“Chemistry or not, if you are prioritizing or hiding the emotional attention or affection of another INSTEAD OF YOUR spouse, that is grounds for having an emotional affair.”
There are mishaps that occur in a marriage that you can easily bounce back from. For instance, if your husband eats the last Oreo, or your wife backs into the mailbox in your new truck. Those things can be easily quickly, and the relationship will not suffer unsurmountable damage.
On the other hand, there are mistakes that can be made in a marriage making it nearly impossible to recover.
What if your spouse is verbally or physically abusive?
What about drug or alcohol addiction?
Can marriages recover from something that serious?
We have certainly seen it happen, as long as the anger issue or substance abuse is alleviated. We believe that one of the most difficult occurrences that can take place in a marriage and make it irreparable, is infidelity.
In relationships, two of the most common types of affairs are physical and emotional.
Is one worse than the other? We believe that finding out a spouse or partner has been unfaithful is tragic in any form.
Sometimes the pain of an emotional affair can be more damaging than that of a physical affair.
Occasionally, learning about the intimacy of the feelings your partner exchanged with someone else is more damaging than knowing they were only attracted on a physical level.
When you feel a disconnect to your spouse, you may question your worth and how you can become more for them.
“My ex-husband and I began our affair based on a physical attraction. This may be one of the reasons the sting of his later affair impacted me so deeply. We built our relationship on unfaithfulness. However, I never thought I was not enough for him, until he began an emotional affair that turned into a physical one. That relationship remained an emotional affair well into our marriage.
I suppose I thought all affairs were similar to ours - you have an affair because you are not sexually fulfilled. Therefore, sexually fulfilling a man who was not finding that in his marriage must mean that we had a deeper connection.
Wrong.
When I found out my husband was having both an emotional and physical affair that had gone on for nearly 2 years, the pain was excruciating. I not only discovered I was never sexually fulfilling him, but to additionally find out I was also not satisfying him emotionally, left me with a sense of, “Why am I even here? Why does he keep me around?”
Even years later, to watch him so quickly fall in love with someone else, devastated me. I felt I had never fulfilled him enough at any time. Had I been able to, then perhaps our marriage would have lasted. Instead, I watched out the window as he became friends with the neighbor he would someday call his wife.
Fast forward a few years…the fact that I ever doubted my worth, still makes me chuckle. I was more than enough emotionally and physically. He never took the time to truly see me, and that’s because I never took the time to let him. I don’t blame him for his unfaithfulness. No, quite the opposite actually. I own my part in the why, and in the tearing apart of trust. I own my part in pushing him so far away and not forgiving him, so he never even had the opportunity to prove to me otherwise.
We grew apart long before the affair, and I think that is one reason people have them. They don’t trust in the longevity and possibility of giving someone their heart, even if they are the one cheating. They don’t want that person to ever truly see them for who they really are. Truth be told, I never even tried or wanted to see him. So, fair is fair in my eyes. It takes two to make a marriage work and two to end it.” -Loren
Can an emotional affair ever be justified?
There are several foundations that are important to a healthy and long-lasting marriage. Obviously, trust and communication rank on the top of the list. We also believe that showing love and making sure your spouse remains fulfilled emotionally, is a very important aspect of a happy marriage.
We have often talked about the importance of understanding your partner’s love language.
How do we know when the person we are in a relationship with is accepting the love we are sending them?
That can be nearly impossible unless we learn how they receive love.
Maybe you are steadily buying gifts for your spouse, thinking that it will relay to them just how much you care. What if your spouse does not like receiving gifts? It is possible that she associates the love someone has for her by the amount of time they are willing to spend with her?
What if you constantly touch your spouse? You feel that showing how physically attracted you are to him will show just how much you care. However, he is not responding to your attempts. Maybe he wants to hear you say how much you love him instead.
It is not about how we WANT to love someone that matters. Instead, we should learn how the other person WANTS to be loved.
“When I married Roy, I was coming out of a relationship that I had been in since I was twelve years old. I did not instantly fall in love with Roy; we were friends way before we became husband and wife. I never recall us having a conversation about what either of us expected out of our marriage. I only knew that he wanted me, and I wanted him. More importantly, I needed to be wanted by him.
After my first marriage, I never thought anyone would love me again. I was broken and damaged to my core. I felt nearly as bad on the inside as I looked on the outside. Not only did I think no one would ever want me or love me, I was not sure I even loved myself.
Throughout my marriage to Roy, there were several times I did not feel that he loved me. I appreciated the sacrifices he made for our family. I adored the amazing father he was to our children. I never worried that he was unfaithful; intimacy was our strong suit. We were best friends and could talk to each other about any and everything. However, it seemed there was something missing.
During the last three years of our marriage, I begged and pleaded with Roy to understand the things I needed him to do in order to truly believe that he loved me and wanted the life we had worked so hard to build. In the end, he simply told me that I knew how he was when I married him, and he did not plan on changing. In all fairness, he was right. He had not changed at all, but I had.
At a time when our marriage was at its weakest, I met a friend. This friend and I had one very similar thing in common – we did not feel loved by the ones we loved, the ones we were married to. Although in the beginning, we made sure not to cross a line of inappropriateness by talking about our marriages. I always believed it to be taboo; you should never discuss problems in your marriage with someone of the opposite sex. I believed that to be the first step down a very dangerous road.
The friendship I had with this person, a man, blossomed into one of the most amazing friendships I ever had. Our relationship was effortless, there were no expectations, and it was genuine. Given the situation we were both in, I can definitely understand how our then spouses thought there was more to our friendship than we were willing to admit.
It was not until recently that I began to question the onset of my relationship with John. Was it as innocent as I once thought?
I had been cheated on before, and that was a pain I never wanted to be responsible for causing to another person. In my mind, the friendship that I had with John was pure. We never crossed the line, we were never inappropriate, and the relationship was not physical. In my eyes, we were doing absolutely nothing wrong.
Looking back, I have to respect what Roy believed was going on. Now, I understand that I would have most likely had some of the same thoughts going through my head had the situation been reversed. I am not perfect, but I have always tried to do the right thing. That is why it was so difficult to admit that the relationship I had with John during the end of my marriage to Roy, could be construed as an emotional affair by definition.
It has taken me a very long time to realize that Roy did love me, he was just not capable of showing it in the way I needed him to.
Roy is one of the most amazing men I have ever known, and he is still one of my very best friends. We fight like brother and sister, and most days I have to sit on my hands to keep from pinching his cute little face off. But he will always hold a special place in my heart, and I will always have love for him.” -April
There are several ways to get to where we need to go. However, without proper direction, we may never reach our destination.
Thankfully, everyone in the world was created differently; no two people are exactly the same. Therefore, it is important to understand that not everyone gives and receives love in the same manner.
In order to make a marriage or relationship work, we must be willing to listen to what our partner needs.
Does this mean that they have a right to find it elsewhere if they are not getting it from the marriage?
Absolutely not.
It means there should be better communication between the partners.
Many believe that a marriage is incapable of surviving an affair.
The truth is, relationships are capable of surviving just about anything – if we are willing to do whatever it takes to make it work.
