Common Signs of Emotional Affairs

When two people get together and commit to a relationship, they create certain boundary markers around their relationship. These boundaries often include physical and emotional intimacy, which the couple pledges exclusively to one another. While affairs involving sex are clearly more problematic and the cause of a substantial proportion of divorces, emotional intimacy for some people just doesn’t seem as serious or important.

However, emotional intimacy is part of the package when you’re in a committed relationship such as a marriage, and to become emotionally involved with someone other than your spouse violates trust and your exclusive relationship.

While it has typically been supposed that when men cheat it primarily for sex and when women cheat there’s usually a desire for emotional intimacy involved, these ‘classic’ roles or understanding of why people cheat have shifted. People cheat for any number of reasons, and among them is the desire for emotional connection with others.

Different people enter emotional affairs for varied reasons and in diverse ways. An emotional affair can take place in a variety of contexts and relate to different people – at work, at church, with a neighbor, a friend, or online. It can be conducted via text, video chat, in person, or on any other platform.

When a person invests emotional energy into someone with whom they’re not in a relationship, and to the detriment of their marriage or other committed relationship, that’s the basic substance of an emotional affair. In the affair, one might receive emotional support and companionship from the person they are investing emotional energy in, forming a bond between the two.

Emotional affairs are intimate and provocative even if they aren’t physically sexual. They don’t happen overnight but may develop gradually during a marriage. It may begin with one spouse not feeling appreciated, or having their needs remain unmet within the marriage.

They may feel energized when they are around the other person but bored when with their spouse. If they feel they cannot communicate those needs to their spouse or feel guilty about the fact that they prefer the company of another person to their own spouse, that may begin drawing them ever nearer to the orbit of an emotional affair.

There is a significant difference between a platonic friendship with someone and an emotional affair. In a platonic friendship, there is no element of secrecy in the relationship, and the level of support received and given doesn’t rival what’s happening within what’s happening in the marriage. When a person begins giving and receiving more emotional support from a friend than from their spouse, that’s an emotional affair.

Here are a few signs to indicate that you may be having an emotional affair.

Common Signs of Emotional Affairs

You may be having an emotional affair and be unaware of it. Our hearts often deceive us and prevents us from seeing the truth that is right before our eyes, that we have crossed a line and begun an emotional entanglement that takes away from our marriage by investing emotional energy and time elsewhere. You may be in the throes of an emotional affair if:

You make up excuses to be with the person.

When you are apart from the person, you’re having an emotional affair with, you make up reasons to be with them. You don’t need to drop off those papers at their house, but you do so anyway. Sure, you can see them tomorrow morning to finish your project, but you decide to drop in anyway to catch up on how things are going. If it’ll get you a bit of extra time with the person, you’ll do it and say it.

You make regular/frequent contact when you’re not together.

When you’re apart from the person, you contact one another frequently via phone calls, texts, FaceTime, and email. This contact can even happen at questionable hours like when you’re at the dinner table, early in the morning, or late at night when you’re supposed to be in bed with your spouse or spending time with your children.

They’re the first person you think to share news with.

The person with whom you’re in an emotional affair takes a place of significance in your life that they are the first person you want to share things like your news with. Rather than informing your spouse, you feel more excited or inclined to tell your emotional affair first.

You discuss intimate details about your life, including your spouse with them.

You give intimate access to the person with whom you are having an emotional affair. You let them know your deep secrets, and even go as far as to discuss your relationship with your spouse with them. You may even complain to them about your spouse and other intimate aspects of your life.

They occupy your waking mind.

The person you’re in an emotional affair with occupies your mind during the day. You may find yourself thinking about them all the time, and when you dress up you may be hoping they notice it. You feel like they really get you, and you eagerly anticipate your encounters with them.

You compare your spouse to them often.

When you are with your spouse, you may compare them (usually unfavorably) to your emotional affair. From how they dress, to their looks, to their sense of humor, and just how well they seem to “get” you, you compare your spouse to them and find that you favor your emotional affair over your spouse.

The fantasy that is your emotional affair is alluring, and the grass seems greener on that side of the fence. That fantasy drips honey, but the reality is bitter and will end poorly.

You lie or keep secrets about your contact with them.

When you are asked by your spouse whether you’ve been in touch with your emotional affair, you may lie (either by omission or commission), delete messages from them and otherwise hide the fact that you’re in constant contact with them. Your conversations with them may be a bit risqué, and you wouldn’t want your spouse to know about the things you talk about.

Our consciences often give us warnings when we’re crossing lines, and the subterfuge you engage in during an emotional affair shows that at some level you know that what’s going on is not okay and shouldn’t be happening. We may justify it in any number of ways, but we know that it’s wrong.

What’s wrong with emotional infidelity?

The American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy reports that around 35% of women and 45% of men admit to having had an emotional affair. Emotional affairs are a prevalent reality, and being a tech-saturated generation makes it that much easier to carry on an emotional affair undetected – after all, messages, phone calls, and emails are constantly coming in and out of our mobile devices, and who’s to know with whom you’re communicating, right?

The reality of emotional affairs is that they do take their toll on your marriage. A spouse in an emotional affair will often get defensive and gaslight their partner when they are confronted about their relationship. Additionally, they may begin to withdraw and become more critical of their spouse than usual.

There is a price to pay for investing emotionally in someone other than your spouse. The dishonesty that takes place to cover up and continue an emotional affair undermines trust, and it may eventually erode trust to the point where divorce is the only recourse remaining for the spouse who’s been cheated on.

Emotional affairs take emotional energy and time away from your primary commitment. You’ve only got finite amounts of emotional energy, and if you’re directing the bulk of it toward this other person, it’s almost certain you’ve checked out of your marriage to do that.

Investing emotionally in more than one person is difficult, and emotional affairs lead to neglect of the spouse, and they are usually a precursor to physical sexual affairs once those emotions are expressed.

Proverbs 5:15 reminds us to drink from our own cisterns. This means we should seek to have our needs met within our marriage relationships, and not seek comfort and fulfillment elsewhere. While they may seem innocuous, emotional affairs undermine and destroy your marriage.