Is your partner having an emotional affair?
Emotional affair or emotional infidelity is often a major threat to a marriage than a physical betrayal, as it could lead to a non-avoidable divorce or separation. It is important to save your marriage from an emotional affair, because this is one case where even professional marriage counseling fails to do much.
In simple words emotional infidelity is a kind of affair where a person shares a strong emotional bond with a third person out of the marriage. Emotional affairs do not include any physical attachment or intimacy, but could lead to the physical form of infidelity. This very fact makes a marriage in trouble more vulnerable to an emotional infidelity.
Emotional cheating is a kind that snatches time, attention and energy from a marriage as well as makes it more and more difficult for two people to tackle their marital issues. This kind of infidelity also cuts down the communication between couple and inculcates misunderstandings over simpler issues.
The birth of emotional attachment with a third person comes when problems in a marriage are left untreated and uncared. Often it is easy to get attached with a person with whom you do not have to share your responsibility, who is not a liability, with whom you do not have to share issues like money, work, children, and who does not expects much from you. Also, sharing your emotions and experience with a third party is easy because you find a good listener and someone who won’t judge you.
The best way to secure a marriage from an emotional infidelity is to safeguard the marriage from issues that could lead to problem between husband and wife. In case you fear your spouse is going towards emotional support outside the marriage, tighten up the communication between you two. Talk to your spouse what is troubling him/her, ask them about how things are going at their work place, let them know you care, give them the liberty to take their own decision and start sharing your emotions and thoughts with them.
A spouse goes out looking for some emotional support only when he or she is unable to share his/her emotions, feelings and perception in the marriage. Thus, if you want to safeguard your relationship then the best approach would be to let your partner know that you are there to listen to him/her despite your differences or arguments.
If you are unable to fight the issues in your marriage and feel that this could lead to emotional infidelity, then take help of an expert marriage counselor, go for therapy sessions and start an open communication with your partner. Counseling sessions offer the right platform for emotional outburst and for sharing things you or your partner are not able to share. Often when there are confessions and unsaid words, a person looks for emotional support from someone else. Thus, keep communication in your marriage as active as possible.
Lastly, spend as much time as possible with your spouse to make yourself available for any kind of emotional or physical support.
