Welcome to Beliefnet and to this little corner, where we discuss all kinds of relationship issues. As you can see by a brief perusal of the threads, there is quite a diversity of opinion on many topics.
I am sorry for the pain you have gone through with your bf (ex-bf now?). It makes sense that you would prefer a physical affair to an emotional one, since evidently most women feel similarly (although I would also guess that the first choice would be no affair at all!) Men seem to be the opposite, feeling much more upset by physical than emotional infidelity.
Perhaps you are also realizing that things like attending church are not a guarantee that there will be ethical behavior, as much as one might hope that to be the case.
Maybe you would be willing to express where you are right now with all of what has happened.
An emotional affair IS cheating! The BIBLE...GOD"S word,says...
in Matthew 5:28...But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
I recently caught my boyfriend,who I loved dearly,having an emotional affair on Facebook,and it felt like my entire world had come crashing down on me! I would rather have walked in and found him having sex with someone than to have to read what they were saying to each other on chat,emails,and texting. It hurt me so deeply to know that this man that I had been intimate with and that I had loved for so long telling this so called friend of mine how much he loved her and how he could not wait until she was divorced so that they could be together. It hurt me to see how they mocked me and talked about me saying terrible things! I printed it all up and took it to her husband. They have stopped talking,well...as far as we have seen lately,I believe that they are still communicating,but her husband is divorcing her,but all of it still hurts me as this home wrecker (who has done this one more than one or two occasions) is a member of our church as well. I promise you,emotional affairs ARE as hurtful and serious as physical ones.For me,the emotional affair hurt me more than an actual physical affair would have.
ducky2590, welcome to the Relationships & Marriage Forum. I am sorry for the pain you have been experiencing over this relationship. Since it was so wonderful in beginning, perhaps you had many hopes and dreams about the long-term future with this man. So when you learned about being married, not only did you feel deeply betrayed, but you also had to face the reality of those dreams being dashed forever. That is quite a double-whammy of pain.
It's not clear how long ago this all happened. Perhaps you are under the impression that you will be able to simply erase the memories and abolish the hurt feelings you are experiencing. For many people it can take awhile to process what happened, and when the emotions are still fresh and raw it is quite natural to feel that you will always hurt this badly. Perhaps that is a part of your concern.
One thing that does help is to share with trusted friends or even on a site like this one, as you have begun to do. Healing from a relationship that ends painfully is a process, one that you have begun.
I was just in a past relationship that was a short term. Since the gentleman I was with decided to be unfaithful to me. To make it short I was in a relationship with ea man who was 5 years older then mean usually I don't date that much older but I wanted to give it a chance and see where it would go. Im just a young lady who is 20 years old and learned alot from this past relationship. I would say that from all the pain I went through I'm still coping with this past even if it was a short relationship. I would say it effected me the most because it was the realtionship that made me happy at first then it all changed when he told me he was married and had a son and couldnt tell me in the beginning of the relationship. I was involved in a emotional relationship eventhough I had nothing to do with that. I just would like someone to help me out to give me advice on a way I can take this day by day to forget about this past that bothers me.
An emotional affair is much worse than a physical affair. Why you ask? Because the person you love more than anyone else the person you married gives another person their heart, or at least a big part of their heart, and their feelings and emotions those things you never ever get back. On the other hand, a physicall affair is bad as well but you do not really loose a part of your partner like you do in an emotional affair the body is intact and you can get past that. In an emotioal affair every time you look into your spouse's eyes...you know something is missing...someone else has a least a part of what belongs to you and you can never get it back never!!! Once you lose thier heart, feelings and emotions you are done the marriage is just a shell.
Most emotional affairs are big, fat, whopping FANTASIES and when the fantasy is removed the affair is nothing more than a shell. The "other" person is just the object that the fantasy is projected onto.
Emotional affairs are cheating and rather "adolescent".
An emotional affair is much worse than a physical affair. Why you ask? Because the person you love more than anyone else the person you married gives another person their heart, or at least a big part of their heart, and their feelings and emotions those things you never ever get back. On the other hand, a physicall affair is bad as well but you do not really loose a part of your partner like you do in an emotional affair the body is intact and you can get past that. In an emotioal affair every time you look into your spouse's eyes...you know something is missing...someone else has a least a part of what belongs to you and you can never get it back never!!! Once you lose thier heart, feelings and emotions you are done the marriage is just a shell.
Unless and until you have been the victim of an emotional affair you can not know the absolute gut wrenching pain it causes. It is a premeditated action. The first time mighht be somewhat innocent but when it evolves into a full blown affair it is no longer a chance meeting. It takes the same if not more planning on how the 2 will meet, communicate. They have to consciously know that what they are saying and doing is wrong.
An easy way to determine if what you are doing is wrong imagine your spouse is there woud you say and do all the same things that you are currently doing? I sincerely doubt it. It is easy for the other womean to sit and listen to everything and be sympathetic because she does not have to clean up after him, pick up and wash his dirty underwear. The other woman is taking from the wife what belongs only to her and the husband is giving away something that belongs only to his wife.
I tried for 30 years to get my husband to open up and share his life both good and bad but he refused. Then he met a coworker who was basically a nobody. She was osmeone you could walk by 100 times and never even notice. She was also a professional victim. She enjoyed playing the part of the poor wife who did so much for everyone but all they did was take advantage of her. The problem is she wallowed in the sympathetic attention like the pig that she is.
She even went so far as to pretend she was my friend to legitamize what she was doing. Don't get me wrong my husband was not innocent by any means.
Long story short we now have the best marriage ever not BECAUSE of but IN SPITE of the affair. We now share everything and actually talk to each other. We just celebrated our 31st ann.
Most "Other Women" are professional victims, victims of a lot of poor choices. Most "Other Women" you could walk by and never even notice. All "Other Women" are pigs.
Unless and until you have been the victim of an emotional affair you can not know the absolute gut wrenching pain it causes. It is a premeditated action. The first time mighht be somewhat innocent but when it evolves into a full blown affair it is no longer a chance meeting. It takes the same if not more planning on how the 2 will meet, communicate. They have to consciously know that what they are saying and doing is wrong.
An easy way to determine if what you are doing is wrong imagine your spouse is there woud you say and do all the same things that you are currently doing? I sincerely doubt it. It is easy for the other womean to sit and listen to everything and be sympathetic because she does not have to clean up after him, pick up and wash his dirty underwear. The other woman is taking from the wife what belongs only to her and the husband is giving away something that belongs only to his wife.
I tried for 30 years to get my husband to open up and share his life both good and bad but he refused. Then he met a coworker who was basically a nobody. She was osmeone you could walk by 100 times and never even notice. She was also a professional victim. She enjoyed playing the part of the poor wife who did so much for everyone but all they did was take advantage of her. The problem is she wallowed in the sympathetic attention like the pig that she is.
She even went so far as to pretend she was my friend to legitamize what she was doing. Don't get me wrong my husband was not innocent by any means.
Long story short we now have the best marriage ever not BECAUSE of but IN SPITE of the affair. We now share everything and actually talk to each other. We just celebrated our 31st ann.
I don't mean to sound like an a**, however, I've kind of been there too(I've visited the same country, anyway, although I may not have gone to the same places), so, without getting too psych-pop on you, I think that as you work through your feelings, you are going to stop talking about "what Mike did to me," and talk more about what you did, without it being about blame, or shame, or guilt. We are all the prime movers in our lives, whether we want the responsibility or not.
Sometimes it's hard to get those reminders of past lives, like a past self that we never wanted to outgrow. I'm sorry your returning love was so painful for you. He must have meant so much to you, that there was so much feeling and energy still left in that connection. I applaud your writing and seeking counselling and going forward through this.
According to , an emotional affair is when a person not only invests more of their emotional energy outside their marriage, but also receives emotional support and companionship from the new relationship. In an emotional affair, a person feels closer to the other party and may experience increasing sexual tension. Some believe that an emotional affair is harmless, most marriage experts view an emotional affair as cheating without having a sexual relationship. Thoughts?
I just got through with an emotional affair with a man that I knew almost 20 years ago. He found me on Face Book after searching for me for years. When he found me, sparks flew off the internet pages and ya-hoo messenger. I thought that I was in love, but as it turns out, I was in love with a memory of him and what he was many years ago when we were younger (he was 20 and I was 16). Now, we are both well into our 30's and 40's and married to different people. I was almost ready to give up my marriage of 15 years and he was ready to give up his marriage to his second wife for me. We talked at least 3 times a day, morning before work, at lunch and then again on his way home from work for about 3 months. And talking on Ya-hoo messenger about twice a week and on weekends. We even got to the point where we were telling each other that we loved each other. We made plans to move into together and start our life over with one another and have my children there with us. I live in Tennessee and he lives in Ohio. I am from Ohio originally, but I met him in Baltimore, Maryland. That is where he is from. We met through a band for the Baltimore Colts Marching Band. We both played the clarinet. He was a good friend of mine of which I had a huge crush on and he did me. He was my first true love. My marriage was not going so well at this time when he found me, and neither was his, so we kind of fell into a trap that neither one of us wanted to get out of, we were both getting the attention from each other that we were not getting from our spouses. We were lonely to say the least. It felt so good to get attention from someone who I had feelings for a long time ago, but it also felt wrong. Neither one of us could fight that feeling anymore, so we started making plans to see one another. We had so much in common and wanted the same things out of life, kids. We both love children, I am studying to be a school teacher and he is qualified to be a school teacher. In my eyes, he was perfect, no one could do what he did for me, even through the internet. I never saw him during this time, I know that God did not want that to happen and wanted me to work on my marriage for ourself and our children. My husband is a good man, but he is very adament about how he wants things, and I am the same way, only with the kids though, plus, he is a truck driver who is never home, and when he is home, he is not really here. Well, when Mike found me, it was at my lowest point in my life. I am a full time college student, raising two kids by myself, and miserable in my marriage. Mike turned all that around for me and I finally felt alive for the first time in years. I know now that him and I were never going to be together, if it was a possibility, it would have happened many years ago. The emotional affair almost ruined my marriage, but not on my husbands side, but on how I felt about my husband. I had an image of a perfect person "MIke", one who does not exist. I was told that when someone is thought of as perfect, there is no one else that can compare and there is no room in your heart for anyone else and that is not fair. I ended the emotional affair in March, but it just about killed me inside. I felt like my heart was being ripped out and torn into little tiny pieces. I cried and I wrote alot in a journal, or more like a letter to him over the past several months, the letters consist of my feelings for what he did to me and how I felt about what he did to me and how much I hated him for what he did to his wife. He lied to me and his wife. I thought that was low down. I am now on meds for depression and in counseling for what Mike did to me, I do not think that I will ever be fully over what he did to me. I am now happier in my marriage, my husband is being more considerate and is showing me more attention and we are talking more without arguing. In my opinion, my filing for divorce was a wake up call for him, now we seem to be on the same page. Things work out for the best sometimes, and I think that God had a reason for this to happen. We definetely appreciate each other more.
