Most emotional affairs start out as an innocent friendship.
You see each other often, go out to lunch every now and then, share your thoughts and feelings with each other – so where’s the harm in that?
For starters, just like a drug, emotional affairs can be ADDICTING.
It’s true.
There is actually a powerful hormone released during sexual attraction. It has been scientifically proven that this “mating chemical” is released to ensure that the population continues to grow.
This “addiction” begins when you start to think about this other person, even when they’re not around. You look forward to seeing them again because you’re addicted to the way this person makes you feel.
Take a look at the following list of feelings that are typical in an emotional affair….
- I feel loved
- I feel accepted
- I feel important
- I feel understood
- Laughs at my jokes
- Encourages me to do what I am good at
- Notices my accomplishments
- Physically attractive
- Allows me to be who I am
- I can say anything without being judged
- I feel content and comfortable
- I’m very excited about meeting again for more
With all this in mind, what do you think the chances are of two people feeling this way about each other for an entire lifetime?
That’s right…slim to none!
After all, an emotional affair is really just an illusion, a fantasy…a DRUG.
Let’s take a closer look at what the true definition of ‘drug’ REALLY is…
DRUG: “Often an illegal substance that causes addiction, habituation, or a marked change in consciousness.”
Up until now, when someone mentions the word “drug”, you immediately think of the illegal substances that people go to jail for. But according to the above definition, a drug is an “illegal substance that causes ADDICTION, habituation or a marked change in CONSCIOUSNESS”.
Let’s face it; an emotional affair is not technically “illegal”, but if you’re married and pursuing an emotional affair, you’re acting “illegally” because you’re breaking the moral law of the legal institution of marriage.
Add to this, the fact that there IS a change in consciousness when you or your spouse is involved in an emotional affair. Your perception of this person is inaccurate because of the hormone that’s released during sexual attraction.
The truth is, when you’re under the influence of this drug; this emotional affair, the two of you may fantasize about your beautiful future together but one thing is certain….
You do NOT talk about reason, facts, reality, responsibility and life as it actually is. These topics are ‘off limits’ when you’re “drugged” by an emotional affair.
But here’s the irony
You get all the short-term benefits of the wonderful drug-induced feelings during an emotional affair, but even if you were to leave your spouse and marry this other person, you’d most likely wind up in the same place you are right now…married and MISERABLE.
To put it bluntly, if you choose to marry or get involved with someone based on how they make YOU feel “in the moment”…you’re setting yourself up for failure.
During an emotional affair, there is no discussion of each other’s values, habits or beliefs….in other words, the foundation of a strong relationship.
Yes, you may have SOME things in common, but the fact is; you’re putting your marriage in jeopardy based on the short-term feelings that this ‘drug’ creates.
You’re putting your family at risk because you think this other person can meet your needs better than your spouse does.
Now don’t get me wrong, this is NOT meant to lecture you in any way if you are the one involved in an emotional affair. I completely understand that you feel you’ve been driven to this emotional affair by the person you married.
And I agree; it’s not 100% your fault. You expected to get married and have all your needs met. But to your surprise, your needs were NOT met, but instead neglected, ignored and ridiculed.
You may even feel as if this emotional affair is like taking a vacation from the hell you’ve been forced to live in.
You just want relief – you want to feel loved. Who could blame you? Doesn’t everyone want to be happy?
With that said, you still need to face up to reality and find a way to stay married AND get your needs met too….or you’ll end up in this same predicament down the road.
After all, marriage shouldn’t be all about dull and boring life routines like laundry, what’s for dinner and car pools. You need to get your marriage back to the way it was when the two of you first met.
Whether it is YOU…or your spouse who is involved in an emotional affair, since you are reading this article, chances are, you want to do something about it.
Uncover your value systems
If you want to pick up the pieces of your current relationship and create a much deeper relationship with your spouse, start by understanding the person you married and the values they live by. Most people don’t know this, but our value system is formed during our first 10 years of life.
The values you live by today are a direct result of the way your parents lived when you were young.
- If you didn’t like the way your mother ran the house like a military boot camp, today you run a very relaxed household.
- On the other hand, if your childhood home was always a mess, and this bothered you as a kid, today your home is likely very organized, clean and tidy.
STEP 1) Watch the video below to see your spouse in a whole new light
- WHY are they so sensitive to yelling?
- WHY do they upset when you spend money?
- WHY do they hate conflict so much?
Whatever your “hot button” issues are, you need to uncover the SOURCE of these issues instead of dealing with the symptoms.
Watch the video below to learn how – please excuse the quality as it was published years back, but is still highly relevant today.
STEP 2) Learn how to control the “little voice inside your head” that tells you your spouse is “the enemy”.
If you are involved in an emotional affair, you’ve probably noticed that your spouse has some problems this little voice too, but so does the other person in the emotional affair. You just can’t see it right now because you’ve been “drugged” by the emotional affair.
Just remember, an emotional affair is a drug….it is NOT reality.
You can make those wonderful drug-induced feelings a REALITY in your marriage!
This article is great, but it’s directed towards the spouse that’s having the emotional affair. The problem is that they don’t realize they’re having the emotional affair, so they don’t want to do anything about it.
My husband is having an emotional affair and doesn’t realize it. How do I deal with it? How does he come to see the ironies of the emotional affair? I can’t tell him because I’m the nagging voice in his head. What can the spouse do to help repair the marriage in this situation? I love and accept him unconditionally, but he doesn’t think so.
Hi Cindy,
When you have a husband who is doing something clearly wrong, you become a nag when you threaten him in a yelling tone that condemns him. Of course a man who isn’t faithful to his wife should be condemned because he deserves it. Unfortunately, that does not get a woman what she wants. What she wants is a man who is tuned into her feelings and is a good provider financially.
When you marry a man whose childhood included a troubled father, a troubled mother or both, you are marrying a damaged human being with very negative instructions in his brain on how to be married. Your marriage is not the results of what you do in your adult life. The quality of your marriage is the result of the programs you are both given in childhood. These determine the happiness level and the length of your marriage.
Because a man does not respond at all to punishment, you’ll need to take on a question strategy that asks him questions in a most pleasant tone. Picture yourself meeting your husband at a wedding and the two of you getting into a social conversation in a group. If you were interested in him, you would ask him lots of questions to learn what he thinks. That turns out to be the right strategy now in this time of his marriage moral crisis.
Good questions that a wife could ask without judging her husband sound like this:
“As you look at your past and think about things that could hurt a marriage, in line with your value system, what kinds of regrets would you have that you would not do again if you had the choice?”
“Everybody is trying to find out how to be happy. What do you think is the most important thing to you in being happy. Is it what you do or is it what someone else does to you?”
“What do you think is the most painful thing I have ever done to you and how could I somehow make it right?”
“If you have a choice of taking responsibility for what you did versus placing blame on what somebody else did, which way would you lean most of the time and why?”
“Let’s say there was a scale with 100% being a lot and zero being none, how would you rate my ability to understand your male needs and learn how to support them?”
“What is one thing you could have done in our marriage to put us in a better place today, but you just didn’t happen to realize it at the time but see it now as you look back?”
“How did your father show you to treat a woman by the way he treated your mother?”
These are all thought provoking, non-threatening questions that can be asked in a calm conversation. You can even present them as questions you found on the Internet to help married couples communicate in a better way. The tension I felt in your e-mail is not a good way to live and these questions could begin to cut that tension down if your husband is not so far gone that he will still participate in answering. I’m also going to assume that you will make him feel safe from judgment and hopefully he will do the same for you.
Larry
Hi Larry,
Enjoyed reading the above article. My husband of 14 years has been in a emotional/physical affair for nearing 12 months with my ex best friend. He had only known her for about 4 weeks when the affair began, so it all happened very quickly. I found out about the affair nearly 9 months into it, and when I confronted him about it he admitted to it and said it was over, although he was in love with her and did n’t want to be married to me etc… said he loved me but was not in love with me. Loved me because I am the mother of his children etc.. and how could he not as we have a history together!
He moved out of home, not with OW, down to where he works as it is his family business in a little room. We continued to see each othr every day, has dinner with me and kids and spend weekends together as well. All the time I thought that the affair was over only to find out 6 weeks later that it wasn’t, but they had ended it again and it was different thisa time around.
Stupidly I believed him and was so very proud of him as he was in the no contact phase with her and was struggling but getting better. I was so proud of him. Once again only to find out 2 weeks ago that they have been seen together at a night club at 2 am and in other areas around town. I am devestated and yet I still feel so positive about our marriage.
He is deeply sorry and his deepest desire is to be with me and our children, he just needs to learn to let go of his love for OW and he is not sure he can do this and re learn to love his wife.
We live in a small country town where driving into the shopping area the possiblility of seeing OW is high, be it at the shops or the dr’s or just driving by etc… we also attend church each Sunday and she is there as well with her separated husband and 4 children. So even if they do really end it again with no talking or any kind of contact they see each other visually all the time, which I don’t think helps at all.
My husband works locally and hates his job. Wants out and will leave eventually. I know he really wants to end things with OW and be wiht his family, but how does he do that when he is so in love with her and not his wife. He said they have talked about marriage with each other and the not idealistic situation it would be as she has 4 children and we have 4 children plus add onto that 2 ex spouses being involved etc… My husband not living with his children and missing them etc, giving up the dreams we had and wanted as well. He says he knows that we can be happy together too as long as we are both comitted to complete honesty with each other and not take each other for granted and make time for each other.
My biggest concern is how does he stop breaking and going back to her when she is the woman he loves and has become more important to him than me, his wife. And how do we do this when we all live close together and see each other? I have asked him to come home, he can sleep in another room and have his space to eleviate some temptation etc… he is worried he will feel like a caged rat.
The funny thing in all of this is that the situation we are in, we have been intimate regularly enough, he initiates as I don’t want to make him feel awkward. He will hug me and we cry together and talk. It really is very ironic.
Anyway, just a little of what is going on and I am very unsure how to handle all this. I hope you will have some advice or ways I can deal better with how to handle our sitiation.
Thanks. Donna 🙂
Hey Larry,
My wife read your article and believes I am having an emotional affair. She asked me to read your article, so here I am.
I looked at the 12 questions above only answered yes to the following: feeling accepted, laughs at jokes, and feeling comfortable. Does that mean I am having an emotional affair because I don’t believe I am?
Please advise.
Hi Salkin,
Ultimately, an article for the general public cannot really define what an emotional affair is. Only the insecure feelings of a wife gives you the final answer. When your wife is feeling secure, you will know you are not in an emotional anything. Your wife’s feeling of security and dedication to you is the final test. If your wife is insecure because you look at other women, then you are in an affair with strangers. The vast majority of wives cannot handle their husbands looking at women they feel are prettier. A lot of men don’t understand this but women are highly competitive with each other. Women never publicize this but this hidden competition between women is very active and real.
When you look at another woman that your wife believes is good-looking, she becomes highly insecure and very threatened. To you as a man, you might feel it’s your right to look at other women you think are attractive. But that would make you highly insensitive to the emotional needs of the woman you said you love. If you do love your wife, then you must define what love is. To you, love might be providing a paycheck and nothing more just like your dad did before you. Maybe love might be a paycheck plus gifts for birthday, Valentines and Christmas right on schedule. Of course your idea of what love is doesn’t matter because it is your wife who defines what love is. She is your target and failure to hit the target is never the fault of the target.
What is true for looking at other women you don’t know, is especially true of how you talk to women you do know. It is your wife’s perception of your attitude towards that woman that creates her feeling that you are drawing closer emotionally to another woman. You treat the other woman more politely than you treat your wife, you look at the other woman in the eyes and you don’t look at your wife in the eyes, you consider that other woman’s inconvenience but you don’t consider your wife’s inconvenience.
I’d encourage you to share this message with your wife and see how much she agrees or disagrees with it.
I hope this answers your question.
Larry
Your Comments
I have a wonderful husband of 29 years. I am the bad one who has emotional affairs and Doesn’t understand why I continue hurting my husband and ruining our marriage. He has said it is over….how do I cure this addiction and restore my marriage. I know I could stand to quit drinking, which sometimes triggers it, but I am going to counseling for that….What about the other….is there counseling for that? Is there hope for me to be the wife my husband deserves? And if so, how can I win my husband and his trust back?
Your Comment. I have your audio set and have put it to work. Not sure what’s going on in my husband’s mind one min he say his emotional affair is not going to work then he tells me that we need to let go cause he wants to move on. He is no longer in love with me. And don’t want to work on the relationship the more I agree with him our relationship gets better but don’t think it’s us getting back to our relationship. He say having sex with me was a mistake cause he feels like he is cheating on her but we are the ones that are married. I have done everything I have change everything. Yes we have became friends but we are no longer in a relationship after 11 years but still married. He has ask me to file which I have told him no I will not if he wants it he will have to do it his self. We still live together so I still do everything for him down to walking him in to his doctors appointment. I need help please guide me
Hi Larry I recently purchased the Midlife crisis package it’s really been an eye opener. My wife is indeed a chaos kid. I’m 43 she is 37 and very unhappy. I found out she is having an emotional affair. She said it would stop and she wants to.work on us. I had a bad feeling so I checked phone bill and discovered she was still talking to him. I decided to text him to stay away or I’ll tell his girlfriend and emploe he’s messing with a married woman. I decided to tell my wife I did this (oops) and she is furious! And I think I pushed her further away. (just like you said in video). I just said it’s my right to fight for you. Not sure what to do now. Any help would be appreciated. Jason bechtel
Hi Jason,
If you haven’t already, you may want to watch the video presentation for men here. In that video, I cover how it is possible for a single spouse to transform a marriage. The way you do this is by first understanding the source of human behavior. Everything you read and hear is telling you what to do and what to say, which won’t get you anywhere when a woman has reached the Snap Line or even the step before that – the Point of No Return Bog.
But when a woman is at this point, everything you do and say, she sees as a threat. The only thing she responds to is the vibration, the energy and the overall feeling she has when she is around you.
And when you change that feeling from anxious, frustrated, angry and resentful to calm, secure, positive and happy, you suddenly become somebody she wants to be around and she will be drawn to you instead of repelled by you. Then small successes start to happen like phone calls, increased attempts to reach out to you, and lunch dates.
The bottom line is this – even if you applied ANY type of behavior focused marriage advice and your wife eventually came back to you…would you be confident that you won’t fall into the same trap of what brought you to the point you’re at today?
There are two main factors that lead to divorce:
1) Your Invisible Lifestyle: The way you were raised and the ‘programs’ you received from your father on how to treat a woman – also recognizing her program on how to treat a man based on the way her mother treated her father. THIS is what creates your imprint on how to be married.
Most people don’t realize they are treating their spouse the same way their parents did. It’s important to recognize the negative programs you received from your parents so you can replace those with positive programs that are beneficial to the marriage.
Just focusing on the issues like they do in marriage counseling is like putting a band aid on a cancer patient. You need to get to the source of your issues once and for all.
2) The negative voice in your head: The more troubled the home you grew up in, the louder this voice will be. Without a way to eliminate your negative emotions, you fall into the trap of letting your wife and others control how you feel based on the things they do and say.
Very often people repeat the same mistakes and patterns over and over in marriage because they think they married the wrong person instead of understanding the true source of their marriage problems above. This is what students learn through the Environment Changer program.
I will try and keep it short into the point. I am 44 and my wife is 47. We have been married for 17 years since 1998 we have two kids in which one is 14 the other one is 10
We had a great marriage or so I thought until I caught her cheating on me in September 2009 just before her birthday. She is the perfect wife I could’ve ever asked for as far as cooking nurturing for the kids and of course taking care of my needs as well. I don’t want to go into too much detail about how I caught her but let’s just say it’s guaranteed that she was sleeping with four different men at the same time different times of the week. I forgave her and decided to stay and help to raise my kids and try to make it work, we tried marriage counseling and the whole 9 yards. Of course she promised she would never do it again and said she wanted to make it work aswell.. Needless to say I caught her cheating on me to other times after that for sure and I believe she just cheated on me last week but I do not have solid proof but I’m not stupid either. Whenever I start to think things are going well and I don’t think anything shift is going on is right about the time she starts showing all the signs of cheating on me again and maybe it’s my own head messing with me but if you look in the past she is been very wild and she also works at a hotel for almost 29 years now which I think makes it even easier and more accessible to such behavior and she will not leave that company or the hotel business, she says she loves so much and I know why now. A quick background on my wife and I we are both chaos kids. My father left when I was three and my wife never knew her birth father her mother remarried another man when my wife was 10
But to the point of this question !
I do believe she loves me and I do love her but I cannot stand this anymore nonstop conscience knocking on my door telling me that she’s constantly cheating on me. I cannot live with that voice in my head anymore. I don’t want to leave because I don’t want to affect my kids, my wife and I don’t argue very much so when we’re all together family time is all well. If I could’ve had solid proof that she cheated on me last week then I believe I would have just came to the conclusion it was purely over. But she keeps playing this time after time of lying to me saying you’re wrong I’m not cheating on you when it’s really been pretty obvious when she does because I can tell when she’s constantly lying to me about how’s things just start going good when I start trippin : ( negative side in me ) but I have been studying body language and behavior for quite some time now and she does not know this,,,,,,, but it’s like reading a book it’s so clear to me !!!
So my question is if I start becoming positive and comforting and secure feeling towards her like use speak in your class..
????
” Will she truly reform and never cheat on me again as long as I stay that great husband ”
????
” or is she simply just too far gone and has to constantly fill that void inside of her by having sex with strangers ”
Please tell me !!!! Will my positive behavior and attitude and comforting ~ change her back to the faithful woman I thought I married?
Anybody please reply any help would be greatly appreciated ,,,
I just wish she would come out and tell me yes I’m sleeping with other men and I will be OK with it, I’m ready for that, but she continues to mess with my head and cheat on me . But I am willing to go the distance if my attitude will change her into being faithful to me and that is all I ask the rest I could care less about !
Hi Mike,
You may not be an Environment Changer who changes your situation with energy, but you do understand behavior. That is, saying and doing things. The entire marriage industry is focused on behavior. They believe that behavior can solve anythin,g but I don’t agree. I believe energy is the source of all behavior and when I’m talking about “energy”, I’m talking about the vibrations you give off.
People know about vibrations, but they don’t know much. You’ve seen people trying to act happy while they give off a vibration that says that they are tense and unhappy. That means they are giving off two different messages. One with behavior and the other with vibrations. You don’t like being around people that do this but they don’t realize they are. They’re trying to get their behavior to be the best it can while their vibes are out of their control.
You and your wife are like this. There is a gaping tension between you about her personal problem. She gives off a vibration about it and so do you. That means your relationship is secretly very uncomfortable. Your vibration is full of fear about her cheating on you and the potential to cheat again and again. You are full of suspicion and fear. In effect, your wife’s morality is controlling your life.
More than likely, you are NOT going to learn how to control your vibrations and change them so instead, let’s talk about behavior. What are your choices?
Choice 1: hire a private investigator and have her followed to offer the final proof you need and settle this cheating issue.
Choice 2: require your wife to give you full accountability of all her credit card statements and phone logs. That also means she makes herself accountable to you about where she is at all times and who she’s with. (This is required for anyone who breaks trust and wants to get back in good faith – this is the penalty for breaking your trust)
Choice 3: have her agree that you can drop in on her at work at any time day or night. If she has nothing to hide, she will be completely open to this.
Choice 4: do nothing at all and suffer internally while you agonize with your fear of her unfaithfulness.
You explained that you are both chaos kids who come from homes with abandonment, abuse and neglect. I have proven that you can have a normal marriage only so long before childhood pain comes for one of you and then somebody is going to suffer. For sure, it will be your children but it will especially be you.
Larry
Hi Larry,
I m the worst lady who had emotional affair with my colleague with physical touches.
Now the affair ended. But the guilt kills me like anything. I m trying to kill myself. I m helpless. I Ve my wonderful, ever loving, charming boyfriend. I cheated on him by having this emotional affair with my colleague and hurted him a lot
Now I don’t know what to do. I love my boyfriend more but I cheated him. I destroyed my life. Pls help me
Prathu,
Thanks for your message. Suicide is not something to take lightly, so if you are in that state of mind, I strongly advise you to seek counseling from a professional in your area immediately. It will be helpful for you to work through what is going on within you internally. Many couples experience infidelity and work through it, so don’t give up just yet.