Archive for the ‘Affair, Emotional Affair & Infidelity’ Category

Protect your relationship from emotional infidelity

As a marriage and couples counselor, I often witness the devastating fall out of infidelity—an affair rips apart our core assumptions about trust, love and the person we thought we knew better than anyone else. Frequently, an affair follows a particular pattern that Getting your basic emotional needs met (for validation, acceptance, praise, understanding, emotional sharing) from someone outside your marriage/relationship can turn into an emotional affair, especially when these needs are not met in your marriage.

Many of the couples I work with don’t realize how vulnerable they are to entering this type of emotional infidelity.

Relationship Help Tip: The first step in protecting your marriage/relationship from an affair is to acknowledge that everyone (including yourself) is vulnerable to an emotional and physical affair and therefore we must all be aware of the conditions that make us most susceptible to an affair (click Emotional Affair to learn about the 10 warning signs of emotional infidelity). 

Denying and minimizing the early warning signs of infidelity are common and need to be guarded against. People who have emotional affairs initially convince themselves that the relationship is purely platonic (“we’re just good friends”). But these “friendships” often do not have the clear boundaries that define other friendships.

How a Dedicated Husband Fell Prey to an Emotional Affair

John maintained a few female acquaintances through his job. His only contact with them was around work-related events, such as a group of colleagues going to lunch together. So it was unusual when he began to develop a close friendship with Kristin, a new coworker. Before he knew it, John was confiding in Kristin and they began having lunch alone together. Eight months into their friendship, John was overcome by the feeling of being in love with Kristin. John described these feelings as “unexpected” and “surprising” since he loved and was committed to his wife and family. His romantic longing for Kristin understandably devastated his wife, who was pregnant with their second child.

Unfortunately, John’s story is more common than you think. It was only after John became emotionally involved with Kristin that he started to convince himself that it was fine for him to have friends of the opposite sex. But if he had been honest about his history of friendships, he would have realized that the uniqueness of his new friendship had the potential for disaster.

Some people are comfortable making or maintaining platonic friendships with the opposite sex. They integrate these friendships effectively into their lives and the support received from these friendships does not jeopardize their marriage or romantic relationship. You know if you’re one of these people. However, if you’re someone who has rarely had a close relationship with someone of the opposite sex, or if you have the tendency to sexualize or idealize these relationships, then you should be extremely cautious about starting up such a relationship while in a committed, romantic relationship.

Check and double-check your motivation for starting a new friendship or deepening the emotional connection with an established friend. 

Care for Your Relationship Before and After Problems Arise

If there is a lack of intimacy with your partner, discuss this with him/her—not with the compassionate and attentive coworker who makes you feel special (like your spouse/partner “used to”). If you feel like your needs are going unmet in your marriage/relationship, voice your concerns to your partner.

Ultimately, it’s your responsibility to get him/her to listen even if s/he’s totally preoccupied with the children or anxious about making next month’s mortgage payment. Remember, your mate was once the only confidant you wanted or needed. Finding ways for your partner to be that sole confidant once again is the challenge we all face when in a long-term committed relationship.

Marriage/Relationship Books-Resources

I’ve brought together 3 essential relationship resources to help couples affair-proof their marriage/relationship. Check out my Marriage Enrichment bonus package for more information.

And don’t forget to sign up for my free Relationship Advice Newsletter to recieve monthly articles and special discounts on workbooks and audio programs.

Until next time,

Dr. Rich Nicastro

Without a doubt, the Internet has changed our world: it has put information at our fingertips, increased the speed and efficiency with which we work, and broadened our connections at large. But in any list of benefits, there are typically costs. Online emotional affairs are on the rise, even though the people accused of this by their partners so often insist the relationship is “just an innocent friendship.”

More and more, the Internet is a forum for reconnecting with old flames (and it’s easy to idealize that former relationship if you’re having trouble with your current one), as well as a place for starting new friendships. The problem is, online communication is often fueled by a sense of anonymity that allows someone to minimize or even deny the emotional infidelity that’s unfolding (“I’m not really cheating if I don’t actually meet up with the person, right?”). 
 
Are you vulnerable to having an online affair?

When you make a decision to marry or start a committed relationship, the rule of exclusivity is assumed (unless you’ve discussed otherwise).  This rule states that you have made the choice to be involved physically and emotionally with your spouse/partner to the exclusion of all others.

Physical exclusivity is straight-forward—you’re not supposed to have sex with anyone other than your spouse/partner. Further, exclusivity raises objections to certain kinds of touch with friends, acquaintances or coworkers. For example, no back rubs, no hugs that linger beyond a friendly display of affection, no gazing in each others’ eyes while standing three inches apart…You get my point.

But what about emotional exclusivity?

Emotional exclusivity isn’t as clear as its physical counterpart and this is where many couples enter  the slippery slope of emotional infidelity. Exclusivity does not prevent you from having friends or acquaintances of the opposite sex. And if you trust your spouse/partner (and s/he trusts you), it is assumed that you both can maintain a purely platonic friendship with someone of the opposite sex (or someone of the same sex if you’re gay).

However, care should be taken regarding the type of emotional connection you form with your opposite-sex friends—especially online relationships. In particular, any behavior that elevates the status of the relationship to “special”  should be off limits. 

The Potential Dangers of Confiding

Couples who’ve had an emotional affair report that it was easier to confide and share deeply personal information with an online friend (compared to a face-to-face relationship), even when they hardly knew this online “friend.” This makes online relationships ripe for a level of emotional sharing that violates the exclusivity of a marriage or romantic relationship and increases our vulnerability to having an emotional affair online.

When you confide in a friend, you entrust this person with something privileged—you disclose something about yourself that few get to see. This creates an emotionally intimate relationship—the friendship gets stamped as special once you confide in that person. In essence, you are telling your friend that you trust and value him/her more than others. While your motives in doing this with an opposite-sex friend might feel innocent, it’s important to ask yourself the following questions before creating this type of relationship:

1. Out of all the options available, why are you choosing this person to confide in?
2. Have you tried confiding in other friends, or are you assuming that only this particular person will understand you?
3. What do you think this friend can offer that your spouse/partner can’t?
4. How do you feel when you’re communicating with this person online (or offline)? Do you feel this way when you’re with your partner? If not, did you feel this with your partner in the past?
5. Do you find yourself thinking about this person and anticipating the time you’ll spend with him/her (online or offline)?

Answering these questions truthfully can be difficult since you may be in denial about why you’re entering into this new friendship. However, the cost of minimizing or denying the truth can be detrimental to your marriage/relationship.

If you are seeking out a friend of the opposite sex and believe that this is the only person who can truly understand you, then you leave yourself vulnerable to becoming romantically involved with this person (emotionally and sexually). The power of online anonymity and of feeling understood and nurtured by a opposite-sex “friend” can pull at your heart, even if you’ve convinced yourself that “I’m not attracted to him [or her] in that way.”

If you’re absolutely sure that none of your same-sex friends can understand your issues, shop around for a good therapist who can offer you the understanding you need. A professional can offer you the perspective that might be lacking in your life.

Relationship Help Tip: A Litmus Test for Opposite-Sex Friendships

One way to prevent an online affair from occurring is to imagine your spouse/partner viewing all forms of communication (or listening in on your conversations) with this friend. If you’re about to say (or type) something that you wouldn’t if your spouse/partner were standing next to you, then you shouldn’t be having that conversation in the first place.

Marriage/Relationship Books-Resources

There are two resources I’d like to share with you today:

I) Research has demonstrated that premarital counseling increases the likelihood of marital success (in other words, a little preventive medicine goes a long way when it comes to your relationship).

So if you’re planning to marry, recently married or starting a committed relationship, I highly recommend the Premarital Counseling Workbook for Couples, by Lisa Brookes Kift, MFT.

II) Effective couples communication is essential for maintaining the health of your marriage/relationship and to help affair-proof your relationship. Check out my Marriage Enrichment  package to help affair-proof your marriage/relationship.

Until next time,

Dr. Rich Nicastro

(In this article I focus on men who have been unfaithful [because statics show that men are more likely to stray than women]. However, the points made are also relevant to women who have had an affair).

The Fallout from an Affair

Recovering from an affair takes time & patience

Let’s start with the obvious: An affair is devastating and some couples never recover from the pain of this kind of betrayal. Some even report that the wounds of the infidelity follow them into future relationships (they have trouble trusting future spouses/partners).

Couples have reported that the pain from an affair is like nothing they’ve ever experienced. Your whole world is tilted on its axis when the one person you thought you could trust more than anyone violates everything that has emotionally grounded you and brought deep meaning to your life.

Post-Affair Growth

The good news is that many couples do heal from an affair and couples even report that — after the hard work is done — their marriage is stronger as a result of the crisis caused by the affair. But recovery can be and is often a long and painful process.

As a marriage and couples counselor I’ve seen the following pattern occur in the affair recovery process:

At some point the person who had the affair gives up because he cannot tolerate how long his wife’s pain and anger lasts.

It isn’t that these men aren’t genuinely sorry and remorseful for what they’ve done; in fact, they are, and the regret they experience overwhelms them at times. They truly want to heal the relationship and save their marriage. But many of the men I worked with are totally unprepared for the level of hurt and anger that will be directed at them. And many are not prepared for how long their wives’ devastation will last.

Marriage Help: Preparing for the Affair Recovery Process

One of the approaches I take with men is to prepare them for what’s ahead. Having information about what to expect can be very helpful.

The five points I hammer home about the affair recovery process:

1. The road to recover will not be easy, and it is not linear.

Just when it feels like you’ve gotten over a very difficult emotional period and the marriage is starting to feel semi-normal, something that feels out of the blue to you may cause your wife to become flooded with pain and she’ll be thrown into a whirlwind of emotional despair and anger. Consider this rollercoaster the norm for a while.

2. Feeling genuinely sorry for the affair and promising that you’ll never cheat again isn’t enough for healing (though it’s an important step in the healing process).

Your promises will feel hollow to your wife. After all, some of the biggest promises you’ve ever made to her (loyalty, commitment, and exclusivity) have been broken. So for a considerable length of time she may not trust anything you say—your words have lost their meaning.

A big part of the recovery process will have to do with your actions—you will have to prove yourself as trustworthy and responsible. This will take time.

3. You will feel like you’re being punished for what you did.

And, in fact, your wife may want to punish you (can you blame her?). But the important point to remember is that while it might feel horrible to endure your wife’s pain and anger, it feels much worse for her. She wishes she didn’t have these feelings, and, if she could, she’d turn them off in a second.

You may be the target of her intense feelings for quite a while—consider this the norm in the healing journey. Your job is to endure and understand her pain and anger (easier said than done).

4. You might lose patience with your wife’s post-affair requests

I’ve seen this happen with many of the men I work with:

For the first couple of months or so, husbands are fully devoted to the affair recovery process. They understand their wife’s intense feelings, her need to check phone logs and emails, the repeated requests for details about the affair, and the men whole-heartedly agree to all of these requests for the sake of the marriage.

But as time passes and their wife’s feelings and requests (which start to feel like unreasonable demands) continue, some husbands start to feel hopeless and frustrated with how long it’s taking for their wife to “get over it.” Some even start to feel like they’re being treated unfairly and picture a lifetime of misery if they stay in the marriage.

You’ll need to refill your reservoir of patience over and over again.

5. You’ll question if the marriage is worth it.

The continued loss of patience can start to erode all confidence that the marriage is salvageable, and when this occurs, some guys start to check out of the marriage (emotionally or literally).  As one husband said, “I need to cut my losses and move on with my life.”

This sense of despair is to be expected, and part of the healing process is to try and see the bigger picture of the relationship—to remind yourself of all the reasons why it is worth riding the long wave of recovery.

Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all recovery process. So there is no way to predict how long it will take. But when you put expectations on how long it “should take” (six months, one year), you set yourself up for short-circuiting the level of patience needed for healing to occur.

Marriage/Relationship Resources

1. To receive my free monthly relationship help tips, sign up for my Relationship Advice Newsletter. As a bonus you’ll receive two reports on how to strengthen your marriage/relationship.

2. Forgiveness is an important part of the affair-recovery process. I’ve created a comprehensive resource for how to make forgiveness a regular part of your relationship.

Check out my workbook for couples, The Art of Forgiveness

Until next time,

Dr. Rich Nicastro

Q: I need some relationship advice. My friend at work thinks I’m having an emotional affair with a new coworker and he told me I’m jeopardizing my marriage. My wife and I have been together for seven years. While it’s not a perfect relationship, we love each other and I don’t want to be unfaithful in any way. Are there signs that I’m being emotionally unfaithful?

~Louis, Austin, TX

A: Thanks for the question, Louis. Many of the couples who seek marriage help are struggling with issues of emotional infidelity.  There are clear emotional affair warning signs that I’ll describe in a moment. But the first step in determining if a relationship is moving into this danger zone is to understand your true motivation while with this person.

This self-reflection should include an honest appraisal of your intentions as well as your vulnerability to stray. But this level of truthful self-reflection isn’t always easy.

What can stand in the way of honest self-reflection?

The ability to:

1. Rationalize or deny your true feelings for the person you’re potentially having the affair with—minimizing the relevance of what is happening allows the affair to continue and build steam;

2.  Create mental barriers to keep your spouse (and married life) separate from the world of the affair. As a client once shared, “I had to force myself not to think about my wife when I was with the other woman. It was like I was able to play a mental game that caused my wife to vanish from my mind whenever I was cheating…”  The function of this mental shell game is to prevent the two worlds from crashing into each other.

These two possible factors (rationalizing/denying your feelings and creating mental barriers to separate the affair world from your domestic/marital life) can prevent you from realistically assessing cues your friend may be picking up on.

Let’s turn our attention to the top warning signs of an emotional affair to help you assess what is actually happening.

Click here to read about the top 10 warning signs of an emotional affair.