Emotional Affairs

[katyseagull]

Do you guys think people can actually have an emotional affair? I was listening to a local radio station today and they were talking about this guy who wrote in and said his wife had confessed to an emotional affair with a colleague and he didn't know what to think about it. He wasn't even sure he was that upset about it.

I don't get the term. I've had crushes on guys before but I certainly wouldn't call it an emotional affair. I've had friendships with guys who I confided in but hell I wouldn't call that an emotional affair either. And why would the wife confess such a dumb thing anyway?!


And while we're at it, which of these actions would make you more upset,

- your significant other goes out for a private lunch with the same guy (girl) from work every week, or
- your significant other talks on the internet with some strange guy (or girl)?


Would either of these things bother you? Are we not allowed to form friendships and bonds with people of the opposite sex once we're in a relationship?

[RoundGuy]

Most sober, attached females (or males, for that matter) aren't going to go to Barnes and Noble and bang the first guy they strike up a conversation with. There has to be an emotional attachment first.

Emotional attachments (affairs) aren't harmful in and of themselves. It's the fact that they open the door for a physical affair later. The relationship simply progresses over time.

Without an emotional affair, the physical affair rarely happens.

Can you have an emotional attachment to someone other than your mate? Sure. Do you have to be on guard and careful where it could lead? Absolutely.

Yes, my wife having an emotional attachment to another man would bother me greatly. Only because she may get caught in a vulnerable moment.

[Blarg]

I don't mind a girlfriend/wife having great friends of the opposite sex, as long as she keeps it in check. Lunch every day with a guy sounds a bit much, but if every other possibility, every day, really sucked, I dunno. I suppose I wouldn't care if she did that with a ladyfriend, so it would be on the lame side not to trust her to be an adult just because she has a friend who is a guy. That wouldn't really be trusting her as an adult at all. And if I don't feel like I can trust someone, I don't like to prolong the relationship anyway and should be looking for a way to get out, not keep the unhappiness going.

Frankly, I suspect there's something a little wrong with a person who can't relate to or befriend anyone of the opposite sex outside family and GF/BF or hubby/wifey type things, and there's something a little wrong about feeling like you have to check up on them about it. If you do, there's something else deeper going wrong with the relationship that has nothing to do with the friend, and you should probably address that first.

Now if she were taking time away from me to do it, or doing it after work, I'd feel bad or suspicious and neglected. That's one of the things that makes me uncomfortable about the internet affair possibility. It's one thing if you have a lot of internet "friends," but your real life comes first, and zeroing in on one person on the net, especially when you have one with you right there at home, seems to me unbalanced. Amusements are fine, but if you "need" to talk to someone and gain emotional sustenance from them, you should work on your primary relationship(s), not try to have your cake(your big fat cake of disappointment, that is!) and eat it too. Or you should decide it's past working on, break up, and move on with your life. Maybe even ask yourself what's wrong with you and work on that.

Sharing emotional stuff on the net is pretty easy, and a great way to iron out your feelings and express yourself, and explore how you think, on a lot of things. But it's a pretty miserable substitute for a real relationship, no matter how fantastic the people you "meet" on the net. It needs to be kept in perspective. If you're going to have a double life, it should at least be two real ones. Or, said another way, since I'm enjoying thinking up really dopey metaphors, some other guy on the internet can be your footstool, but you should be sitting on your husband. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[Exsubmariner]

My $.02 adjusted for inflation and after taxes is that like most things in the world, it depends.

It depends most on the level of emotional intelligence and maturity of the people involved. If all parties are emotionally intelligent and mature enough, then things could be fine so long as the attachment didn't violate the boundaries of the established relationship in the pair bond. These boundaries will be different for each pair bond and will also depend on the nature of the emotional attachment outside the pair bond.

In the vast majority of cases, this is probably asking for trouble.

[Blarg]

Unfortunately, that's probably closer to the truth than I'd prefer. However, for me that ties into my idea that most people who get married probably shouldn't have, at least if they did so young. Sucking at lots of stuff is pretty much par for the course, and emotional maturity is just one more thing to suck at, like anything else. Being married doesn't change that.

P.S.: For people worried that their partner is a douchebag, Why do you think that they chose you?

[tuq]

[ QUOTE ]
Are we not allowed to form friendships and bonds with people of the opposite sex once we're in a relationship?

[/ QUOTE ]
This is an interesting one. The trends seems to be no, we cannot. But I have a friend of mine from the gym, she's married with three kids and we routinely get breakfast or otherwise hang out. It's not that I'm non-threatening either, she just doesn't see the problem with it. She told me a guy recently mistook her wanting to hang out with him as romantic interest, which led to a bit of discomfort but she and her husband are presumably fine with it.

On the flip, another friend of mine from the gym who is also married recently solicited a female member to hit tennis balls. She played in college and is very good. Word of this raised a bunch of eyebrows, like he's somehow committing an infidelity by practicing his tennis. No doubt he did ask her partly because of her looks, but I know him and it wasn't going farther than that.

[Blarg]

Yeah, that's weird. Sometimes I hear stuff like this and wonder if we're just yearning to go back to some sort of Islamic-type fundamentalism and fear of our sexuality or something. The idea that we are so completely out of control of ourselves seems more absurd than honest.

But at least it makes thinking easier. Which I suppose is really the whole point.

[xxThe_Lebowskixx]

guys aren't friends with girls, they are just trying to get sex.

[RoundGuy]

[ QUOTE ]
guys aren't friends with girls, they are just trying to get sex.

[/ QUOTE ]
What about the girls?

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
guys aren't friends with girls, they are just trying to get sex.

[/ QUOTE ]

I find it hard to believe you have never known an unattractive woman.