Emotional affairs

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I'm curious 1) whether anyone here feels like they have or had an emotional affair, and 2) what your opinion is on the subject-- do you think it's cheating? And how would you feel if your partner did it? Would you want to end the relationship, or try to fix it, or be ok with it?

For those unfamiliar with the term, an emotional affair is where you don't cheat on your partner in a physical or sexual way, or necessarily even be flirty, but you form some kind of connection with another person where you are getting something you don't have in your primary relationship. For example, if you are in a relationship but you don't share intellectual interests and so you satisfy that need with another person to the exclusion of your partner.

I guess some people find the idea kind of specious, like emotional abuse, as something that's not necessarily nice but is pretty normal and not wrong. Other people probably consider it just as bad as having sex. I want to hear what people have to say about it here. Ok go!

Some may consider it "cheating" for you to feel an emotional attachment to someone you're not married to, and so it may be.

But then, is it not also "cheating" for the person who vowed to love you through all things to withhold emotional support from you?

I personally don't like the definition offered, or the term, really. I don't think anything is wrong with forming emotional connections as long as they don't trump the one with your intimate partner. In a brief web perusal, the gyst was "don't form friendships with the opposite sex". As someone attracted to men and women, that's a very lonely existence indeed.
I think it's unrealistic and unfair for your partner to provide for your every need. Friendships shouldn't become neutered and superficial because a significant other enters the picture. I think the key is making sure the connection remains strong with your partner all the while.
If my partner formed a close friendship with a girl, then I would definitely be jealous. I think that speaks more to my insecurity issues though. Despite that, I'd like to think I could place trust over insecurity because that is what it boils down to.

I think it's fine to get something you can't get from your significant other from friends if you're not ignoring your relationship or your relationship's troubles for it. I've read stories from married people who don't even talk to their significant other or seek help before hunting down opposite-sex friends to fill the void. That's an emotional affair and very different from looking for people (same- or opposite-sex) who share your love of science or French poodles.

Last edited by Cilantro on 27 Jul 2013, 12:21 am, edited 3 times in total.

It's hard for me to understand the difference between sharing information with a friend like this. I'm always open, whether the person is male or female. I don't really see the issue. Am I misunderstanding what is being shared between the two people communicating? Is it like you're longing to speak with the person, way more than the one you're in a relationship? You don't want to share things with your spouse/girlfriend/boyfriend/whatever like you do with that friend? Depending on them for emotional needs?

When I worked at the vets office back in 1991 there was this vet there who was my age, both of us happily married, both of us with kids, and although nothing at all ever happened, or even almost happened, I was his "work wife" and he was my "work husband". I don't know how we fell into those roles. I was his tech so I was with him all day and we just basically started relating like husband and wife there. We would talk about stuff all the time, and when I'd go get lunch he'd tell me what he wanted without even asking if I'd get it and hand me money and say "that's for yours too" and when I had to work up a big dog by myself and couldn't pick him up I'd holler for him to come there and put the dog on the table. We would talk about our spouses and I'd give him advice about his wife and he's give me advice about my husband. He was a nice guy.

The only thing that ever hinted at anything even halfway improper was this one time we were in the back kennel where the big dogs are in the fences and checking then, and me being me and clumsy, I opened one of the fence gates right into my face splitting my eyebrow open. Blood went everywhere, I grabbed my face and yelled f**k and he ran over there, grabbed me and turned me around and was all like "Come here baby, let me see. It's ok, I got you." and was all sweet and petting on my hair and took me up front and sewed it up. He was real sweet and nice. That doesn't really hint at anything improper, but he had always just called me "hon" and I called him "sweetie" and "baby" for people who are both our age at the time was more like a word to use for a bf or gf or something. But he never did anything improper.

I've always had guy friends and I'm close with them and talk to them like my girlfriends. So, I don't know if you would call those emotional affairs or not. I never thought so.

but "work wife" was the closest I have ever been to what I think you might be talking about.

haisay it depends on the extent. For example, if my boyfriend had a female friend to whone I knew for a fact he was not sexually attracted and nothing more could develop who played Magic with him, I wouldn't care. But if it were a case of him spending a ridiculous amount of time with a female friend (more time than with me)and/or cancelling things he was going to do with me to spend time with her, or constantly texting/talking it would be a problem regardless of whether he wanted to be intimate eith her or not.

I don't know if anyone else here likes King of the Hill but the episode in which Dale befriends the exterminatrix and Nancy fears the worst only for him to be shocked and appalled when the exterminatrix comes on to him comes to my mind.

I don't believe it is even possible for two people to be able to fill each and every need and desire their partner have, nor do I think it is healthy to try to do that. If I have no interest in model trains, my imaginary SO is not allowed to persue his passion for them because there are girls there? I am not allowed to keep my friends, because they are all male?

Should we erect a gender-segregated society where women can be punished by death to be in the same room with a man who is not her hudband or family? And for the sake of equality, erect the same rule for men, not to be allowed in the same room as women not family?

Personally, I could never form an emotional connection with a person with that kind of unbridled jealousy, and it makes all sorts of warningbells go off in the back of my head. One of the first signs of domestic abuse is limitating and shrinking the victims sphere of social connections.

I'm curious 1) whether anyone here feels like they have or had an emotional affair

Yes.

2) what your opinion is on the subject-- do you think it's cheating?

I'd have to alter the defination a bit of what an emotional affair is. I think just being friends or sharing a mutual interest etc, is just friendship and not an emotional affair. An emotional affair (to me) is one that crosses into exchanges of feelings and affection that is normally part of a relationship (Girl/Boy friend, spouse), but that does, by mutual agreement, not progress to sex.

I would not call it cheating, as that word is too associated with sexual activity. I think of it more as a half way point to cheating. ie.

Friendship
Emotional Affair
Sexual Affair

And how would you feel if your partner did it? Would you want to end the relationship, or try to fix it, or be ok with it?

It would bother me a little, but only be serious if I thought it might progress to sexual affair or my partners departure. I would try to figure out what my partner lacked that moved them in that direction and fill that need better.

I have oversimplified it, as when you attempt to lay out significant points of reference there are still almost always points inbetween.

Yes! I love that show and that episode's the perfect example.

I like some of the sharper definitions others have offered here. I also like OliveOilMom's comment about the "work husband/wife" situation-- that sounds to me like something that would go either way, I don't know if I personally would call it an emotional affair or not, it doesn't really sound like it, I guess if I was your partner in that position and could see what you acted like that would decide it for me. But to be more direct, let me describe my own situation.

I'm in a serious long-term relationship. If you've read my other posts on here you know we've been having some issues, but luckily we've gone to some couples counseling and really ironed some of them out, he got a job, we talked a lot, and things are going well. But. He has a close friend who has recently become my friend to. He lives in another state and we only see him a few times a year, but I talk to him on facebook. The more we've got to know each other the more it seems we have in common. We both do a lot of reading serious stuff like Nietzsche and I don't know anyone else, including my partner, who does that. And we both have school-age kids-- my partner is not my kid's dad, and he's a good stepdad but I don't feel like he really understands what it's like being a parent since birth.

So we've started talking about lots of things that I don't often talk about with my partner, and it's made me realize how lonely I was for someone to fill those "gaps." (Also it sounds dumb, but we are both smokers and I know few people who smoke and it's just nice to share a cigarette with someone for a change!!) I've started opening up to him a lot and feel pretty close to him. I do find him attractive but I can't say I really have a desire to sleep with him or anything. If I weren't in a relationship I really don't know if I'd want to date him or not... I'd probably give it a try. But mostly I just feel like I've developed a sort of intimacy with him that I don't have with other friends, and I think it is mutual, and I feel like if my partner had that kind of feelings with someone I might feel hurt and jealous because it seems like it's blurring the line between friendship and something more.

I don't know what to do-- whether I should distance myself from him, avoid him, carry on as is, talk to him about it, talk to my partner about it........ I realy value my closeness with him but I also don't want to hurt my partner after we've been working so hard to make things better :/ So I guess I want to know if you think this is some kind of cheating, if you've had something similar, and what I might do.

Have you gone off your partner's brother in law now?

This would depend on what the emotions involve. It could be emotional cheating IMO if one goes outside the relationship and without the SO's consent to get love and affection that the SO should be trying to give. I know some women have told me that when they get emotional, they can't be around their partner if they take them personally or gets emotional at the same moment. This can play a key role in deciding who a woman wants a relationship with. So of course, they rely on someone that can deal with their emotions.

The emotional affair with someone else is like making that person your boyfriend without the "rewards", especially if you are still sleeping with the significant other if you ask me. The other guy is liking going to want more than that if you come to him with your emotional problems.
Likewise, if the significant other is getting sex, but no emotional connection from you, he is going to start asking questions more often than not.

To me, that sounds like a friendship. You care for each other, you share intrests, you talk about 'real' stuff, not just the latest episode of family guy and the weather.
I would never call someone a friend if I do not love them, deeply. Or, to put it another way, friendship is like love, only without the messy bits.

Love or "closeness" is not controllable. You can't choose not to feel close to someone the way you can choose not to have sex. I mean, you can try not to, but at a certain point no matter how much you want not to feel something, you will feel it.

I don't believe there is anything wrong with this. It's not cheating because there is no decision involved! It's completely okay to have friends outside your relationship no matter what gender they are. Now, as a polyamorous person by nature, I find the idea that this could be wrong abhorrent at best; if it were up to me, all relationships would be "open relationships." But I recognize that not everyone is polyamorous--and that even monogamous people often develop strong feelings for others outside their relationships. There is nothing wrong with this. It is not cheating if there is no decision or betrayal involved, and if anyone tells you otherwise, I'd make sure not to date them!

Thank you for all of your responses. @AspieMike my SO and I do definitely have an emotional connection and closeness... we both get a lot more than sex. I also don't think that the other person wants any more than close friendship, because he's been in bad relationships recently and I think has kind of gone of romance and sex for the time being.

@EmberEyes I guess I don't have a whole lot of experience with close (or what you and I both would probably just call "real") friendships. I have kind of a problem of having learned, which isn't a great thing to say the least, that I need to be romantically/sexually involved with someone-- especially men-- to make them want anything to do with me... I guess I feel like I'm more desirable physically and as a partner than I am as just someone to know, so making a genuine connection with someone immediately starts to equate with attraction in my mind if that makes any sense, which is why I guess I feel guilty about being close to anyone and especially a man.

@diniesaur I agree with you about not being able to choose feelings. I think I have a tendency toward feeling polyamorous, but not to the extent that I'd be comfortable with an open relationship right now

I hinted at the subject to my partner-- told him that I was talking a lot to our friend and that it was innocent and that I didn't want to hide things but also didn't want to ask for permission-- and he seemed to be okay with that. I hope he won't change his mind about that and get jealous in the future... seen that happen before.....