When you find out that your husband or wife has developed a close tie with someone, and their relationship has seemingly crossed a line from friendship or a working relationship to one of a more intimate nature, you may experience a range of reactions:
http://www.marriagesherpa.com/afflink4c86f0de7c721/2cf38b2e.html
1. Guilt – You may feel you’ve broken your husband’s or wife’s trust by crossing a line of privacy and “snooping” into a personal account.
2. Sadness – Your partner is sharing a connection with someone other than you.
3. Anger – Your husband or wife is putting effort into a relationship when it’s your marriage that needs work.
4. Neglect – It can highlight the fact that you and your partner now share only banal news, such as what the kids did or what to put on the grocery list.
5. Defensive – You go into protective mode because your husband or wife has pounced on you for going through his or her “private business.”
What You Should Call It
If your husband or wife has a truly personal relationship with some intensity, the relationship has probably crossed over to an emotional affair.
When your husband or wife has an emotionally intimate connection with someone other than yourself, the intimacy that rightfully belongs in your marriage is diluted. To share your innermost thoughts with someone other than your partner means you are developing an emotional connection.
Generally, the response from the person who has been “caught” is to argue, “What, you mean I can’t have a friend of the opposite sex?” And, sometimes the hurting spouse will agree with this position.
Marriage is built on an emotional connection between two people who have shared marriage vows and their lives. When one partner goes outside of marriage to seek fulfillment, whether that fulfillment is sexual or emotional in nature, I consider that cheating on the marital relationship.
Many people struggle with how to define such a relationship. To help define whether or not your spouse is involved in an emotional affair, ask yourself the following .
Is the extent of the side relationship concealed from you, or transparent to you? Does your spouse announce when a text message comes in? For example, your wife says, “There’s Steve-he really understands me, listens to me.” Then, she reads the message to you? The odds are highly against such a scenario. Another indication is if your spouse feels “special” with the other person, but not with you.
In most cases the cheater knows that the behavior is wrong. It usually feels wrong to communicate with someone outside the marriage on an intimate level, and that’s why there is an effort to hide the truth. When you happen to stumble upon or snoop and find the truth, the cheating spouse is likely to go on the attack and accuse you of being unfair, or defend that it should be alright to have a best friend of the opposite sex.
Enter your first name and email in the form on the right and receive your FREE report Surviving an Affair.
free report. the high cost of emotional infidelity, washington post.