What is Emotional Infidelity?
Emotional infidelity can be described as a deliberate or lasting desire to seek the emotional intimacy - usually provide by marriage - outside of the relationship. It may be that one partner feels disconnected or unappreciated and begins to discuss or befriend another person with whom he or she feels understood. What normally happens is that a friendship and attraction builds and this person gradually takes the place of one's spouse.
Sometimes emotional infidelity happens accidentally. A Personal Coach can mediate and open up the lines of communication. A personal coach may be especially helpful because he or she can help us look beyond the issues couples argue about. This can lead to the unveiling of the truth ... the real reasons we feel disconnected ... and why emotional infidelity occurs at all. Take heart! Much of the time we may not even realize we are doing it.
Are you a victim of Emotional Infidelity?
To find out if you need help from a personal coach, check out the signs and symptoms of emotional infidelity below.
Signs of Emotional Infidelity
- Withdrawing from a spouse
- Thinking excessively, fantasizing or daydreaming about another
- Loss of interest in sex
- Sharing thoughts and feelings with another outside the marriage
- Less desire to spend time with your spouse
- Making reasons to see or be with a friend rather than a partner
There is no question about it. Relationships are difficult. Most couples reach a certain level of comfort with one another that may somehow - blissfully and unintentionally - leave the door to emotional infidelity wide open. We may not even be aware of any problems in the relationship; complacency itself can set the stage for emotional infidelity.
Compounding the issue, many people feel that since sex is not involved, having an intimate conversation with someone outside of the marriage is morally acceptable too. For most people, they don't even realize that they are in the midst of trouble until it's far too late.
How Dangerous Is Emotional Infidelity To Marriage
Compounding the issue, many people feel that since sex is not involved, having an intimate conversation with someone outside of the marriage is morally acceptable too. For most people, they don't even realize that they are in the midst of trouble until it's far too late.
How Dangerous Is Emotional Infidelity To Marriage
One way of looking at emotional infidelity is that it is very dangerous, because it not only takes away time and energy from the marriage, but it can lead to sexual infidelity and possibly to the end of marriage.
Another way of looking at it is that it is a symptom of problems that already exist within a marriage. When the primary relationship is not emotionally and physically intimate, each person may be vulnerable to a form infidelity – either emotional and/or physical. Rather than blaming the affair for the problems, why not address the real problem?
Emotional affairs are compelling because it is so easy to be close with someone with whom you have no shared responsibility – no money issues, no children, no chores. It is easy to share your deepest feelings with someone with whom you have no conflict. It is easy to get the good feelings that you get when someone who doesn’t live with you and doesn’t see all your issues thinks you are wonderful. But it is a cop-out – an easy way out of dealing with the real issues at hand. And if this affair does lead to a break up of your marriage and into a new permanent relationship, the chances are you will end up with the same problems! So why waste your time? Why not deal with the problems now?
The primary problem that leads to emotional infidelity is emotional distance between partners. While emotional infidelity is a symptom of emotional distance within the primary relationship, the emotional distance is also a symptom of the deeper issues within the relationship, you get that? These deeper issues might be:
Another way of looking at it is that it is a symptom of problems that already exist within a marriage. When the primary relationship is not emotionally and physically intimate, each person may be vulnerable to a form infidelity – either emotional and/or physical. Rather than blaming the affair for the problems, why not address the real problem?
Emotional affairs are compelling because it is so easy to be close with someone with whom you have no shared responsibility – no money issues, no children, no chores. It is easy to share your deepest feelings with someone with whom you have no conflict. It is easy to get the good feelings that you get when someone who doesn’t live with you and doesn’t see all your issues thinks you are wonderful. But it is a cop-out – an easy way out of dealing with the real issues at hand. And if this affair does lead to a break up of your marriage and into a new permanent relationship, the chances are you will end up with the same problems! So why waste your time? Why not deal with the problems now?
The primary problem that leads to emotional infidelity is emotional distance between partners. While emotional infidelity is a symptom of emotional distance within the primary relationship, the emotional distance is also a symptom of the deeper issues within the relationship, you get that? These deeper issues might be:
- One or both partners trying to have control through anger blame, and criticism – which are overt forms of control.
- One or both partners trying to have control through care-taking, i.e. giving themselves up and taking responsibility for the other person’s feelings – which is a covert form of control.
- One of both partners withdrawing and resisting being controlled by the other partner.
- Neither partner taking emotional responsibility for his or her own feelings of pain and joy. Each partner abandoning themselves – with self-judgment and ignoring their feelings through addictions, and/or making the other responsible for their feelings.
- Power struggles that result from the control and resistance dynamic and an inability to resolve conflict.
The relationship system that develops, when neither partner takes responsibility for his or her own feelings, and when each partner tries to have control in overt or covert ways, grinds down the love until each person feels disconnected from their partner and lonely in the relationship. This is when they are susceptible to emotional infidelity.
However, these patterns do not disappear just because you move into another relationship. You take your overt and covert forms of control with you into any relationship, as well as your underlying fears of rejection and fears of engulfment that underlie these forms of control. These patterns don’t generally show up early in a relationship or in an emotional or physical affair, but that doesn’t mean they are gone. If your new relationship were to become your committed primary relationship, these patterns would again surface.
Why waste what might turn out to be a wonderful relationship by not dealing with your fears, controlling patterns, and self-abandonment now, in your current relationship? Instead of addictively looking to someone else to fill up your emptiness and take away your aloneness and loneliness, why not learn to do this for yourself so that you can break your dysfunctional patterns and become the loving human being that you are capable of being? Imagine the wonderful relationship you and your partner might have if both of you were to learn how to take responsibility for your own feelings and your own ability to love!
However, these patterns do not disappear just because you move into another relationship. You take your overt and covert forms of control with you into any relationship, as well as your underlying fears of rejection and fears of engulfment that underlie these forms of control. These patterns don’t generally show up early in a relationship or in an emotional or physical affair, but that doesn’t mean they are gone. If your new relationship were to become your committed primary relationship, these patterns would again surface.
Why waste what might turn out to be a wonderful relationship by not dealing with your fears, controlling patterns, and self-abandonment now, in your current relationship? Instead of addictively looking to someone else to fill up your emptiness and take away your aloneness and loneliness, why not learn to do this for yourself so that you can break your dysfunctional patterns and become the loving human being that you are capable of being? Imagine the wonderful relationship you and your partner might have if both of you were to learn how to take responsibility for your own feelings and your own ability to love!
Remember this is Dedicated to your own success and Benefit.
Nerovianne xx
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