The context of an emotional affair?

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Yesterday, 10:08 AM	? #1 (permalink)
Member ? Join Date: May 2011 Posts: 175	OK, my wife had some sort of an EA. She was drawn into it for the "fun" of it, and couldn't let go. To my knowledge, there was no flirting, sexting, or any suggestions of running away together. They both admitted to idle chat about co -workers, and movie gossip, and shared interests. like movies, etc.. OK, forget her..... Let's talk about others. Can you tell me what the two people involved in these EA's talk about? I assume there's no physical contact. So what the heck do you talk about? Based on what I'm reading here, they seem very powerful, and in many cases, will result in a wayward spouse. Seriously, how do these things work? I can talk to someone online for hours, and easily fall in like with the words.... But without the physical stimulation, how can I be willing to break a marriage over an EA? I would like to hear about some Real CONTEXT
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Yesterday, 11:48 AM	? #2 (permalink)
Registered User ? Join Date: May 2011 Location: Michigan Posts: 20	I'll give you an example. My husband's emotional affair progressed along these lines: First he began meeting her for coffee on Sundays. Then they began arranging other outings together - lunch during the work day, gettign together in the afternoons to go bike riding or cross-country skiing (often while I was at work), or to outdoor events in town like music festivals, etc. Then they moved on to him going to her place for dinner. They began taking classes together - like meditative dance workshops or spiritual discussion groups. Lots of emails, lots of phone calls. She became his best friend. He turned to her for all of his emotional needs, and I was frozen out. Her influence was painfully clear - he began changing his interests, his activities, and even his way of eating. Finally, he began to criticize me. My husband also fiercely desired this woman physically, but she did not let it progress to that (which seems to have enabled her to convince herself that she is blameless and did nothing wrong). But at this point I consider whether they actually had sex to be irrelevant. This was a full-blown affair. He was in love with her, utterly infatuated, and would not stop. It hurt me terribly. He moved on to sexual affairs after they had cooled their relationship. But the damage to our marriage by this first emotional affair was terrible, and the one that injured me the most. We will be divorcing.
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Yesterday, 05:04 PM	? #3 (permalink)
Member ? Join Date: May 2011 Posts: 175	Quote: I'll give you an example. My husband's emotional affair progressed along these lines: First he began meeting her for coffee on Sundays. Then they began arranging other outings together - lunch during the work day, gettign together in the afternoons to go bike riding or cross-country skiing (often while I was at work), or to outdoor events in town like music festivals, etc. Then they moved on to him going to her place for dinner. They began taking classes together - like meditative dance workshops or spiritual discussion groups. Lots of emails, lots of phone calls. She became his best friend. He turned to her for all of his emotional needs, and I was frozen out. Her influence was painfully clear - he began changing his interests, his activities, and even his way of eating. Finally, he began to criticize me. My husband also fiercely desired this woman physically, but she did not let it progress to that (which seems to have enabled her to convince herself that she is blameless and did nothing wrong). But at this point I consider whether they actually had sex to be irrelevant. This was a full-blown affair. He was in love with her, utterly infatuated, and would not stop. It hurt me terribly. He moved on to sexual affairs after they had cooled their relationship. But the damage to our marriage by this first emotional affair was terrible, and the one that injured me the most. We will be divorcing. Amazing. I'm wondering if there are others like this, without the physical attraction?
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Yesterday, 05:21 PM	? #4 (permalink)
Member ? Join Date: Aug 2010 Posts: 295	I don't think that an emotional affair is necessarily earmarked just by being a thwarted physical affair. I think that attraction may or may not be a part of it. What I think defines an emotional affair is that the interest and attention is being shifted away from the primary partner. What becomes intoxicating is that someone is both interested IN you and interesting TO you again. There's someone who wants to know how your day was, who you can talk to about interesting things that have nothing to do with soccer and dishwashers--food, wine, books, music, movies, how stupid people look singing in their cars....whatever it is that gets lost in the day to day, really. Someone who's concerned when you feel bad, and not just because it means extra work for them. Someone that you have all the same interest in hearing about too. It's the rush of the first blush of a relationship. Even if it doesn't make a person leave to be with the one they had the EA with, I think that it can open up possibilities once the line's been crossed. The idea that there is someone out there who might actually like you as a person again--not a mom or a maid or a nanny or a wife--can be pretty intoxicating. And I'd imagine it would be even more so for a SAHM. On the other hand, if there is a sense of physical attraction, that can be enough to make a person want to leave and roll the dice on that too.... But I think that at the end of it all, it's the feeling of being interesting and interested that makes it all happen. It's heady stuff...
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