<strong>EMOTIONAL AFFAIRS - EAs</strong>
It seems like we are getting more and more people here at MB who are involved in Emotional Affairs (EA in MB-speak), so I thought I’d put together a thread with the information that I have about these types of affairs, and hopefully attract other MBers who will add to it.
This is long because there are several articles I wanted to include.
It has been said that any time you have an interaction with a member of the opposite sex that you would NOT have if your spouse were present, you are likely crossing the line into EA territory.
Emotional Affairs are perhaps more damaging and difficult to deal with than Physical Affairs. One of the primary reasons for this is that emotional attachments are much deeper and more difficult to break than "physical" attachments where perhaps sex is the primary motivator for the relationship.
In addition, in our society, there is (or has been until Clinton/Lewinski) the general sense that if there's no sex, then it's not an affair. This perception is changing, however, first at the marriage counselor/therapist level, and more slowly within the general population. But it is changing because we have been finding that there is, in fact, an even deeper sense of betrayal when these relationships happen, than when the relationship involves primarily sex. Reality is that the emotional betrayal and the "emotional unavailability" of the spouse involved in an EA is, in many cases, far deeper and more hurtful that the one felt over a sexual affair. It is said that it's not so much "whom you lied with, than whom you lied to".
Here's a short article that discusses EAs and their basic description:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"><strong>What Counts as Infidelity? </strong>
By Kristin Kloberdanz
We're all aware of the signs of infidelity: your partner spending a lot of extra time at the office these days; his or her appearance suddenly becoming very important; your sex life either dropping off entirely or going into overdrive. These are just a few signs of betrayal. While you by no means should get overly paranoid, keep in mind that 85 percent of women who think their partner is cheating are right while 50 percent of men who think their partner is cheating are correct. (By the same token, statistics show that up to 37 percent of men admit to infidelity compared to 22 percent of women).
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But what exactly does "cheating" or "infidelity" technically mean? Its definition is elusive because it really boils down to each and every individual. For instance, According to a survey on infidelity.com, 46 percent of men believe that online affairs are cheating. Some people may draw the line at intercourse, some at oral sex and others at simply kissing.
"Kissing in a romantic, passionate way is an infidelity," says Dr. Shirley Glass, a Baltimore-based psychologist who has been studying infidelity for over 20 years. "People know when they cross that line from friendship to affair." Some people have such an open relationship, they don't care if their partner has sex, as long as he or she comes home and says "I love you and only you." Others, like M. Gary Neuman, author of Emotional Infidelity, say that having lunch or a drink with someone of the opposite sex constitutes as being unfaithful.
You get the picture -- basically, what one person is okay with, another may not be. However, according to Dr. Glass, three elements of a person's relationship with someone other than their partner are needed to constitute an affair:
</font></li>[*]<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"><strong>Secrecy</strong>: If one partner starts meeting someone, even just for a drink or breakfast, without telling the other partner, it spells trouble. "It is going to feel like a betrayal, a terrible deception," Dr. Glass says.
</font></li>[*]<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"><strong>Emotional Intimacy</strong>: When a person starts confiding in a member of the opposite sex about the problems in his or her relationship, it disrupts the balance of emotional intimacy because the friendship becomes greater or stronger than the original relationship.
</font></li>[*]<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"><strong>Sexual chemistry</strong>: The third element that must be there is sexual tension or sexual chemistry. "That can occur even if two people don't touch," Dr. Glass says. "If one says, 'I'm really attracted to you,' or 'I had a dream about you last night, but, of course, 'I'm married, so we won't do anything about that,' that tremendously increases the sexual tension by creating forbidden fruit in the relationship."
Copyright 2002 Fun Online Corporation.
Link to this article:
What Counts as Infidelity?</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"><strong>Links to MB Forum Threads dealing with EAs</strong>
Here's a link to a good thread about EAs:
Emotional Affairs are Infidelity and to the complete article discussed in that thread:
Cheating isn't just sneaking out to a hotel room with the office hottieThis thread is about “Appropriate” M/F Relationships:
M/F "friendships" - platonic? More Threads on EAs:
? for a male WS who had and EA EA or PA? another question for men (and women)<strong>More Articles About EAs</strong>
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"><strong>
The Emotional Affair</strong>
The topic of infidelity is a frequent topic with couples experiencing problems. When most people hear the terms 'infidelity' or 'affair', they almost always think of a passionate, romantic, physical relationship. Certainly many people engage in physical affairs borne out of immaturity, acting out of hostility and even sexual addiction.
What is less understood however, and at times can be even more threatening to a long-term relationship than a physical affair, is an emotional affair. An emotional affair occurs when one member of a relationship consistently turns to someone else for their core, primary emotional support in life. It often develops slowly, even innocently, as a friendship with a co-worker or friend. There may or may not be a romantic/sexual attraction initially accompanying this budding friendship. But when the primary relationship is experiencing ongoing hostility, conflict and/or distance, 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.
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 significant amounts of their emotional energy in someone outside the primary committed relationship, the primary relationship can be seriously compromised.
Frequently, an emotional affair will deepen through consistent contact through in-person discussion and/or numerous email and voice mail messages. There becomes an excitement and ease in hearing from the person. And when this type of relationship does lead to physical intimacy, it's often a little sex and a lot of talking. The sex may be intense and passionate, but it is the feeling of emotional safety and companionship that really fuels the bond at the deepest level.
This companionship can doom the primary relationship. Once the door of emotional intimacy has been opened and the bond deepens, the person having the emotional affair cannot help but compare. "It's so easy to talk to her, and so hard to talk to my spouse" is the common refrain. "My husband always complains and criticizes, but my friend is always there, always in a good mood, and always understands and listens to me." It is much easier to open up and feel safe in a superficial new friendship compared to a long-term committed relationship.
How do you know if you are developing an emotional affair? Ask yourself these questions:
</font></li>[*]<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">do I feel like it's easier to talk to my friend than my partner?
</font></li>[*]<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">does my friend seem to understand me in a deeper way than my partner?
</font></li>[*]<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">have I stopped confiding my deepest feelings and concerns with my partner and now turn to my friend for these needs?
If you find yourself or your partner developing an emotional affair, you need to put your attention on your primary relationship as soon as possible. Get help to understand why you drifted to this other person in the first place. Begin the work of re-investing emotional energy in your primary relationship. Turning to someone else during a time of conflict or distance often is merely escaping and avoiding other issues which won't go away. And don't kid yourself: these same issues will resurface again should you develop a real relationship with your emotional affair partner. You may as well learn to deal with them now, before putting yourself and your partner through a terrible crisis.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"><strong> Is It Cheating?</strong>
By Kathleen Kelleher
It seemed like nothing at first.
The man and woman met at a West Los Angeles school their children attend. The man, who is divorced, and the woman, who is married, spent time together volunteering on school projects. School-related meetings led to meeting for coffee. Talk turned from the non-personal to the personal.
The woman began revealing her feelings of distress about her marriage. The man listened, empathized and offered up the pain-filled details of his divorce. Each time they saw each other, entre-nous intimations were exchanged, deepening an emotional connection that fairly sizzled with an underlying sexual tension.
There is heavy petting, and there is heavy emoting. Both constitute infidelity to a marriage or primary relationship. Psychologists call an affair without any physical touching extramarital emotional involvement, emotional infidelity or an emotional affair. In emotional affairs, deep, personal intimacies are traded, instead of fantasies of the flesh.
The hallmarks of an emotional infidelity are secrecy and sexual chemistry, according to Shirley Glass, a Baltimore-area clinical psychologist who has studied infidelity for the last 25 years. Friendships, whether they are hatched over the Internet or in the flesh, begin and develop quickly when someone connects with a person who appears to be empathetic and who shares common interests.
The first transgression of an emotional infidelity is when two people share information about problems in their primary relationship that their respective partner would feel was a violation. This flags vulnerability and possible availability, writes Glass in the forward to "Infidelity on the Internet" (Sourcebooks Inc., 2001), co-written by psychologist Marlene Maheu and therapist Rona Subotnik.
Trouble looms large when one person intimates feelings to a potential sexual partner, things they are unwilling to confide to their existing partner, Glass said. Suddenly, the emotional intimacy in the friendship is deeper than that of the primary relationship, drawing the two people closer to a sexual affair. A primary relationship is even more threatened when marital troubles are discussed with someone who has no vested interest in the marriage, according to Glass.
"Once you have an emotional infidelity, it can make the jump to someone else's bed a whole lot closer," said Gary Neuman, a Miami Beach clinical psychologist and author of "Emotional Infidelity" (Crown Publishers, 2001). Neuman argues in his book that people need to learn to invest their emotional selves in their primary relationship, not in intense emotional bonds forged with colleagues and friends. Neuman believes that if too much is spent outside the primary relationship, not enough is left to sustain it. "An emotional infidelity is about consistently sharing with someone (outside the relationship) things that you are not sharing with your spouse."
The reason people have emotional affairs is they are looking for emotional nourishment on some level that they are not getting in their main relationship, added Ann Langley, a marriage and family therapist at the San Jose Marital and Sexuality Centre.
A 49-year-old mother of two teenagers fell into an emotional affair with a man who flirted with her online a few years ago. He was romantic and a great communicator, everything her then-husband was not. The woman has no intention of trying to woo the man away from his wife and daughter, she said, and they have met about four times. "It is safe," said the woman. "He knows I wouldn't interfere with his marriage and that I wouldn't put him through that emotional trauma."
"We are like best friends," she said, adding that her marriage was over before the cyber affair. "There is a kind of desperate romantic thing to it that is appealing. The last couple of years, I have had more romance with him than I had in 25 years of marriage."
Unzipping the heart with someone outside a primary relationship can be motivated by fear that revealing oneself to a spouse or primary partner will invite humiliation, rejection and pain. "Maybe your partner is a prude and you can't explore your sexual fantasies or express parts of yourself with him," said Pepper Schwartz, a University of Washington sociologist and author of many relationship books. "So as not to deny parts of yourself, and so as not to try to make your partner into something he is not, you go outside your main relationship to explore."
One woman in her 50s exchanges sexual fantasies online with men anonymously and secretly, telling the men that she is married and doesn't want to pursue anything. The woman argued in a message board posting on the Web site that her fantasy swapping has benefited her marriage by reinvigorating her sex life with her husband.
For people determined not to leave their existing relationships, Schwartz said, an emotional affair is an attempt to reconcile conflicting needs. But some people engage in emotional affairs for the extra zing. "Some people have these emotional affairs, and they are doing the same kind of flirtation and seduction as in a physical affair, and are taking themselves out of the primary relationship," Schwartz said. "It might as well be sex."
Kathleen Kelleher is a free-lance writer in Los Angeles who writes on health and relationship issues.(c) 2002, Kathleen Kelleher. Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate International, a division of Tribune Media Services. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">
<small>[ July 12, 2002, 12:08 PM: Message edited by: Spacecase ]</small>
