This article deals with emotional affairs. What they are, how they begin, the impact they have and what differentiates them.

What’s an Emotional Affair

An emotional affair is a relationship characterized by intimacy and emotional involvement between a person and someone other than their official partner.

How Emotional Affairs Start

Most unfaithful partners set out on the emotional slippery slope without any awareness of how friendships morphs into emotional and sexual affairs.
There might be some chemistry, or some liking, but it’s not love at first sight or fatal attraction.

Where do They Start?

They start in places where interactions happen often. As Schaefer points out in The Like Switch familiarity is a major element of the like equation.

Of course the workplace, with its daily interactions and increased female participation, has been the main driver of the increase in infidelity in the last decades (Shirley Glass, 2004).
Indeed 82% of all the unfaithful partner Glass treated in her career began as friends.

Stages of Emotional Affairs

Here are the steps that emotional affairs usually entail:

Stage 1: Platonic Friends / Secure Relationship

Most affairs start as friendships.
People who get involved in emotional affairs might be somewhat attracted to their affair partner in the beginning, but they don’t usually set out to make their friendships into affairs.

Stage 2: Intimate Friendship / Insecure Marriage

The boundaries shift slowly and it’s hard, if at all possible, to pinpoint a specific moment when the friendship starts becoming too intimate.
But here are a few signs you can heed:

• Are you sharing things you don’t tell your partner?
• Is your friend sharing details they don’t share with other friends?
• Are you looking forward to talking to your friend?
• Do you often think of your friend?
• Do you look forward to share events in your life?
• Are you hiding this friendship from your partner?
• Are you trying to avoid other friends/colleagues see you when meeting?

It’s at this point that the “friendship” starts becoming a wedge between the couple.
When you share things you don’t talk about with your wife, you start creating a bond that is stronger than the bond you have with your spouse.

This is one of the reasons why a strong friendship and intimate connection in the relationship is one of the best antidote to an affair.
As a woman in a strong relationship said:

How could I have an affair, my husband is the first person I share all significant events with. I’d immediately have to run and tell him!

Now that’s an emotional affair-proof bond.

Stage 3: Emotional Affairs / Emotionally Detached Marriage

At this point the new romance start taking more and more real estate in our minds.
The affair is secret, emotionally intimate and now also abounding in sexual chemistry.
We feel great with our affair partner and we love the feeling that our partner feels the same with us.

Here are signs that you are in stage 3:

• You are sexually excited in the presence of your friend
• You feel better with your friend than with your spouse
• Meetings start happening in secrecy
• The emotional distance in your relationship increase
• You are annoyed and uncaring in your relationship

This stage is especially dangerous for unhealthy relationships engulfed by criticism, constant fighting and meanness.
Bad relationships indeed create a bad image of ourselves. When we contrast that with the way the affair partner makes us feel, it’s like experiencing a rebirth.

This is important because you can’t fully heal from emotional affairs unless you fix your relationship first.

Stage 4: Sexually Intimate Affair / Threatened Marriage

The affair might have been consumed or not by the step 3. If it’s not, then you reach the final step once it becomes sexual.
Notice that you’re already having an affair even without sex and some sources put emotional affair on the same level as emotional + sexual (but I disagree with that).

Interestingly enough, the later sex happens, the more likely it is the affairs will be deeply emotional.
That’s why an emotional affair that is consumed later on will bond the affair partners much more strongly.

Examples of Emotional Affair

Here are a few examples of how emotional affairs come to happen:

#1. Emotional Affair at Work

The Good Girl is a great example of how emotional affairs start at work. Notice first the major weakness in the relationship that precedes the affair.
That makes her susceptible, even unconsciously looking for, an emotional bond and a sexual release.

#2. Emotional Affair Through Understanding

Some relationships never reach a great bond between the partners. They lack partner’s knowledge (love maps in Gottman’s speak), shared meaning and a positive emotional bank account.

These relationships are very fragile and their partner highly susceptible to fall for the first person who will listen and understand us.

#3. Emotional Starvation

Emotional affairs can sometimes start when we need the most a human connection. It’s not by chance that partners who are emotionally starved at home are more likely to fall for it.
Election (1999) is such an example

Affair Cognitive Dissonance

Not all, but most people have a sense of guilt when they engage in affairs. They know it’s wrong at some level but the emotional bond keeps the stuck.
To avoid cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957) they lie to themselves or change their own stories.
Here are a few ways they deal with it:

• Hiding the truth

Unfaithful partners often suppress or gloss over any detail that are inconsistent with their values and wedding vows.
When asked “how could you do that” they have little answer because, well… They meticulously avoided anything that would help them answer that question.

• Everybody’s doing it

Some people resolve the internal conflict by telling themselves “it’s not so bad, everyone’s doing it”. And they focus on everybody else who is cheating while disregarding the faithful ones.

• Getting caught

As strange as it might sound at first, some get caught on purpose to release the internal pressure.

• Blaming the partner

This is the most pernicious and dangerous one for the relationship. The unfaithful partner focuses on the faults of the relationship and the shortcoming of his partner.
He tells himself his partner “deserves it”, or he convinces himself that his relationship is dead. It often becomes a self fulfilling prophecy as he withdraws more and more from his relationship.

The Stages of Revelations

The revelation usually isn’t a smooth process. It starts with suspicion, and the first confrontations arrive when there’s a little bit of evidence.
At first, it’s adversarial. Then it moves towards information seeking. Finally it reaches the stage of looking for deeper meaning and possibly fixing the relationship.

But not every couples makes it till the end.

Stage 1: Truth Seeking

The beginning of the confrontation is usually a difficult phase resembling a police interrogation. Except with more rage from the betrayed partner.
Having a softer start up from the betrayed partner and coming clean quickly and honestly from the unfaithful partner is of huge help in healing the relationship as a couple.

Bad example of truth seeking:

Aggressive anger and verbal abuse makes it difficult for the unfaithful partner to be honest. It also starts an hostile dynamics that makes it difficult to move into a collaborative and healing phase.

Stage 1: Reactions

These are the most typical reaction to confrontations:

• Denying

Most people deny at first.
When there’s lots of evidence denial adds insult to injury. And when the truth finally surfaces the betrayed partner has two wounds: the sad reality and the false reassurances.

• Partial admissions

Whatever they admit to, is often just a tiny fraction of the reality.

• Lying

Denying any emotional attachment or sexual involvement is another common reaction. Lying can be a sign that the affair partner is not yet ready to end the affair.

• Gaslighting

Gaslighting happens when the cheating partner tries to frame the betrayed partner as crazy. If your partner does it to you, you are probably better off breaking up.

Sometimes the cheating partners can give in to endless inquisition, or he might come clean to end the relationship.

Stage 2: Information Seeking

This stage is a bit calmer and neutral. More lies are usually unearthed and the full truth starts taking shape.

To make the process smoother, show your partner that you will not use any information against him. And don’t highlight his previous lies.
If it makes you feel better, some of those lies might have also been aimed at shielding you and rescuing the relationship.

Stage 3: Mutual Understanding

In this stage you explore the deeper meaning of what the affair meant and what are the weaknesses of your relationship.
It’s an important part of healing and it will strengthen the relationship by creating shared meaning.
Ideally this phase also sets the stage for the improvement and strengthening of the relationship.

It’s also possible that during this phase the couple re-discovers deep feelings about each other and enjoys a new honeymoon time.

Cheated Partner Reaction

Affair revelation and discoveries are traumatic events.
Partners who didn’t expect it can experience feelings of unreality, as if they were disconnecting from the world.

Numbness

Some people can go numb and stay that way for a while without feeling much. When they start feeling again the feeling won’t be positive, but it’s a step forward nonetheless.

Relief

If the partner long suspected an affair, the first moments of revelation can be a big relief. Finally they can confirm they didn’t imagine everything, they’re not crazy and that, in a twisted way, they won for being right.
But soon after the relief comes a whirlwind of less positive emotions, including rage, disbelief and a general feeling that someone pulled the rag under them.

Obsession

Betrayed partner obsessively relive the scene of revelation over and over in their minds. They add up evidences and suspicion, cross check dates, try to make sense of what happened.
And they picture with horror their spouse with someone else.

Endless Questioning

Betrayed partner have an unquenchable need to know. Some cannot constrain their deluge of questions, and the interrogation often leaves both exhausted.

Unfaithful Partner Reactions

Because society disapproves of affairs and cheating, the unfaithful partner can often be very lonely in his struggle.

Shifting Emotions

Sometimes the initial emotions solidify and strengthen in the weeks and months that go by. But some other times they shift.
Defensiveness can turn into openness -which is good- or into aggression. And ambivalence can turn into decision paralysis or full clarity.

Reality Bites

Sometimes coming out of the closet is like a big truth moment for the unfaithful partner. He might have been planning to break up and elope with the affair partner, but all of a sudden he realizes how much he cares about the relationship.

Impatience

If they want to work on the marriage, the unfaithful partner might expect to be welcomed back with open arms and is annoyed to find now an untrustful and hurt partner.

Grief

The involved partner mourns the loss of the affair partner. This can be very painful to witness for the betrayed partner, but it’s a good sign that the affair is over.

Shame, Fear

The cheating partner is sometimes ashamed by his behavior and fearful that it might cost him both relationships (and a costly divorce).

Gender Differences in Affairs

Women cheat less when they are in a happy relationship. Men instead tend to end up in affairs independently of how they rate their relationship.

Many women in very happy relationship have blinders that screen out any potential partners. Even when a man makes a pass on her, she may discount it thinking it was just being friendly.
And that’s a great example of how interest creates opportunity: if you’re in a relationship with a player, he’ll be looking for opportunities everywhere.

When they emotionally detach

Women tend to detach from the relationship before the affair begin. Men tend to detach after the affair has begun.

Sexual Designation

The two sexes differ as to what they usually consider a sexual affair. For women any kind of sexual intimacy, including kissing, counts as an entrance into sexual infidelity. For men the threshold is sexual intercourse.

Signs of Emotional Affairs 

Here are some cues that can be telltale signs:

• They look for more privacy
• More time away from home
• Refusal or inability to share details about mysterious commitments
• Less family involvement
• Interests in new activities
• Going to the gym, taking care of themselves or buying new clothes / underwear
• More undercover expenditures
• Opposites pattern of behavior: sometimes too clingy, sometimes far away
• Avoids social gathering with spouse or excludes her
• Sex can happen more or less frequently and more passionately
• Emotional withdrawal and less affection

Emotional withdrawal will be stronger for people who have strong monogamous tendencies . These partners can’t manage two relationships at the same time and the affair takes over (Reconstructing marriages after the trauma of infidelity). When people have strong monogamous tendencies, you will also notice:

• Sex rejection
• Less caring
• Sometimes high irritability
• Forgetfulness
• No more saying “I Love you”

The signs are indicative and there is no sure fire way to tell that someone is having an affair. Some people are very, very good at lying and compartmentalizing lives.
The woman in the movie Up In The Air is such an example:

Emotional VS Sexual Infidelity

Historically men have had sexual affairs with less emotions and women have had emotional affairs.
But men are now having increasingly emotional affairs as well. In Shirley Glass recorded clinical sample, 83% of women who had extramarital sexual affair also had strong or very strong emotional attachment VS 58% of men.

Some people begin an affair because of sexual attraction and jump right into sex. At that point, emotions might or not might not develop.
If they do, they are usually less strong than if the affair had been consumed later on. So, theoretically, quick sex is better than delayed sex.

Needless to say, emotional plus sexual infidelity is the most damaging to the relationship.

SUMMARY

Emotional affairs often start on the workplace or with partners we have repeated interactions with. They start out as friendship until, little by little, they become affair.

Further Reading on Infidelity:

• How to overcome infidelity
• How to prevent cheating
• Why people cheat
• Emotional infidelity: what is it and how it happens
• How to pick a loyal partner