What Is an Emotional Affair? And How They Can Do the Most Harm

Everyone thinks of cheating as someone sexually acting out. Even throughout pop culture, the image that permeates is simply the sexual act of cheating. And yet, a physical affair doesn’t seem to have the depth of impact as an emotional affair does…

I say this because, over the course of many years, I have been helping couples work through affairs. While it’s possible to work through affairs as a couple, the most common theme I see among women is the pain that comes from their partner having an emotional affair… Even more so than the pain that comes from a physical affair. 

I don’t intend to discount the pain that a physical affair can cause someone. However, after close analysis and experience with couples who've dealt with affairs, the issues that arise from emotional affairs tend to have a larger impact and require much more untangling before any healing can begin. 

Now, let’s dive into what an “emotional affair” means and look at why it’s so deadly for relationships…

When we start off fresh in a new relationship, it’s exciting and fun Especially during the dopamine phase… Many extremely strong and pleasurable feelings are released as the relationship progresses. Then, hopefully, the relationship matures into a phase that is stable and secure. 

That high you catch from an interaction with someone else can still happen when you’re in a committed relationship. It can be hard to understand that it’s just the excitement of someone new and even harder to see that it’s a direct threat to what you’ve built in your long-standing relationship.

Look, let’s be honest… Once you’ve been in a relationship for a long while, you may start to feel that all of your needs are no longer being met. And some of our biggest needs are emotional needs. Often times, when we are feeling empty in an emotional-needs sense, our friends and family pick up the slack. And we must also learn how to pick up the slack and provide ourselves with the resolution to our own needs. Not to mention, getting some of our emotional needs met from others who aren’t our partner is healthy.

But, when we consistently feel like our emotional needs aren’t being met, it can become a slippery slope… You see, our relationship is a pillar for us to lean on and give us the support we crave and need. And if that pillar starts to crumble, or we cannot lean on it anymore, we begin to seek that feeling elsewhere. And that simple seeking can open the door to actually receiving that support from someone else...

What happens next is often an emotional affair. It’s when you start to build a strong connection with someone else in which you share parts of yourself that allow for deeper interactions. It can start as a simple, platonic friendship that leads to a more intimate relationship where deeper conversations start to create stronger and stronger bonds. 

Instead of riding out an emotional wave that will likely lead to an emotional affair with someone else, what really needs to happen is a conversation with your partner. This feeling that someone else has given you is a sign… It’s time to address that you may have needs that aren’t being met. Give your partner a chance to give you what you need before you jump to another person to find it. 

It’s also important to recognize that seeking validation from an external person isn’t going to help you and your current relationship… It’s only going to confuse you and cause a tremendous amount of damage as emotional affairs tend to often lead to something more physical as well. 

So, if you can get healthy amounts of emotional support outside of your relationship, then what tends to lead to something even deeper? Well, for one, if you or your partner deal with self-esteem issues, this can play a big part in the need to get this external validation from another source. 

Another factor that can lead to an emotional affair is lack of boundaries. If you or your partner struggle with physical or emotional boundaries, other relationships can begin to bleed through into deeper ones. A big red flag for this is often when we vent to someone of the opposite sex about our partner instead of going to our partner about the issue. 

I see women struggling a lot when their husbands or partners lean on others emotionally. Men struggle a lot when women seek out physical affairs. But, both of these types of affairs are a form of straying from the relationship. And, they both cause betrayal wounds and should not be overlooked. 

When I work with couples who’ve dealt with emotional affairs, there’s a clear track back to where the disconnection started and we can see clearly why the behavior showed up. This builds understanding between the partners. 

Have you been impacted by an emotional affair? I’d love to hear from any of you who have dealt with this issue as I continue to gather information on it. I use this information to help couples move past this type, and other types, of trauma within their relationships. 

And so, I’ll leave you with this… Simply having awareness and insight before you act out or do something that can deeply impact your relationship is paramount. If you find yourself not getting your needs met in your relationship, I encourage you to get relationship help. The solution to unfulfilled needs is something that needs repairing from inside of the relationship… There’s just not a solution that should come from someone else.