The Truth about Having an Emotional Affair

What is meant by the phrase “emotional affair”? Simply, it’s any relationship that takes us outside of our marriage to fulfill our emotional needs. This is a broad category that can include many nuances.

As humans, we instinctively seek relationships with one another. What role are we playing in this particular relationship? That is what will determine whether it falls into the category of an emotional affair.

Examples of an Emotional Affair

Imagine that one of a wife’s hobbies is going to live music events, but her husband is uninterested and this makes her feel lonely. She cultivates a friendship with someone who shares this interest and they attend concerts together. The wife is missing the attention she wishes she had from her husband, so she seeks to fulfill her emotions in this friendship instead, beginning to prioritize it over her marriage.

Another example would be a husband who is studying the Bible with a female theology student at his church. He enjoys their discussions and feels that she appreciates his contributions.

Even though his marriage is fine, he feels highly attracted to the woman he is studying with. He begins to seek out further contact through text messages and meetings, and at the same time, he feels less desire to spend time with his wife.

Or, perhaps a pastor is counseling an attractive single woman, and she demonstrates an interest in him or makes him feel competent at helping her. Each Wednesday morning when he’s scheduled to meet with her, he subconsciously goes above and beyond to make himself presentable. He’s eager to see her and happy when they meet, and soon he’s coming up with reasons to see her more often.

How to Identify an Emotional Affair

In each of these examples, an emotional affair was not sought out but started as a subconscious attraction that gradually began to displace the importance of the marriage relationship. With this in mind, consider your relationships at church, work, and with friends. Do any of these fall into the category of replacing what you feel is lacking in your marriage?

Realizing that you are flirting with an emotional affair may cause you to feel ashamed and guilty. Don’t wallow in shame, but realize it’s a common temptation to seek to have unmet needs fulfilled in a relationship with another person.

You also may be inclined to feel angry and to justify your desire for this connection to someone else. When your spouse hasn’t been meeting your needs for attention and affirmation, especially when this pattern has continued for a while, you might have bottled-up anger that you don’t even know about. This anger can then open the door to the beginning stages of an emotional affair. If you were also neglected emotionally by your parents, this makes you even more vulnerable.

It’s vital to notice what’s happening and fix the situation. If instead, you choose to continue and blame your spouse for neglecting you, it would be better to forthrightly tell your spouse that you want to leave the marriage because carrying out an emotional affair will take you down that path anyway.

If this isn’t the result you want, here are some steps you can take to protect yourself against an emotional affair, even one that you’re already engaged in.

Re-engaging with Your Spouse

It’s hard to cultivate a close connection with your spouse once distance has taken root, or to change the ingrained behavior that has led to this situation.

Both you and your spouse must have the desire to work on your marriage. If one of you is holding back, it’s important to make a mutual decision about how you are going to move forward.

Let’s say that one spouse says to the other that they can’t continue with the way things have been and they need to go to counseling, but the other spouse responds that they aren’t interested in counseling and are fine with the marriage as it is. It’s always wise to seek help even if your spouse refuses, but you need to ask yourself, “What is keeping me in this marriage?” Then you’ll know what to do next.

If your spouse is willing to work with you on your marriage, here are some things you can do.

Get into Counseling

Each marriage has a unique emotional structure that contributes to either intimacy or disconnection, and this structure is based on your individual histories, including any pain or trauma. Counseling provides guidance for conversation, setting and honoring boundaries, and how to ask for your needs to be met. With this guidance, we can examine the triggers that undermine intimacy in your marriage.

Set Healthy Boundaries

After several years, marriages often fall into an enmeshment pattern. This involves one spouse pursuing and the other distancing, leading to a constant tug-of-war of competing desires. One spouse may feel responsible for the other’s feelings. Each may attempt to beg, cajole, or coerce the other, without knowing how to express needs in a healthy way.

Setting boundaries means allowing your spouse to say a guilt-free “no,” taking a timeout in a conversation that’s escalating into a conflict, being able to express your own needs without feeling guilty, and determining to take responsibility for your spouse’s emotions. You can’t say, “You made me angry,” but you can truthfully say, “I’m angry in response to what you just said (or did).”

Identify Needs and Ask for them, Being Able to Hear “No”

As infants, most of us had parents who anticipated our needs by deciphering our cries. However, sometimes we learn to continue using nonverbal communication to get what we want, whether it’s a facial expression, a sigh, or withholding affection until we’re satisfied.

We can’t have mature communication without words. This requires that you identify your need and express it verbally: “I’d like a hug.” “Can you please hold me?” “I was hoping we could have sex.” To keep this healthy, though, we must be willing to be rejected. This might require saying something like, “I would like a hug, but you can say no.”

Acknowledging your spouse’s right to say no means that we are refusing to coerce them into meeting our needs. If you say, “I want to hug you, and if you don’t give me one, I’m going to give you the silent treatment for the rest of the night,” that’s coercion, which means you’re not treating your spouse as an adult, but as a child.

If you’re repeatedly rejected in your requests for connection, that’s a significant problem in your relationship, and you need to get to the root of what’s going on. A counselor can be helpful to facilitate a conversation about the lack of intimacy.

Work on Connecting Action With Emotion

After several years of marriage, many of our behaviors go on autopilot, like making meals, kissing hello or goodbye, etc. You may go through the motions but not feel any emotional connection. But it is possible to reconnect with your emotions by being intentional.

Take breakfast, for example. Do something to make it a little special. Add an unexpected treat of some kind, just because you love them.

Show extra affection when you say goodbye; smile, say you’ll miss them, or whatever comes naturally to you. Work on being present in the moment, seeking to engage them, and then show that added affection. Making these small changes can bridge the gap that’s grown between our emotions and our actions.

Dust off Your Healthy Courting Behaviors

You’ve heard it before, and it’s true: it’s so important to date your spouse. No matter what your current circumstances are, find a way to spend time together doing something that brings mutual enjoyment, or is beneficial (like walking together).

Focus on the reasons you fell in love with your spouse, in the first place. Call to mind their positive traits. Think about what you would tell a friend about them if you were trying to make them look good. You’ve probably rehearsed your spouse’s negative traits many times in your mind; take some time to do the same with his or her positive qualities.

Find Your Spiritual Practices

This is another area in which we can intentionally reconnect our emotions with our behavior. Going to church every Sunday may be part of your routine, but question whether you are doing it out of joy or out of drudgery.

Do you pray together? If so, is it an unpleasant or monotonous task? It doesn’t have to be that way. Assess your routines and figure out how you can creatively breathe new life into them. Allowing the spiritual area of our life to lapse will negatively impact other areas, including our marriage.

Prefer Your Spouse

Letting yourself fall out of love with your spouse may lead you to seek enjoyment elsewhere, whether that be in friendships, church activities, work, or other activities. Discipline yourself to focus on your marriage again by scheduling time together in the form of a meal or a date.

Before you schedule other activities, check with your spouse and ask their opinion. This will help them see that their perspective matters and that you are prioritizing them rather than defaulting to something else.

Unless your spouse has deep-seated control issues, if he or she is trying to veto outside activities, there’s probably a lack of time being spent together that needs to be met. When your spouse feels secure and fulfilled, he or she will be much more likely to encourage you to engage in outside friendships and activities.

Keep Alert

More than anything else, don’t let your guard down about possible dangers to your marriage. The minute you notice an attraction for someone else developing, your defense mechanisms should go up. If you think you’re above an emotional affair, you’re actually at a much higher risk for one.

Let’s say you’re traveling for business and you have an attractive instructor. This may lead to a seemingly innocent impulse to go to coffee together to “talk about work.” But if you know you find this person attractive, why would you go down that road? It’s like playing Russian roulette with your marriage.

If you can’t completely avoid a situation that may present emotional temptations, make sure you’re grounding yourself in your marriage. Talk positively about your family or put up photos of them. Nothing is more protective of your marriage than speaking highly of your spouse.

These are a few steps you can take to rebuild intimacy with your spouse and reduce the risk of an emotional affair. Honor the vows you took on your wedding day: to love, comfort, honor, and keep your spouse, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and health, forsaking all others, as long as you both shall live. This should always be the overarching theme of your marriage. If you need help in this area, admit that there are problems and take practical steps to repair your marriage.