Question:
What can you do when you’re spouse is involved in an emotional affair? I feel like I can’t fight it. With a sexual affair, at least your fighting something concrete but if they aren’t having sex and are so emotionally attached to each other that the flatly refuse to give them up, no matter the costs, what do I do?

It’s sad, but usually all the focus is on the actual sex that is involved in the relationships that are outside of the marriage, but emotional affairs are still just as detrimental to the marriage. Emotional affairs actually can cause more of a threat to the marriage than just a sexual relationship. Of course, combination’s of both sexual and emotional affairs are the most difficult ones to address.

With the question, “What can I do?” it will help if you understand all that is involved in growing and sustaining an emotional attachment. The key ingredient in the emotional bond is the degree in which the two people are honest with each other. Sometimes people feel safer being more honest with someone other than their spouse because this other person has no real personal investment in these feelings like a spouse would have. They also won’t respond the same way as a spouse would because they don’t have the same kind of judgment on those feelings that a spouse would have. A way to understand this is to think of how often you share information with a stranger that you wouldn’t share with friends or family. This is because the stranger really doesn’t know you so telling them really has no impact on your life.
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