Emotional infidelity – count the cost!
Is this how you feel when you are involved in emotional infidelity? Your heart beats faster every time you glance at your phone – has he text? You check every five minutes, to make sure your phone is on silent – so no-one hears it, so no-one suspects that anything is different, anything is wrong. You don’t want to be discovered in your emotional affair. You are tense and nervous with butterflies in your stomach, but then you hear the familiar buzzzz of your phone. Glancing down you see the word “Sue”. It is your own personal code for him, and your heart soars, you can speak to the love of your life!
This is just the tip of the iceberg for people involved in an emotional affair, or involved in emotional affairs. That wonderful high that comes when you speak to your new love, it seems to be so addictive.
You can end it
Perhaps you have tried to end it, to just be friends, but you have invested so much time and emotion now……..he knows you inside out. That means he knows all the right buttons to press, to make you come running back to him. So the emotional affair continues.
You know that it isn’t right to have an emotional affair. It is probably worse than a physical affair in some ways, because it cannot be right to share that innermost place in your heart with another man.
Do you remember a time when you were completely in love with your husband or partner, when you just enjoyed spending time with him, and you felt that you couldn’t be happier? You can get that back, you can go back to that place. You know it was fantastic, you were full of love and dreams, you felt happy in your role as wife to him. It is not a feeling that has disappeared forever, you can be that happy again with him. Your emotional affair can be overcome.
But ultimately…
What can you do to end the affair?
Emotional Infidelity – Stop all contact
1. You need to cut off contact with the person you are involved in emotional infidelity with. That has to be totally. If you work in the same office, try and get a transfer, or at least make sure you are on different projects. If necessary speak to someone in human resources, but make sure you are away from him as much as possible.
2. You need to confess to your partner, your husband. Yes, it is very difficult. But remember, the blame is not all yours. People who are in happy fulfilled relationships avoid emotional infidelity. The object of your emotional infidelity was fulfilling a need that you have, and it was not being fulfilled in your marriage. You need to think deeply about this, think of a way to explain it to your partner or husband so that he understands, but without apportioning blame.
3. You need to be aware that this is a painful thing that you are going to have to go through. There will be emotional pain as you will not have that emotional crutch you have in the object of your affair. You may experience physical pain too. This is because you have become addicted to the emotional “high” of hearing from him, the excitement. Recognise that this will happen to you. It will help you get over the emotional infidelity.
4. You will also have to grieve the emotional infidelity. It provided a need for you. You enjoyed it. But the end results are not worth it. It is truly not worth giving up your relationship for this other person. So do allow yourself the time to grieve.
While you are going through the four steps above you will need to be putting more emphasis on working on your marriage. There are lots of tips and tactics that go along with that, but you can appreciate they are too many for the scope of this article. But keep reading, because you will find out many things that will help your relationship, and help you get over emotional infidelity.
