Emotional affairs can be a tricky area for most married couples. There is a very thin line between ‘friend’ and ‘emotional affair’. What typically happens is that the wife finds a text, email or phone call from a woman that makes the wife uncomfortable. When the wife confronts the husband, she gets ‘Geez, you are over-reacting!! Get a grip, she is only a friend, we were just joking and having a little fun’. Then as the wife you look like the crazy paranoid person.
Below are some things to keep in mind when confronted with the situation above that might give you a better indication if you are dealing with an ‘emotional affair’ or just a ‘friend’.
1. Do you know the person your husband is engaged with? If you notice a note from Pam saying ‘You are so fun to be around, can’t wait to see you again!’ and you do not know Pam, that is not a good sign. If she is comfortable enough to send a text to your husband about how fun he is, then your husband should of mentioned her name to you prior to you seeing the text. Close friends of the opposite sex should be known within the marriage.
2. Would your husband feel comfortable inviting her to dinner (it’s more of a rhetorical question)? If your husband is truly ‘friends’ with ‘Pam’, then he should absolutely be comfortable having Pam around you as the wife. If he refuses or gets angry with the request, take note.
3. Is your husband comfortable being transparent concerning communication with Pam? As the wife, if you feel uneasy around a communication from Pam, your husband should be in a position to share texts/emails ect. to put your mind at ease, after all, they are just ‘friends’. If your husband easily shares communication between him and Pam, great. If not, take note.
Emotional affairs are harder to catch because the default line is always ‘we are just friends’. And the truth is that it is very possible that your husband has friends of the opposite sex. It’s important that as a married couple that you establish rules of engagement with friends of the opposite sex. There is a thin line between ‘friends’ and ‘emotional affairs’ and ‘physical affairs’. You can go from zero (friends) to 100 (full out physical affair) very quick if you are not careful. Below are a couple of rules that can be good discussion points with your partner.
1. Texting/Calling friends after sunset. There is no reason for a friend of the opposite sex to regularly engage with a married man after hours. I understand on occasion something might come up, but consistently calling/texting a married man after work hours should be off limits.
2. Everyday interaction. If your husband is interacting with a ‘friend’ everyday, someone is trying to migrate into the ‘emotional affair’ zone. When married, the only one you should be interacting with everyday (outside of co-workers) is your wife/husband.
3. Flirting – If your husband has a ‘friend’…….that ‘friend’ should not be flirting with your husband (this includes sexting/texting). Flirting with a married man is leaning more towards emotional affair than a friend.
Discovering an emotional affair can be very painful because it is typically the first time in the marriage where the wife discovers that her husband may have feelings for someone else. Watch, listen and observe, and what needs to unfold will unfold.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi ladies ,
Jewels long time no see! I’m wanting to join this thread to just read right now. I will share in the near future.
This topic is so pertinent to me. My H is such a sucker for the damsel in distress. This is how his inappropriate relationships have started. They complain about life — their marriages, their work, how lonely they are, how they have to fix this or that at home — and BOOM. There it starts and there it progresses. The guys love the attention and feel needed and feel the thrill of someone new. I’m just totally shocked at the women who engage in these — married women. Are they looking for the upgrade to what they think would be a better life? I’ve read the texts from the OW in my H’s case. It was all about feeling beautiful and fishing for compliments. She would say how she found her new jeans – -a Size 4 — 30 inseam…. just begging for him to compliment her — which he did….but this is what they do. And the men love to feel needed. It’s a vicious cycle. It’s the commiserating first — and then it shifts. They know it’s wrong — because it’s a secret. That is what really stings. The secrecy and deception…..from someone we thought loved us totally. But again, it’s about them getting their needs met — they really aren’t thinking about us or the consequences at that time. But I knew right away because of the hours on the blackberry. The “after sunset” that Jewels mentions is sooo on the money. He’s never on it now — but he really was while it was going on.
What happens when your husband’s emotional affair has gone full blown, he has left the marriage, the home, the children, and has moved on without a backward glance…. and yet you just can’t stop missing him?
My husband denies aan emotional affair ever happened , but l do not believe anyone starts to see a work colleague ‘out of the blue’ and then only 2 mnths later moves in and demands to have your chldren to sleep at her house on aternate weekends, and plans a summer vacation with her and them…. yeah, right….
what do you do when your two youngest children as so confused and distressed because of the separation and the sudden appearance of the girlfriend?
What do you do when your oldest child becomes so angry and depressed that she refuses all ccontact with her father and resorts to self harm, and even when you arrange counselling, resists all overtures from the counsellor as ‘stupid’.
What do you do when your friends all tell you to start dating, but after 23 yrs together you just cannot imagine being with anyone else?
How do you recover?
How do you move on when you still dream about him every night even after such heartless betrayal?
How do you ever trust someone again after the person you trusted with your whole life reveals nothing but contempt in the way he handles the revelation [test message, how low can you go?] and the resulting fallout?
How do you start to live again?
Hi Leah,
I know you are in a great deal of pain over the affair and the emotional pain this has caused you and your family a great deal of grief. You ask what do you do when your world is falling apart and you are losing control. What you do is hang on to that ounce. That ounce of hope that all of this has to have a purpose that is bigger than what you see. That ounce of hope that says maybe you are not suppose to be with someone who has the capability of doing this to a family. Maybe your kids are going to learn at a very early age that life does not always go as planned and that you should not depend on the actions of others for your sanity. Your kids are not going to listen to you during this time. They are going to watch mommy. They are doing to see your actions. Grab that ounce of hope that you can survive this. Why? Because your kids are going to see the hope in your and grab onto it as well.
But in order to grab that hope, you have to be selfish enough to stop focusing on that which does not serve you. Your husband moving out and focusing on him does not serve you. Focusing on things outside of your control does not serve you. Focus on things you have control over (your thoughts and actions) because at the end of the day, that is all you can do, all we can do as a society. I can not tell you what to do in your particular situation because you know the answer better than I do, and it will be clear once you focus inward. I wish you well in your journey – hugs to you!
Oh my! Today has been an eye opener…I always knew in the back of my mind, and even when I confronted him not once, twice; but three times (three different “friends”), I learned today that is called Emotional Cheating. This is the person he goes to when he wants to flirt, have fun or even vent. Not me, not his spouse, but this person whoever she is. By the third time in six years, I just won’t feel right sticking around, can you blame me?
I don’t foresee trusting him, ever again. I have become that person that spies thru emails, facebook, whatsapp, and whatever new social network there is. I am not that person, nor I want to be. He says he wants to look for counseling, for help, is it too late? Three times is not enough?
Right now I’m standing at a crossroad, after all I’m still questioning myself (which makes me really mad): should I stay or should I go?
I caught my husband having an online relationship. He said it was early in the relationship and they just talked about what they did that day. But how can you know or believe. The act of having the relationship makes his explanation suspect. We have talked about it several times and it ends up with in an aurgument and me being the bad guy. Me being the one who has made him live in a marrage where he fells unimportant. I am just lost with what I believed was a good loving relationship. It hit be out of the blue. I am just lost. I do not know where to turn. I do not want my family to know how blind and stupid I have been. We have been married for 19 years. What happened? I am not so young anymore and just do not know how to handle the pain and the loss. I just want the pain to end. I want everything to end. I have considered killing myself but it would hurt my sister so much. She lost her son about five years ago shortly after I lost my son. She lost her mother-in-law last week. They were very close. I know no one on the end of this web site will solve my pain but it does feel good to type it out. I wish I could explain this all to my husband but he is so angry we would just end up in another fight. I would not sleep. I would get a migrne and make lots of mistakes at work and life would go on and still be the same. I do not know how to tell my husband how much I care nor even know if he will care. He did not sleep in our bed tonight. He is out on the couch. So lonely for a hug that is loving and meaningful not just to appease me. I see a counselor but do not want her know because I have been hospitalized for depression before and it is embarrassing when you come out. It is embarrassing to face your family and embarrassing face people at work. I do not know what to do with my life. I do not want to be a fool. I want my marriage, I want Steve to want to be with me but the grass is always greener on the other side. He is five years younger so other women his age may be more appealing than me. I am not ugly but not so attractive. Now I am just rambling. I am so lost, so lonely but still in love with him, with us. I guess I do not express my feelings so well because it comes out selfish and unfeeling. I do not feel selfish and believe myself to be a caring and loving person. He does not see me this way. So far there is no limit on characters so on I ramble. It does help to put it down. I still do not know where to turn or how to be a better person. I am so willing to work on my faults but it is not all me. I have never roamed from the promise I made when we were married. I never wanted to hurt him or be that person to myself. I am so tired and so scared and so lonely. I want it to end but that would be the chickens way out, but an option. I can not imagine what life would be if he were to leave and I were to live alone again. I have not been so lucky with my marriages, all three. You would think I would learn that I am just not wife kind of material. I am so scared of what my life is going to be. I am sitting here typing wondering if he could read this would it help him understand me but fear that him would interpret it as an insult and me blaming him and just adding to the uncaring person he says I am. I am not. I just do not know how to express my feelings in a way that shows him what I feel inside. I try. I do try. I am so scared and lonely. I feel like I am going to implode. I think I am going to send this to him. It cannot get any worse.
B.J in shock/ Michella
B.J in shock,
Hi, I want you to do something very simple. Take a deep breathe, it is really going to be ok. The first thing that came to mind when I read your story is courage. This is your third marriage and so many people give up after the first time, the first divorce. For you to have the courage to say ‘I do’ again means two things. First is that you are willing to fall down and get back up (learning lesson’s along the way), and second, that you must be hot stuff for 3 men to propose to you (you are so not giving yourself enough credit!!).
I know your current husband is acting up – but that is on him. And guess what? My ex-husband did that same thing where every time I brought up the cheating he blamed me – it’s a trick I tell you! A trick to divert attention off of them and onto you. Don’t believe it, don’t believe any of it because it is not true. You can not make someone cheat. If there were problems in the marriage there are a multitude of things he could of done – he doesn’t get off the hook that easy. I was told I was insensitive, not caring, not affectionate – just like you. And years later I realized – none of it was true.
I also remember being embarrassed as well. But what you have to do it keep telling yourself – this is his embarrassment, not yours. It’s not your job to own his actions and behavior. People cheat for tons of reason’s, many of the selfish and self-centered (you see everything he is saying you are he secretly thinks of himself but can’t admit it).
Next time he starts calling you those names, remember what I told you (that is him projecting how he feels about himself), and realize that you can always choose to not entertain a conversation that ends up making you feel bad. I had to learn to end discussions when it kept coming back to me.
You will be ok. You still got the looks, you still are caring and loving, and someone will want that. But don’t focus on that now, focus on you, building your self, realizing that you deserve to be loved and accept nothing else. Many hugs to you!
Michella,
The question that every wife asks after the affair – should I stay or go? With your situation, I think that if this is the third time, you have to be tough with him. Is should not be ‘I will look for counseling’, more like ‘We need to have our first counseling session by X date and time’. And then you have to be in a position to make sure there are consequences for his lack of action. 3rd offense he needs to lead the effort, if not, he will be likely to do it again. No matter what happens, I would start thinking about your plan B, so that you won’t be caught off guard if things do not work out. Hugs to you as well!!
Thank you jewels from USA. You are sweet for responding to my cries for help. For now I have decided to keep my mouth shut and see what I decide to do. My counselor says that, that idea is sustainable. I know, I just need time to breath and think. I have so much trouble trusting him. Every little thing makes me wonder if he is still in contact with her. Everything. He acts like he is trying but the trust is gone and that will be tough to handle. I have to bite my tongue and not confront him with my suspicious. Our 19th anniversary is soon. Wow! What a mess. I thought this was forever and now I have no clue where my life will go. Still so confusing.