opps! what is AN emotional affair?

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-05-2004
opps! what is AN emotional affair?
7
Tue, 01-13-2004 - 2:34pm
I really am not sure what this is?
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-20-2003
Tue, 01-13-2004 - 2:47pm
I think we need more info about what is going on in your life but my guess is that you or someone you know have feelings for someone else while in a 'committed' relationship. You or they haven't acted on it by being physical with the other person but talking, emailing, etc is happening.
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-05-2004
Tue, 01-13-2004 - 2:51pm
No I have posted my problems...lol... I have just seen "emotional affair" on so many boards and I really wasnt sure what it meant.
Avatar for lucy4980
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 01-13-2004 - 5:08pm
I think it's basically when a married or otherwise commited person gets very close emotionally to someone else - spending a lot of time together, on the phone, emailing, whatever - sharing intimate feelings and details of his or her life when he or she should be sharing those things with a spouse. Basically an emotionally intimate relationship.
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-26-2003
Tue, 01-13-2004 - 5:16pm

My guess without seeing in text would be an affair that isnt sexual , but where emotions are involved. One partner doesnt betray the other by having sex with another person, but by having extreme emothional ties with another person.


Thats my guess.


 

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-20-2003
Tue, 01-13-2004 - 5:21pm
Do you think your boyfriend is tied emotionally with his ex and that is why he meets her for drinks, etc?
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-04-2003
Tue, 01-13-2004 - 5:53pm
Infidelity reaches beyond having sex:

Emotional intimacy, virtual affairs take hold in workplace

By Karen S. Peterson

USA TODAY

Cybersex and so-called virtual affairs on the Internet are all the buzz among professionals who study spouses who stray.

But the truly fertile ground for dangerous emotional attachments outside marriages is much more conventional: the workplace. As more employees labor longer hours together, close friendships increasingly are taken for granted. And as more women move into professions once dominated by men, there are greater temptations for both sexes.

There is a new ''crisis of infidelity'' breeding in the workplace, says Baltimore psychologist and marital researcher Shirley Glass. Often it does not involve sexual thrill seekers, but ''good people,'' peers who are in good marriages.

''The new infidelity is between people who unwittingly form deep, passionate connections before realizing that they've crossed the line from platonic friendship into romantic love,'' Glass says.

Glass' 25 years of research on ''extramarital attachments'' adds to a growing understanding of just what constitutes infidelity and why it happens.



She believes affairs do not have to include sex. ''In the new infidelity, affairs do not have to be sexual. Sometimes the greatest betrayals happen without touching. Infidelity is any emotional or sexual intimacy that violates trust.''

This revised concept of an affair is embraced by increasing numbers of Glass' colleagues. People are ''incredibly devastated by their partner's emotional affair,'' says Peggy Vaughan, who has researched infidelity for 20 years. ''They separate over it, divorce over it, this breaking of a trust, a bond.'' The third edition of Vaughan's The Monogamy Myth will be released this month.

A platonic friendship, such as those that grow at work, edges into an emotional affair when three elements are present, Glass says:

* Emotional intimacy. Transgressors share more of their ''inner self, frustrations and triumphs than with their spouses. They are on a slippery slope when they begin sharing the dissatisfaction with their marriage with a co-worker.''

* Secrecy and deception. ''They neglect to say, 'We meet every morning for coffee.' Once the lying starts, the intimacy shifts farther away from the marriage.''

* Sexual chemistry. Even though the two may not act on the chemistry, there is at least an unacknowledged sexual attraction.

Glass sums up her research and that of others in Not ''Just Friends'': Protect Your Relationship from Infidelity and Heal the Trauma of Betrayal (Free Press, $24), now arriving in bookstores.

''This is the essence of the new crisis of infidelity: friendships, work relationships and Internet liaisons have become the latest threat to marriages,'' Glass says.

Affairs that take place in chat rooms on the Internet are classic examples of emotional infidelity.

How many have affairs, either emotional or sexual, is difficult to gauge. After reviewing 25 studies, Glass believes 25% of wives and 44% of husbands have had extramarital intercourse.

About two-thirds of the 350 couples she has treated include one or both partners who have had some type of intense affair, sexual or emotional. The most threatening to marriages combine both, she says. Sixty-two percent of the unfaithful men and 46% of the women met their illicit partner through work.

Researchers identify many factors contributing to infidelity. Proximity at the office is key for Glass. ''My research and the research of others point to opportunity as a primary factor. . . . Attractions are a fact of life when men and women work side by side.''

Many other risk factors may be in play. They include:

* Family patterns. Unfaithful parents tend to produce sons who betray their wives and daughters who either accept affairs as normal or are unfaithful themselves, Glass says.

* Biochemical cravings. Changes in brain chemicals during an affair can create a ''high that becomes almost addictive,'' says Atlanta psychiatrist Frank Pittman, author of Private Lies: Infidelity and the Betrayal of Intimacy.

Bonnie Eaker-Weil, author of Adultery: The Forgivable Sin, says the biological need for connection can result from ''severe stress, loss or separation'' that often can be traced back to childhood.

* Internet temptations. Increasing numbers of cyber-affairs are breaking up stable marriages, says psychologist Kimberly Young, author of Tangled in the Web: Understanding Cybersex From Fantasy to Addiction. She cites the anonymity and convenience of the Internet, as well as the escape it provides from the stresses of everyday life.

* Increasing premarital sex. The more premarital sexual activity, the greater the chance of an extramarital affair, Glass says. ''Because girls are more sexually active at younger ages than they used to be, married women are not nearly as inhibited about crossing the line.''

* Child-centered marriages. Parents with dual careers and limited time ''often collude to give what time they have to the children. Their bond is built on co-parenting, and they don't make time for themselves,'' Glass says. Stereotypically, the husband finds somebody at work to share his adult interests.

Some affairs happen, Glass says, ''because people have certain beliefs they think will protect them. They believe if they love their spouse and have a good marriage, they don't have to worry. They don't exert the caution that might be necessary or create the boundaries to make their marriages safe.''

Basically monogamous partners drawn to interesting colleagues at work find themselves in ''great internal conflict.'' Her best advice: ''The more attractive we find somebody, the more careful we have to be.''


Carrie

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-05-2004
Wed, 01-14-2004 - 12:59pm
no i dont think that.... I really think he is just afraid to say no... he doesnt want to ruin the relationship he has with his son... I think she basically had control over the entire relationship and even though he ended it I think he still lets her control him... even though he will never admit it.

By the way thanks everyone for the feedback