What the heck is an "emotional affair?" (marriage, man, family)
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Anyone who takes from you the natural emotions for your partner is soliciting an emotional affair. As an example, if a two people are confiding in each other things better for their partners, that is part and parcel of an emotional affair. 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% of the time it's men trying to get a woman to eventually have sex with them.
This is probably the best explanation I've heard, because it references actual behavior--i.e. the withdrawal of affection and shirking of responsibility.
However, I still don't know if I would choose to call it an affair. For me, a real affair necessarily involves physical intimacy. Otherwise, where do you draw the line? At what point do warm feelings spill over into an emotional affair? It is just too subjective. We can only expect people to police their actions, not their thoughts or feelings.
There are a million articles about this, here is but one, from WebMD:
This is probably the best explanation I've heard, because it references actual behavior--i.e. the withdrawal of affection and shirking of responsibility.
However, I still don't know if I would choose to call it an affair. For me, a real affair necessarily involves physical intimacy. Otherwise, where do you draw the line? At what point do warm feelings spill over into an emotional affair? It is just too subjective. We can only expect people to police their actions, not their thoughts or feelings.
You have women friends, right? Are you really telling me that you cannot tell the difference between feelings of friendship, and the feeling of falling in love? Many of my closest friends, throughout life, have been men, and I also date women, and I have never been confused about this.
Regardless, it's fine if you don't want to use the phrase . But the reason it exists is that -- just like every word or phrase in a human language -- enough people found they needed a name to describe something that they made one.
Me, I had an emotional affair before I ever heard of the phrase. And having a name for what I was experiencing would have been very useful!
I had a lot of confusion, at the time. OT1H I thought that as long as I did not do sexual stuff with the person, then what I was doing (being in love, with all the time together and obsessive focus that implies) was ok. OTOH, I knew something was wrong with this picture.
If I had had the language, I would have been able to think more clearly about the problem. As it was, I came across the phrase a few months after the non-affair ended, and I thought, 'Oh that's what that was'.
(Then I told my (by then ex-)hubby, because I had the language to do so. I told him I was sorry, and that I had thought at the time it was ok but I now thought otherwise, and I was sorry. He was chill about it, as is his nature .)
People often make a distinction between infidelities that qualify as standard affairs versus those that only rise to the level of "emotional affairs." I really don't understand how an "emotional affair" works. If there is no inappropriate physical intimacy, on what basis do you regard it as an affair at all?
Lets be honest, who do you think does this more? Guys how many of us have dated and been involved with a weman that sometimes the friends were more important then you?
You have women friends, right? Are you really telling me that you cannot tell the difference between feelings of friendship, and the feeling of falling in love? Many of my closest friends, throughout life, have been men, and I also date women, and I have never been confused about this.
I do have women friends, and I can tell the difference between feelings of friendship and feelings of romantic love. However, I have also had close women friends for whom I held strong romantic feelings, but who did not reciprocate those feelings. The fact I continued to be close friends with those women while I had a romantic partner in no way made those friendships "emotional affairs."
BTW, in case you don't know, men almost never bother cultivating purely platonic friendship with women. I mean, almost never. If a man makes any effort at all to befriend a woman, the chances he is also attracted to her romantically and/or sexually are about 99%.
Emotional affairs can and do exist... so many men are fixated on the just the physical parts of relationships... often to the point of not realizing that good sex is more than just the physical but that is best left for another thread.
Of course emotional affairs exist... if my woman is getting her needs met from another man, whether physical or emotional, we've got an issue....
If she's got to hide anything... well.... let's just say that may be a problem...
I do have women friends, and I can tell the difference between feelings of friendship and feelings of romantic love. However, I have also had close women friends for whom I held strong romantic feelings, but who did not reciprocate those feelings. The fact I continued to be close friends with those women while I had a romantic partner in no way made those friendships "emotional affairs."
I agree. I'm not sure, but my first impulse is that it has to be two-way to be an emotional affair.
Quote:
BTW, in case you don't know, men almost never bother cultivating purely platonic friendship with women. I mean, almost never. If a man makes any effort at all to befriend a woman, the chances he is also attracted to her romantically and/or sexually are about 99%.
Maybe in some abstract way, or maybe at the beginning. Some of my guy friends, the way we met was that we were investigating each other as potential romantic partners, but that didn't pan out. Some are former partners. Some are long-distance friends; we live hundreds or thousands of miles apart. Some are gay.
I doubt this is a gendered thing. I am trying to think if I have ever made a local, hetero guy friend, where I wasn't actively considering dating him when we first met. It's not only guys who do that .
I really treasure my friendship with my ex-husband. I was so hesitant to break up with him, because, although I found aspects of our relationship untenable, I loved the friendship part. And, to my joy, we have kept almost all the good parts, while getting rid of the bad ones.
This is probably the best explanation I've heard, because it references actual behavior--i.e. the withdrawal of affection and shirking of responsibility.
However, I still don't know if I would choose to call it an affair. For me, a real affair necessarily involves physical intimacy. Otherwise, where do you draw the line? At what point do warm feelings spill over into an emotional affair? It is just too subjective. We can only expect people to police their actions, not their thoughts or feelings.
From what I've read, there seems to be different definitions and indicators but things like spending an excessive amount of time on your own appearance before visiting, concealing or being outright deceptive to your spouse in order to spend time with the other, confiding in your emotional partner intimate details or problems about your own marital problems or SO problems. And there are others and it kind of sounds like AA type criteria where no one or two things are going to make one a drunk but if too many boxes get checked..well there you have it and it's most certainly causing problems for a marriage.
This is probably the best explanation I've heard, because it references actual behavior--i.e. the withdrawal of affection and shirking of responsibility.
However, I still don't know if I would choose to call it an affair. For me, a real affair necessarily involves physical intimacy. Otherwise, where do you draw the line? At what point do warm feelings spill over into an emotional affair? It is just too subjective. We can only expect people to police their actions, not their thoughts or feelings.
I disagree. Think how you would feel if your spouse enjoyed spending her free time with another guy and not you, then started going out to eat with him because he is more into the food she wants to try, and they go see theatre together because you don't enjoy it? Then she starts talking to him on the phone all the time because he is so funny, or she's stressed and he understands her better than you. He's into tennis? All of a sudden she takes up tennis. When her dog dies, she calls him for comfort.
And if any of that starts to bother you? It's YOUR problem, you just don't understand their bond and because they have not had sex or kissed you have no right to say anything!
That's usually how it goes....
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. But the reason it exists is that -- just like every word or phrase in a human language -- enough people found they needed a name to describe something that they made one.
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