Understanding a Partner
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Understanding a Partner
| Wed, 04-14-2004 - 10:36am |
Please help. My husband and I are in a terrible situation. He began to have feelings for a coworker and I found out. We are dealing with the repercussions of all this. Right now, he is trying to make me understand that despite his inappropriate feelings, he is still her friend. Not because of who she is, but because of who he is. It's a part of his character to want to listen and to help people. She has become very open- almost to the point of intimacy I think. But he swears that he just listens, because he feels it is wrong to share problems about our marriage to anyone. he says it's no one's business but ours. And he feels strongly that to ask him to stop listening to her is asking him to compromise his character.
Here's my side. He hurt me deeply. And I feel that he thinks acknowledging my hurt means having to compromise his character. How can I make him undertand that I know who he is. I cherish who he is. But when his feelings for someone change to inappropriate, then something has to change. He can't be this person when it compromises my place in his life. Or can he? Am I being unreasonable?
He says he knows the right things to do, the right things to say. But there is a block- like when it comes to doing the right thing, he can't. Is there something wrong with my husband? Is there something wrong with me? Can anyone relate?
Please help...

IMO it's just twisted what he says - that he feels strongly that to ask him to stop listening to her is asking him to compromise his character. Compromise his character? That is whooey! He is married to you! He would be showing *true* character, as a loving and committed husband, by taking himself as far away from that situation as he could. I can't believe he really expects you to buy into this 'compromise my character' crap. This will be his justification when he gets his next girl friend. Don't compromise your character by give your "permission" for this one.
Keep looking up^, Susan.
He can't acknowledge your hurt feelings, because he thinks if he does then that somehow makes his behavior WRONG. Well, duh, he is wrong. He's putting his marriage in jeapordy for a friendship. Also, I think if the roles were reversed and you were *listening* to a male co-workers problems and your feelings changed, I'm sure your husband will feel betrayed (just like you do).
He's betrayed his marriage, emotionally. Emotional infidelity is not to be taken lightly. What he feels to realize is that if his feelings can change and he can feel inappropriate emotion/sharing/intimacy with her, then she too can 'fall in love' with him - oh, he's so nice, he listens, understands me (everything she's not getting from her other relationships/friendships/marriage). So what need in him is being met? Obviously he likes the attention, the inappropriate feelings for her, so much so that he wants to keep those feelings going - he LIKES the attention, he LIKES feeling NEEDED - it strokes his EGO. So basically, he will say and do anything to keep this relationship in tact because it fulfills a need in him, plus he doesn't want to be WRONG. He is wrong....he's maintaining a relationship that threatens his marriage and he's telling you 'so what' - 'too bad' - 'this relationship is more important than our marriage'.
I highly recommend marriage counseling - let the counselor tell him he's wrong. Also, it will give you a place to sort through your feelings, deal with the betrayal and maybe rebuild trust.
Have him read these two articles:
Is it ‘just friends’ – or emotional infidelity?
Even though there’s no sex, you still could be unfaithful, marriage counselors warn.
By Kim Campbell
In the minds of many, the definition of marital infidelity is pretty straightforward: If you have a sexual relationship with someone other than your spouse, you’ve cheated.
But marriage counselors are adding more gray to that definition by identifying non-physical ways of being unfaithful – such as forming attachments that rob a spouse of emotional intimacy.
These aren’t the bonds forged on a “girls’ night out,” but rather those formed between two co-workers who, for examples, share everything – their aspirations, their marriage woes – and keep the extent of their friendship a secret from their spouses.
“If you are skimming off the aspects of your inner life…and reserving them for your ‘friend,’ you are cheating your spouse of intimacy,” says William Doherty, a professor of family social science at the University of Minnesota.
Some experts have gone as far as to call this a new crisis of infidelity – one that is changing the way gender relationships are viewed. T hat’s the position taken by the late Shirley Glass, a researcher and family therapist whose last book was published earlier this year, before her death.
Glass found it wasn’t just thrill seekers or those unhappy in marriage who are prone to emotional cheating. “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,” she wrote in “NOT ‘Just Friends’: Protect Your Relationship from Infidelity and Heal the Trauma of Betrayal.”
Today, there are greater opportunities for intimate relationships to form between men and women and for the boundaries between platonic and romantic feelings to blur, she and others argue. Changes in the work force have brought more women into offices at all levels, and the Internet has made it far easier to quickly form bonds with strangers.
In both cases, it can be easy to meet someone and suspend reality. On the Internet, a contact can become a romanticized ideal without faults. And, in the office, an intriguing co-worker can seem more exciting than a spouse with whom you have to pay bills and fix plumbing.
“An emotional affair to me can be as damaging as a sexual affair, because an emotional connection is what people really want,” says Rona Subotnik, a marriage and family therapist in Palm Desert and author of books on infidelity, including Internet relationships. The workplace is a particularly fertile ground for cheating, experts say. By some accounts, the office is replacing the local pub as the place where men and women meet – and cheat.
About 8 mission to 10 million new relationship are formed annually in offices, according to Dennis Powers, a professor of business law at Southern Oregon University in Ashland and author of the 1998 book “The Office Romance.”
That figure is for singles entering relationship, but the same environment might easily influence those who are married. Working closely together on a project, for example, can be enticing, as can simply being around someone every day who shares similar goals and aspirations. An “emotional affair” tends to involve sexual attraction – even if not acted on – and secrecy on the part of a married participant, therapists note. It can be difficult in the workplace to realize an emotional affair is developing, says Doherty, because there’s usually not a big event, like a sexual encounter, to signal that you’ve turned a corner. Even so, not everyone believes that interaction between men and women in the workplace spells disaster. “The mere fact that a person has friendships from work by itself can’t be considered unethical. The question is where it crosses the line,” Powers says.
Some observers note that the issue of emotional affairs is prompting new rules for gender relationships, but not everyone thinks more rules are the best idea. Laura Kipnis, author of the recent book “Against Love: A Polemic,” questions whether it is right for one partner to control another’s autonomy or intimacies too much. “To what extent is it ethical…that their movements or associates should be restricted to appease my own anxiety or insecurity?” she asks.
For her part, Glass offers a framework for separating home and work relationships, noting that fidelity is about maintaining appropriate boundaries. Among her suggestions: discuss relationship issues at home, don’t lunch or take private coffee breaks with the same person, discuss your online friendships with your partner, and surround yourself with friends who are happily married and who are committed to the idea of fidelity.
From “NOT ‘Just Friends’ ” by Shirley Glass
WHEN FRIENDSHIP CROSSES THE LINE
Has your friendship become an emotional affair?
1. Do you confide more to your friend than to your partner about how your day went?
2. Do you discuss negative feelings or intimate details about your marriage with your friend but not with your partner?
3. Are you open with your partner about the extent of your involvement with your friend?
4. Would you feel comfortable if your partner heard your conversation with your friend?
5. Would you feel comfortable if your partner saw a videotape of your meetings?
6. Are you aware of sexual tensions in this friendship?
7. Do you and your friend touch differently when you’re alone than in front of others?
8. Are you in love with your friend?
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.''
How to keep temptation at arm's length
There is no such thing as an affair-proof marriage. But couples who want to protect their unions from infidelity can be mindful of the dangers. To keep a marriage healthy:
* Stay honest with your partner. ''Honesty is the trump card for preventing affairs,'' says Peggy Vaughan, who has studied affairs for more than two decades. Her Web site is dearpeggy.com. ''Make a commitment to sharing your attractions and temptations.'' That helps to avoid acting on them. Dishonesty and deception cause affairs to flourish, Vaughan says.
* Monitor your marriage. ''Realize if there is something missing,'' says psychologist Kimberly Young of St. Bonaventure University in southwest New York state. ''Be willing to try to fix it.'' Assess whether needs are being met.
* Stay alert for temptations. ''Be very careful of getting involved in the first place,'' Young says. ''Know the dangers. You can be drawn to an affair as to a drug. And once you are past a certain point of emotional connection, it is very hard to go into reverse.''
* Don't flirt. ''That is how affairs start,'' says Bonnie Eaker Weil, whose Web site, www.makeupdontbreakup .com, features tips for preventing infidelity. ''Flirting is not part of an innocent friendship. If you think there might be a problem with someone you flirt with, there probably is a problem.''
* Recognize that work can be a danger zone. ''Don't lunch or take private coffee breaks with the same person all the time,'' psychologist Shirley Glass says.
* Beware of the lure of the Internet. ''Emotional affairs develop quickly, in maybe a few days or weeks online, where it might take a year at the office,'' Young says. ''There is safety behind the computer screen.''
* Keep old flames from reigniting. ''If you value your marriage, think twice about having lunch with one,'' Glass says. Invite your partner along.
* Value the intimacy of your marriage. ''Reveal as much of yourself to one another as possible,'' Atlanta psychiatrist Frank Pittman says. ''You will find it less necessary to form an intimate friendship with someone else.''
* Make sure your social network supports marriage. ''Surround yourself with happily married friends who don't believe in fooling around,'' Glass says.
Edited 4/14/2004 11:50 am ET ET by itwinflame
Carrie