Infidelity and 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, [...]