A new sort of infidelity has been on the rise for decades, and it’s one of the biggest threats to marriage and courtship: ‘emotional affairs.’ Today’s workplace has become the new danger zone of opportunities for ‘emotional affairs,’ surpassed only by the Internet.

A relationship without sex can be just as intense, or more so than the intimate one. Why the crisis?

To understand the intensity of emotional infidelity, it helps to see the dynamics as an addiction, a form of addictive love. That’s because it’s easier to let go of a toxic pattern when you depersonalize the experience.

It’s not about ‘how’ special the person is or makes you feel, it’s about the neurochemicals that get activated when you think and behave a certain way that keeps you stuck in the damaging pattern! It isn’t a coincidence, for example, that persons with alcohol and other addictions are more likely to get into toxic relationships. Seeing the problem as an addiction also gives you access to proven steps to identify and break free of the toxic patterns.

Why addictive?

An addiction to an activity, person or substance puts a person’s brain and body in an intoxicating trance that, on the one hand, does not allow them to think clearly and make informed choices, and on the other hand, ‘rewards’  them for the toxic behavior with the release of certain chemicals that provide quick-fixes of pleasure in the body. Albeit temporary, there is also pleasure from lowering or numbing pain, shame or guilt, as it provides distance from taking responsibility to resolve the real issues of life and marriage (which risk failure). What are the warning signs?

There are at least 12 warning signs to alert you to take action to protect yourself and your relationship from ‘emotional infidelity.’

1. Thinking and saying you’re ‘just friends’ with opposite-sex.

If you’ve been thinking or saying, “we’re just friends,” think again. If it’s a member of the opposite sex, you may be swimming in treacherous waters. The very words are dangerous to your marriage.

This rationale allows you to make excuses, or more plainly, to tell lies (to yourself and others) about something you know in your gut is wrong. Regardless how strongly TV and entertainment promote the idea of opposite-sex friendships (and this is part of the problem!) as not only ‘okay,’ but also ‘right’ to demand unconditional trust, in most cases, an intimate friendship with a member of the opposite-sex that you find interesting and attractive poses risks.

2. Treating them as a confidant, sharing intimate issues. 

Sharing thoughts and deepest concerns, hopes and fears, passions and problems is what deepens intimacy; it builds an emotional bond between two people, time better used in marriage relationship. Giving this away to another person, regardless of the justification, is infidelity, a betrayal of trust. This is especially true when you consider that emotional intimacy is the most powerful bond in human relationships, much stronger than a intimate one. 

3. Discussing troubling aspects of your marriage and partner. 

Talking or venting to a person of the opposite sex about what your marriage lacks, what your partner lacks, or what you’re not getting to make you happy sends a loud message that you’re available for someone else to ‘love and care’ for your needs. It’s also a breach of trust. And, like gossip, it creates a false sense of shared connection, and an illusion that you, your happiness, your comfort and needs are totally valued by this person (when, in truth, this has not been put to the test!). 

4. Comparing them verbally and mentally to your partner. 

Another danger sign is a thinking pattern that increasingly finds what is ‘positive’ and ‘just right’ about the friend and ‘negative’ and ‘unfulfilling’ about the partner.  This builds a case ‘for’ the friend and ‘against’ the partner. Another mental breach of trust, this unfairly builds a physiologically felt case ‘for’ the friend and ‘against’ the partner, forming mental images in the brain that associate pleasurable and painful sensations accordingly. 

5. Obsessively thinking or daydreaming about the person.

If you find yourself looking forward to seeing the person, cannot wait to share news, think about what you’re going to tell them when you’re apart, and imagine their excitement, you’re in trouble. This sense of expectation, excitement, anticipation releases dopamine in reward centers of your brain, reinforcing toxic patterns. Obsessively thinking about the person is an obvious signal that something is wrong. After all, you don’t do this with your friends, right?

6. Believing this person ‘gets’ you like no other.

It always appears this way in affairs and romantic encounters at the start. It’s an illusion, and in the case of emotional infidelity, one that is dangerous to a marriage because the sense of mutual ‘understanding’ forms a bond that strengthens and deepens emotional intimacy, with the release of pleasurable neurochemicals, such as the love and safety hormone oxytocin. This focus also puts you in a ‘getting’ frame of mind. It means you are approaching your marriage in terms of what you’re getting or not getting, rather than what you’re contributing.

7. Pulling out of regular activities with your partner, family, work.

Being absorbed with desire to spend more and more time talking, sharing, being with the person, it’s only natural to begin to resent time you spend on responsibilities and activities at home (and work?). As a result, you begin to pull away, turn down, or make excuses for not joining regular activities with your partner and family. Family members notice you are withdrawn, irritable and unhappy.

8. Keeping what you do secret and covering up your trail.

Secrecy itself is a warning sign. It creates a distinct closeness between two people, and at the same time grows the distance between them and others. Secrets create a special bond, most often an unhealthy one. For example, there may be a false sense of emotional safety and trust with the person, and an unwarranted mistrust and suspicion of the partner, or those who try to interfere with the ‘friendship.’

9. Keeping a growing list of reasons that justify your behaviors. 

This involves an addictive pattern of thinking that focuses your attention on how unhappy you are, why you’re unhappy, and blames your partner and marriage for all aspects of your unhappiness. It builds a dangerous sense of entitlement and forms a pool of resentment from which you feel justified to mistreat your partner or do what you need to increase your happiness without considering the consequences.

10. Fantasizing about a love or intimate relationship with the person. 

At some point, one or both persons begin to fantasize about having a love or intimate relationship with the other. They may begin to have discussions about this, which adds to the intensity, the intrigue and the intoxicating addictive releases of neurochemicals that make the pattern more entrenched.

11. Giving or receiving personal gifts from the person.

Another flag is when the obsession affects your buying behaviors, so that you begin to think about this person when you are shopping, wondering what they like or would show your appreciation. The gift choices are something intimate items that you would not give ‘just’ a friend. Gifts send clear messages that the two of you are a ‘close we’ set apart from others, and that the relationship is ‘special.’

12. Planing to spend time alone together ot letting it happen.

This is the warning sign that, when not heeded, most often pushes partners to cross the line from a platonic to a intimate relationship. Despite good intentions and promises to one another that they would not let ‘anything’ happen, it’s a set up, a matter of time, when opposite-sex friends flirt with the availability of time alone. http://blogs.psychcentral.com/relationships/2012/07/12-warning-signs-that-its-emotional-infidelity-and-not-just-friendship/

nice article

True talk

Nice piece...Lots of loose emotions playing around these days, especially at workplaces

Waspy: Nice piece...Lots of loose emotions playing around these days, especially at workplaces

. Yes bro..Serious crush from both sex.I wonder why there is emotional attachement with other people even after 'Yes,I do'.God help us

picking calls in secrecy and deleting call logs

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its 02:05pm in mars, thats my current location

when you are meant to be together, no amount of emotional infidelity can stop that. i believe in fate. Peace

This has wrecked many relationships! Sometimes it affects it even more than actual sexual infidelity.
Loyalty is largely missing in relationships this days.

this hoes ain't loyal
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Hmm

The problem dat dis post addresses is a serious marriage issue dat no one wants to talk abt.

Friendzoning is d bedrock of dis emotional infidelity. So many married pple ar guilty of dis.

Also wen u start seeing n takin ur kids as ur partners or ur brothers and sisters as ur partners whilst neglectin ur husband/ wife, my dear u ar havin an emotional affair. Ur husband/ wife shud be ur partner in almost all tins n shud cum first.

....take decisions in ur hear abt ur relationship...practice self discipline nd dnt get loose with wat you see...infidelity is all abt what you give room to come ur way...

True talk even though am guilty of it

this happens cos most marriages are nt contracted on purely bible principles

God punish we are just friends you either choose one between us sharp sharp no time God bless you all today and you shall not not lose your loved ones to stomach ache or headache kindly like

Hmmmmmmm....OK

But what if you can't get away from that person?

What if he or she is a colleague at work?

superior1: picking calls in secrecy and deleting call logs

That's all i can say

This is serious! Official love.

think am ah victim of 1 or 2 point listed above. 'We are jas frnds na' abi we b enemies b4?

Most tyms it happens faster dan yu can control, and believe mi yu stil luv yur partner but smhw yu crave dat persons company.

Well am not justifyin it, so @op is der anytin prescribe measures 2 help us d victims?

ok

Great Article.

Story...story...story

infidelity is infidelity.
It takes two to cheat.and it also takes two to break up a relationship.
Thread carefully when you make a choice.
Leave when you can if its not working.
Marriage should not be a prison.
I STAND TO BE CORRECTED

I guess that would mean my best friend cannot be from the opposite sex
Your bestie is suppose to be your confidant, you know?

Joavid: I guess that would mean my best friend cannot be from the opposite sex
Your bestie is suppose to be your confidant, you know?

Possibly..Marriage makes you lose your best friends though the line of connection may not be totally cut.I know you won't like it either if your partner is having opposite sex as bestie..

Hmm

Joavid: I guess that would mean my best friend cannot be from the opposite sex
Your bestie is suppose to be your confidant, you know?

All these cheats and their lame excuses.
Why is your bestie and confidant not you boyfriend/husband?

Even having a so called female bestie could still be dangerous because you'll be divulging confidential stuffs to them who will in turn divulge to others and before you know it, you have a crisis in your hands.

Wetin person no go read?