become the latest threat to marriages. As these opportunities for intimate relationships increase, the boundaries between platonic and romantic feelings blur and become easier to cross.

Today’s workplace has become the new danger zone of romantic attraction and opportunity. More women are having affairs than ever before. Today’s woman is more sexually experienced and more likely to be working in what used to be male-dominated occupations. Many of their affairs begin at work. From 1982 to 1990, 38 percent of unfaithful wives in my clinical practice were involved with someone from work. From 1991 to 2000, the number of women’s work affairs increased to 50 percent. Men also are having most of their affairs with people from their workplace. Among the 350 couples I have treated, approximately 62 percent of unfaithful men met their affair partners at work.

The significant news about these new affairs--and what is different from the affairs of previous generations--is that they originate as peer relationships. People who truly are initially just friends or just friendly colleagues slowly move onto the slippery slope of infidelity. In the new infidelity, secret emotional intimacy is the first warning sign of impending betrayal. Yet, most people don’t recognize it as such or see what they’ve gotten themselves into until they’ve become physically intimate.

Most people mistakenly think it is possible to prevent affairs by being loving and dedicated to one’s partner. I call this the “Prevention Myth,” because there is no evidence to support it. My experience as a marital therapist and infidelity researcher has shown me that simply being a loving partner does not necessarily insure your marriage against affairs. You also have to exercise awareness of the appropriate boundaries at work and in your friendships. This book will help you learn to observe boundaries or set them up where you need to. It will tell you the warning signals and red flags you need to pay attention to in your own friendships and in your partner’s.

Most people also mistakenly think that infidelity isn’t really infidelity unless there’s sexual contact. Whereas women tend to regard any sexual intimacy as infidelity, men are more likely to deny infidelity unless sexual intercourse has occurred. In the new infidelity, however, affairs do not have to be sexual. Some, such as Internet affairs, are primarily emotional. The most devastating extramarital involvements engage heart, mind, and body. And this is the kind of affair that is becoming more common. Today’s affairs are more frequent and more serious than they used to be because more men are getting emotionally involved, and more women are getting sexually involved.

Consider this surprising statistic: At least one or both parties in 50 percent of all couples, married and living together, straight and gay, will break their vows of sexual or emotional exclusivity during the lifetime of the relationship.1 It has been difficult for us researchers to arrive at this absolute figure because of the many variations in how research has been conducted, in sample characteristics, and in how extramarital involvements have been defined. After reviewing 25 studies, however, I concluded that 25 percent of wives and 44 percent of husbands have had extramarital intercourse. This is startling news indeed.

Vast numbers of Americans are preoccupied by an actual or potential betrayal of an intimate relationship. Their anxiety is not confined to a particular class, occupation, or age. Infidelity can occur in any household, not just in situations where partners are promiscuous or rich and powerful. No marriage is immune.

There are, however, steps you can take to keep your relationship or marriage safe. There are also steps you can take to repair your relationship after emotional or sexual infidelity has rocked it. And there are things you can do specifically to help yourself through the trauma of betrayal. And you’ll learn them all in NOT “Just Friends.”

The Need for a New Outlook

Just because infidelity is increasingly common doesn’t mean that most people understand it. So much of the advice on television shows and in popular books about how to affair-proof your marriage is misleading. In fact, much of the conventional wisdom about what causes affairs and how to repair relationships is misguided.

Popular thinking about infidelity--and the therapy that deals with it--is clouded by myths. The facts, which my research and clinical experience prove, are much more surprising--and thought-provoking--than unfounded popular and clinical assumptions. Here are a few truths that you will learn from this book:

• Assumption: Affairs happen in unhappy or unloving marriages.
Fact: Affairs can happen in good marriages. Affairs are less about love and more about sliding across boundaries.
• Assumption: Affairs occur mostly because of sexual attraction.
Fact: The lure of an affair is how the unfaithful partner is mirrored back through the adoring eyes of the new love. Another appeal is that individuals experience new roles and opportunities for growth in new relationships.
• Assumption: A cheating partner almost always leaves clues, so a naïve spouse must be burying his or her head in the sand.
Fact: The majority of affairs are never detected. Some individuals can successfully compartmentalize their lives or are such brilliant liars that their partners nevers find out.
• Assumption: A person having an affair shows less interest in sex at home.
Fact: The excitement of an affair can increase passion at home and make sex even more interesting.
• Assumption: The person having an affair isn’t getting enough at home.
Fact: The truth is that the unfaithful partner may not be giving enough. In fact, the spouse who gives too little is more at risk than the spouse who gives too much because he or she is less invested.
• Assumption: A straying partner finds fault with everything you do.
Fact: He or she may in fact become Mr. or Mrs. Wonderful in order to escape detection. Most likely he or she will be alternately critical and devoted.

NOT “Just Friends” will give you a more complete understanding of what infidelity really is and how it happens. I will provide you with plenty of substantiated information that will help you make decisions about whether and how your marriage can be saved. The following facts, although counter-intuitive, are a good place to start:

• You can have an affair without having sex. Sometimes the greatest betrayals happen without touching. Infidelity is any emotional or sexual intimacy that violates trust.
• Because child-centered families create conditions that increase the vulnerability for affairs, the children may ultimately be harmed.
• People are more likely to cheat if their friends and family members have cheated.
• When a woman has an affair, it is more often the result of long-term marital dissatisfaction, and the marriage is harder to repair.
• Most people, including unfaithful partners, think that talking about an affair with the betrayed partner will only create more upset, but that is actually the way to rebuild intimacy. Trying to recover without discussing the betrayal is like waxing a dirty floor.
• The aftermath of an affair can offer partners who are still committed to their marriage an opportunity to strengthen their bond. Exploring vulnerabilities often leads to a more intimate relationship.
• Starting over with a new love does not necessarily lead to a life of eternal bliss. Seventy-five percent of all people who marry their affair partners end up divorced.
• Over 90 percent of married individuals believe that monogamy is important, but almost half of them admit to having had affairs.

Interesting isn’t it? And not what you’d expect. If you want to maintain your relationship, you need to learn about how to prevent affairs and why so many people engage in behavior that goes against their professed values. Even so, knowledge alone is not enough. If you’ve slipped into an affair, or your partner has, you need a map for your journey to recovery. NOT “Just Friends” also gives you the detailed guidance and well-marked routes you need to follow.

Recovering from Betrayal

According to therapists who treat couples, infidelity is the second most difficult relationship problem, surpassed only by domestic violence. It takes years for people to come to terms with betrayal. Like comets, affairs leave a long trail behind them. When an infidelity is revealed, it precipitates a crisis for all three people in the extramarital triangle.

The revelation of infidelity is a traumatic event for the betrayed partner. Understanding it as traumatic has important implications for healing. People who have just found out about a partner’s affair may react as if they have suddenly been viciously attacked. Where they formerly felt safe, they now feel threatened. In an instant, the betrayed spouse’s assumptions about the world have been shattered. Commonly, betrayed spouses become obsessed with the details of the affair, have trouble eating and sleeping, and feel powerless to control their emotions, especially anxiety and grief, which can be overwhelming.

I have found that the most complete healing happens gradually, in stages. Because betrayal is so traumatic and recovery takes time, I use an interpersonal trauma recovery plan that parallels the ones recommended for victims of natural disasters, war, accidents, and violence. My clients are living evidence of its effectiveness in their individual healing and in the number of marriages saved by this approach.

Today more couples are willing to try to work through their difficulties in a sustained way. They want to make their marriages “even better than before.” They want their suffering to mean something. They want their pain to lead them to insights and new behaviors that will strengthen them as individuals and as a couple. But most people need help learning how to change the bitterness of betrayal into fertile ground for growth. They need constructive ways to confront and understand what has happened to them and how, on a practical level, to repair the ruptures that are breaking their hearts and ruining their relationships.

One of the difficulties of recovering from the trauma of infidelity is that the unfaithful partner must become the healer. It’s natural for the unfaithful partner to want to avoid the pained expression on the face of the person whom he or she has injured, especially when the betrayed partner insists on hearing the excruciating details. But it’s important for the unfaithful partner to move toward that pain, offer comfort, and be open to answering any question. The process of recovery is like steering a ship through a storm. Knowing where you are heading can keep you and your relationship from getting totally lost even when you find yourselves off course.

It is possible to emerge from betrayal with your marriage stronger. This book will show you how. And you will also learn how to steer clear of such dangerous waters in the future--if you both genuinely want to heal and are ready to do the serious work of repair.

Prevention Manual and Survival Guide

Many couples are conflicted about outside relationships that are viewed by one partner as too close and by the other one as just friends. NOT “Just Friends” is for any man or woman in a committed relationship who interacts with interesting, attractive people. Love alone does not protect you or your partner from temptation. It’s not always easy to recognize the thresholds that mark the passage from platonic friend to extramarital affair partner. This book can be a valuable resource for protecting any couple, straight or gay. It will be of interest to anyone who wants to know more about the complex dynamics of how people form and maintain committed relationships. It will help you better understand yourself and your partner.

NOT “Just Friends” does not focus specifically on individuals who intentionally pursue the excitement of extramarital sex. Philandering can be a sign of either entitlement or addiction. The unfaithful partner who engages in sexual affairs with almost no emotional attachment usually operates undetected unless something catastrophic happens that exposes the extramarital liaisons. In any case, I want you to know that recovering from multiple affairs follows the same pathway as that followed by people recovering from a single affair. If the involved partners are genuinely remorseful and committed to remaining faithful in the future, this book can help them, too.

NOT “Just Friends” speaks directly to the betrayed partner, the involved partner, and the affair partner at every stage of infidelity. Each individual in this painful situation will find insight and guidance as we chart the course of affairs from their beginning to their end. Here is a summary of how an affair unfolds:

In the beginning, there is a cup of coffee, a working lunch, a check-up call on the cell phone--all of these contacts are innocent enough and add vitality and interest to our days. But when secrecy and lies become methods of furthering the relationship, it has become an emotional affair. When the affair is discovered, the involved partner is torn between two competing allegiances, and the betrayed partner develops the alarming mental and physical symptoms of obsession and flashbacks. Both partners are frightened, fragile, and confused. On their own, they may not know how to cope.

If both decide to stay and work on the relationship, first on the agenda has to be how to reestablish safety and foster good will. They may be conflicted about how much to discuss the affair because it’s hard to know how much to say and when. It’s also hard to know how to remain supportive when a partner is hysterical or depressed and how to live through daily obligations without doing further damage to themselves and each other NOT “Just Friends” will help guide you through these rocky stages of your recovery. Rebuilding trust is the cornerstone of the recovery process. Telling the full story and exploring the individual, relational, and social factors that made your marriage vulnerable to an affair is vital for healing and recovery. If you can see through each other’s eyes and empathize with each other’s pain, then you can be guided in how to co-construct your stories to help you understand the meaning of what has happened. But you need to be careful to do this in a healing environment with mutual empathy and understanding. An atmosphere of interrogation and defensiveness will derail your recovery. The technique in NOT “Just Friends” will keep you on track in this middle stage, too.

After conscious, patient work, you can become strong enough to deal with the hundreds of difficult questions that keep coming up. Will my partner ever forgive me? How can I ever trust my partner again? How do we handle the Other Man or the Other Woman who keeps calling on the phone? Should I share my love letters? What shall we tell the children? How should we handle the moments of pain that continue to intrude months and years after these events are over? NOT “Just Friends” addresses all these problems and it also helps you figure out when it is appropriate to quit being so upset and move on. It also addresses whether to stay and try to work it out and how to know whether your marriage is a lost cause.

It’s hard to believe that a marriage can be better after an affair, but it’s true--if you learn how to handle the nightmarish days after discovery, the traumatic reactions of the betrayed spouse, the revelation of details when the story is told, and the period of construction when the marriage is rebuilt, brick by brick. Even if you choose not to continue your marriage, you still have to recover from the trauma you’ve been through. The road to recovery can be a stimulus for growth, whether you travel it with your partner or you make your way alone. It’s a difficult road, but it is passable and well-traveled for all its difficulties and it’s important to know that it is there for you--and anyone who wants to follow it.

Walls and Windows

Throughout the book, I will use the image of “walls and windows” to symbolize the level of emotional intimacy within the marriage and within the affair. Many of my clients have told me that understanding where the symbolic walls and windows are in their relationships has helped them enormously in explaining the dynamics of their relationship and in articulating their feelings of alienation and jealousy. You can have intimacy in your relationship only when you are honest and open about the significant things in your life. When you withhold information and keep secrets, you create walls that act as barriers to the free flow of thoughts and feelings that invigorate your relationship. But when you open up to each other, the window between you allows you to know each other in unfiltered, intimate ways.

In a love affair, the unfaithful partner has built a wall to shut out the marriage partner and has opened a window to let in the affair partner. To reestablish a marriage that is intimate and trusting after an affair, the walls and windows must be reconstructed to conform to the safety code and keep the structure of the marriage sound so that it can withstand the test of time. You install a picture window between you and your marriage partner and construct a solid or opaque wall to block out contact with the affair partner. This arrangement of walls and windows nurtures your marriage and protects it from outside elements and interference.

To be healthy, every relationship needs this safety code: the appropriate placement of walls and windows. Just as the sharing that parents have with children should not surpass or replace confidences within the marriage, the boundaries in a platonic friendship should be solid. Identifying the position of walls and windows can help you discover whether a dangerous alliance has replaced a relationship that began as "just friends."

Best Friends

The ultimate goal in committed relationships is to think of your marital partner as your best friend. Nonetheless, rich friendships outside the marriage are also important for a full life, and it is sad when those friendships have to be forsaken after boundaries that protect the marriage have been violated. This is another reason why I wanted to write NOT “Just Friends”: to give you ways to set appropriate boundaries that will preserve your friendships as well as your committed relationship.

My own life has afforded me the opportunity to nurture and enjoy deep friendships while respecting the sanctity of my marriage. For twenty-five years I have maintained an affectionate and stimulating professional partnership with Dr. Tom Wright, my co-therapist and research partner. Tom and I do not discuss personal matters about our marriages, and we are very much aware of avoiding compromising situations. My marriage to my high school sweetheart, Barry, has lasted over forty years, and we regard ourselves as best friends.

Good friendships and a loving marriage: This is what is possible when you value and preserve the differences between them. You can learn how to keep your commitment strong and your friendships safe, so that you will stay in the safety zone and remain “just friends.” Otherwise, you can easily cross into the danger zone where infidelity begins, when you are not “just friends” anymore. If this has already happened to you or your partner, however, please keep reading.

http://www.shirleyglass.com

Great thread Suzet. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

I lived with a WS, then I had to work with under at least 3 different WS'. All were yucky. All interferred with being productive and successful.

The last WS I worked for made my life soo miserable, I quit and so did the 3 other employees after me along with 7 before me (all in less than 1 year). The office only had a staff of 5 at the height of it all. In less than 1 year an OW and WS did enough damage to basically ruin his business. Yep, they did it all by themselves.

Now guess who they are blaming for all their loss??!?!?!? U got it..... everyone else but themselves. BTW, the WS made it a point to tell me he would NEVER fire the OW. So we gave him his wish.....she w/b his ONLY employee as of 12/1/05. LOL!!!! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

L.

I want to add the following link to this thread too:

15 Steps Of Unfaithfulness

The above thread is very good and explains how betrayal usually starts and cross boundaries from platonic friendship into a inappropriate friendship, from inappropriate friendship into EA and then eventually from EA into PA.

“Adultery is the culminating act of a dozen or more tiny steps of unfaithfulness. Each step in itself does not seem that serious or much beyond the previous step. Satan draws a person into adultery one tiny step at a time. And he does this over time so that our conscience is gradually seared. This makes it easier to take "just one more step" thinking such a tiny step won't hurt us.”

Bumping up for HopingFor...