She couldn’t quite explain it, but Sophie Johnston* had a slightly sick feeling in the bottom of her stomach every time her husband talked about the young, single woman who was part of their friendship group. He insisted there was nothing to it. “She’s not even my friend,” he said, “she’s more your friend than mine.”
But 34-year-old Sophie was convinced that she was watching her husband fall in love with another woman right before her very eyes. And it cut her to the core.
“He may not have been guilty of having a physical affair, but he was having an emotional one. And in some ways, that was more painful... I don’t think he even realised that he was doing anything wrong at first. I feel like I was aware of his feelings before he was.”
This may well be true. The line between friends, or colleagues, who have a fliratious but innocent relationship, and those who are involved with each other on an emotional and inappropriate level, is very thin – almost invisible. And people can easily slide across the border without even noticing.
An emotional affair is when a person in a relationship forms a strong emotional bond with someone of the opposite sex. While they might not be engaging in a physical or sexual affair, they are holding an inappropriately close emotional relationship with another person outside of their marriage.
Jared Alden is a counsellor at the German Centre for Neurology and Psychiatry (www.gnp-dubai.com) in Dubai Healthcare City. He says that emotional affairs are particularly difficult to control, prevent and monitor because they are so undefinable.
He says, “The problem is that men and women tend to view these emotional bonds with the other sex very differently. A man might strike up a relationship with a woman he meets online on a common interest website, or at work. When his wife questions him about it, he’ll say, ‘She’s just happens to be a woman.’ He may not see that there is any problem in what he perceives to be a normal friendship.
Obviously, it is normal and acceptable for people to have friends, acquaintainces and colleagues of the opposite sex without being accused of infidelity. But, at the same time, It can be hard to pinpoint and define exactly when a friendship crosses the boundary to become an emotional affair. After all, if you catch someone kissing someone else, that is undeniable physical proof of adultery.
But how can you quanitify an uneasy, distrusting feeling, without sounding like you are being paranoid? Here in lies one of the major issues with emotional affairs - they are easily denied, and very hard to prove.
Sophie says, “I don’t know exactly when I started becoming aware of their friendship and feeling strange about it. It started off as a niggle and slowly developed into something I was completely convinced of. I guess the moment when the truth smacked me in the face was when we were all in the car together and a song I didn’t know came on, and they turned it up and were both singing along at the tops of their voices to it and saying how much they loved it. They had an inside joke – something I wasn’t privvy to. When I brought it up with him, he would just say that I was being crazy, or imagining things. I couldn’t prove what I felt was going on and eventually, after all his denying, I started to wonder if I was indeed being crazy and making it all up. Looking back on it now, it is frustrating the way his emotional betrayal made me look and feel like I was being psycho, jealous and paranoid.”
A major factor in the evolution of emotional affairs is technology. Gone are the days when there was one terrrestial telephone in a communal, open part of the house where everyone can hear the conversation.
Now we can indulge in flirty facebook-ing, sexy texting – also known as sexting – BBM-ing, emailing and more, all within the safety of a personal, handheld device made even more private with that other cloak of deceit: passwords. Now a person can literally be lying in bed next to their partner and be ‘poking’ someone else.
Not only that, but people can open up new facebook or email accounts that their partner doesn’t even know about, allowing them to engage in relationships with other people 24 hours a day, and sometimes even live a double life.
How many celebrities have been caught out and hung up to dry based solely on text messages? Why should we think this behaviour is limited only to them? Sophie says, “I am sure that a lot of their relationship was based on emails, text messages and facebooking that I didn’t even know about.
He became very particular about his phone – never leaving it anywhere for a single second, and becoming cagey if I asked to borrow his phone. I never asked to know his facebook or email account passwords, as I thought it would make me look distrusting and suspicious, but he always knew mine. I had nothing to hide.”
Trust yourself
As a general rule, says counsellor Alden, you should trust your instincts in this situation. He says, “If you perceive there to be a problem, there generally is. The fact that you even think that there is something going on shows that, even if there is no emotional affair going on, there is a lack of trust in the relationship. Either you have a lack of trust in him, or in the relationship.” Either way, it needs to be addressed – distrust can be extremely toxic on a relationship.
According to Alden, the best way to deal with it is to talk about it. However, he says that couples often shy away from talking about what they think is acceptable for a friendship with someone of the opposite sex, although it is an appropriate conversation to have.
Bar locking him up in an ivory tower, nothing will change the fact that your partner will have to come into contact, and spend time, with members of the opposite sex – either socially, or because of work.
Dr Alden says to remember that this is OK, but to be honest and open about what you condone and what you don’t. “Say to him, ‘Hey listen, husband. This is what I think cheating is and this is where I draw the line. Instead of interrogating and accusing him, come from a position of confidence and power, and say, ‘This is what I want. This is what I think is good behaviour, this is what I think is bad behaviour. This is what I would like you to do. What are you willing to do? What do you think about this situation?’ Try not to make the focus of the conversation about a singular event or person. Try to focus on your relationship, and what might be happening that could be causing this situation to happen.”
According to Alden, people avoid these scary conversations about the flaws in their relationship, finding it easier to make the conversation about a relationship intruder instead. However, these conversations are dangerous territory and not easy to navigate.
If you open up the conversation with an accusation, be prepared for one of two answers – neither of which will you want to hear. Either they’ll point blank deny it and accuse you of being suspicious and unreasonable, which will leave you feeling insecure and victimised, but now on the weaker end of the tug-of-war.
Or he’ll admit that there is something going on and that he does in fact have feelings for this person. “In this situation,” says Alden, “you are damned if you do, and damned if you don’t. Instead say, ‘I feel a bit insecure at the moment. I’ve been feeling like your attention is going elsewhere – is this true?’”
Natural occurrence
As hard as it may be to admit it, and as little as you may like it, over the course of a marriage, there will be people who come into your relationship's world who have a connection either with yourself or with your partner. This is normal - natural even. The point is to not let it derail your relationship.
Alden says, "You cannot deny that there is a difference between men and women, and that we are sexual beings. Also, it would be unrealistic to expect that if you are in a relationship for five years, that neither of you will ever be attracted to another person."
He continues that the best way to deal with these attractions is to be open and honest about them with your partner. "People that love each other can deal with honesty better than they can deal with deceit. If your partner's old girlfriend from high school days keeps poking him on facebook, say to him, ‘If we were still in high school, I would give her a kicking.' This shows that even after all the years you have spent together, you still want him and you are still protective of your relationship."
Ultimately, emotional affairs are a form of betrayal. Perhaps a precursor to an actual physical affair. The point is to decide ifthe relationship is worth fighting for. If it is, then take this hurt as an opportunity to look at where your own relationship might be flagging.
What has changed? What is missing? Why is your partner feeling the need to look outside of the relationship for flirty frolics and emotional high jinks? Perhaps it is something small and fixable. Maybe it is just a stagnancy that has developed because of the long period of time you have been together.
Instead of getting angry and dishing out unprovable allegations, take Alden's advice and place the focus of the conversation on yourself and how it is making you feel.
An emotional affair doesn't have to be a terminal disease for your relationship, it can merely be a symptom, or a warning sign, that something, somewhere is becoming unstuck.
Warning signs of an emotional affair
- 1. Has there been any change in behaviour?
- 2. Has he started sharing inside jokes or confidences with that person?
- 3. Have they started to develop their own vocabulary?
- 4. Does his mood change when he is with that person? Does he act happier when he is with them?
- 5. Is he talking to her about personal or private matters, that you feel he should only be talking to you about?
Rescue remedy
Counsellor Jared Alden gives his top tips for dealing with emotional betrayal.
1. Ask realistic questions "Husbands and wives often ask questions which can't be answered in any real or acceptable way. Instead, find a way of talking about the issue while keeping the focus on your own feelings and on your own relationship, rather than their relationship with someone else."
2. Positive outcomes "Tell your partner what you would like them to do, and how you would like them to behave, rather than what you wouldn't like them to do. This way you are giving them the opportunity to make it right, for the relationship to succeed."
3. Be real "What do you think about your husband generally? Does he cheat on his taxes? Does he lie to his mother? Does he ignore phone calls from people he doesn't think are important? If so, why do you think he won't lie to you? If this is a guy who treats people with respect, he is probably a good guy. How honest is he in other situations? Have you always been a jealous person? Is it you? If you are naturally suspicious and insecure, it doesn't mean he doesn't have any responsibility for that. He has to be aware of it, and help you through it by making you feel secure."
4. Set rules for the future "These situations don't usually break up a relationship - they just highlight that there is a problem and give you a chance to fix it. However, make sure you use this opportunity to set clear, defined rules of what is allowed and what is not. Next time someone comes along who one of you is attracted to, there will be guidelines in place. These rules may be that you don't spend private time with another person, or they may stipulate what it is OK to talk about with another person, and what's not."
She couldn't quite explain it, but Sophie Johnston* had a slightly sick feeling in the bottom of her stomach every time her husband talked about the young, single woman who was part of their friendship group. He insisted there was nothing to it. "She's not even my friend," he said, "she's more your friend than mine."
*Names changed
