- Hey everybody, happy Thursday.
Now today's question is all about emotional affairs.
What are they and why do they happen?
But before we jump into that, are you new to my channel?
Welcome, I am a licensed therapist creating
educational, mental health videos
and I release them on Mondays and on Thursdays,
so make sure you're subscribed and have
those notifications turned on so that you don't miss out.
Now this week's question was really more of a statement,
and it was I would love to see a video
on emotional affairs, so let's define
what an emotional affair is
because I think a lot of you would be surprised.
An emotional affair is when we engage
in a very emotionally intimate relationship
with someone other than our partner or spouse.
This isn't a sexual or physical affair,
this is an affair of the heart.
Now let's answer the question why these affairs even happen.
That's the first thing that really came to my mind,
and just like any relationship issue,
they can happen for many, many reasons,
but the most common reasons for emotional affairs
are number one, we really struggle with healthy boundaries
and I've talked about this before.
Boundaries can be physical meaning don't touch me
and emotional like I don't wanna share that with you
or I don't want you to share that with me,
but regardless of whether they're physical or emotional,
they're handled in very much the same way,
and if we can't set them and uphold them,
we can find ourselves being emotionally unfaithful.
We can struggle to not overshare and therefore
we get into really personal conversations with people
without even realizing it,
and it can be hard for us to say no
or to tell people that we aren't comfortable talking
about that with them, so just to be extra aware
if you already know the boundaries or something
you struggle with, maybe notice if you're oversharing
or if you're allowing someone else
to overshare with you and you find yourself
in these really intense, emotional conversations
with someone that isn't your spouse or your partner.
And the second reason these occur is that
we don't respect our partner or spouse anymore.
Maybe they aren't the same as they used to be.
Maybe they're going through a really hard time.
Maybe they work really long hours,
so we don't feel like we see them
or maybe even know them anymore
or it's possible that they have cheated on us
or done something that was hurtful and upsetting,
but whatever the cause, we can see that as a reason
to get close to someone else.
I've even had many patients and even friends of mine
talk about this and almost try to justify
what they've done by saying that what they're doing
isn't as bad as having sex with someone else
that aren't really cheating,
but I honestly think it's very much the same.
On to the next possible reason, number three,
is that we may need a lot of outside validation.
Maybe we have some narcissistic tendencies
or feel a bit neglected by our partner.
So we are going out and looking for that attention
and connection from someone or anyone else.
And the fourth and final reason
I'm gonna address here, like I said,
there are many, many reasons this could happen
but the fourth reason is kind of all
of the other reasons rolled into one
that you don't know how to let your partner or spouse know
how you're feeling or what you need.
If we don't know how to express all that we may be thinking,
feeling or needing, how can they know?
How can they give that to us or support us
like we need them to?
They can't read our minds or simply guess correctly,
and not being able to share that and get those needs met
can lead us to finding someone else we, for some reason,
feel free enough to do that with,
and in all honesty if we don't feel safe enough
to share with our partner yet we do with someone else,
that's really something that we should talk out
and figure out why.
See if it's our own issue or something that our partner
or spouse is doing or something else going on
in our relationship.
Okay, so let's say that we think we may be engaging
in this type of an affair.
How do we know for sure?
What are the red flags we should look out for?
Well the first red flag is if we are constantly
contacting this person and remember this isn't a friend
of ours or someone we've known for years.
This is someone we sort of
have a romantic relationship with
just without the sexual stuff.
So if we are texting or calling them all the time,
maybe even feeling a bit secretive
about the fact that we're texting or calling them,
that's a sign.
If we miss them terribly when we don't get to see them
or be in contact with them, that's not good either.
We shouldn't feel that attached to someone else
unless it's our family or our partner.
Now the second red flag is if we find ourselves
confiding in them.
Anything that's very personal or a big thing
happening in our lives,
we want to share it with them.
We tell them all of our secrets
and they share theirs and if something happens,
they're the first person that we want to reach out
to and share the good news or bad news
or whatever kind of news.
This person that we reach out to when something happens
should be our partner or spouse
or even a parent or a best friend,
but if it's someone else entirely,
that may be worth looking into.
The third red flag is if you start to lie
or keep secrets from your spouse or partner
about this relationship.
Now I know that this should be a red flag in general,
but sometimes we just have to hear someone
say it out loud to us to realize
that it's not a good thing.
We really shouldn't feel the need
to keep anything from our partners or spouses
and sure, we all our own lives
and things that we don't tell then.
They don't need every painful detail
or play by play of our day,
but we shouldn't purposely be keeping them in the dark
about things we are doing and people we are engaging
with period and fourth and finally
do you find yourself comparing this person
to your partner or spouse?
Thinking that your spouse would never understand
or that they don't get you like this person does?
This is a really bad sign,
and should prompt you to take a deeper look
at your marriage or relationship
and what's going on.
We don't have to always believe
that our partner is the best thing ever,
but we shouldn't mentally put them down
or compare them to someone else
that we're engaging with.
We are all human and in a healthy relationship
we usually feel that our partner is wonderful
and we love them and we know they try their best.
Not that they aren't as good as someone else
because that means we probably don't want to be
with our spouse or partner anymore, you know?
Okay, so let's say this is happening to us
and we just found out,
but we don't want to break up or get a divorce.
We wanna work through it, what can we do?
Well, I talked about this a bit
in my video about cheating,
and I'll link that in the description.
And although I know that this type
of infidelity seems less hurtful or destructive,
but like I said at the beginning of this video,
it's really very much the same.
So whatever type of affair we are having,
it can erode the very foundation of our relationship
and in order to heal, we have to go through the same steps
I talked about in that other video
and if you don't remember those were, number one,
we have to grieve.
We have to grieve the loss of the relationship
because that relationship, even if it's just your belief
or your dream of what it's gonna be, it's died.
It's different now and we have to start
a new one, that's really the only way we can heal.
And even if this new one like I'm talking about
is with the same person,
we have to grieve that old relationship
and let it go.
We have to do this in order
to let go of our past and move forward.
So give yourself the time you need to fully grieve
that loss and number two,
communicate openly and honestly about what happened.
Your partner has to be open to answering questions
you have about their affair
and you have to be okay with considering
what your role was in letting the relationship
get off track.
This part is really, really hard,
but we have to stick through it
so all the information is out there in the open
and you are both free to talk about it.
This is honestly something you may wanna do
while in couple's therapy together
just to ensure that it doesn't start a fight
or make things worse, cause you to say something
you can't take back, for instance.
And number three, complete transparency
for a period of time.
This means that if we were the one
who had this emotional affair,
we have to be open to letting our partner look
at everything of ours for a while.
We have to give them unfettered access to our emails,
texts, phone, WhatsApp.
However we're communicating,
we have to give them access to it
and then check in on how this
is going every couple of weeks and at a certain point,
you will both have to agree that enough is enough
and privacy will begin to exist again
and yes I know this is the hardest part,
but you can't expect complete transparency
and no privacy forever.
That's really not healthy either.
Trust is important in a relationship,
but we have to give it time to come back,
and they have to build it
and we have to have examples
that they are trustworthy again, right?
We have to prove that we'll be able to do that
and that trust can exist.
So check in with one another
and figure out what works for you both.
How long do you think this needs to go on?
Checking in every couple of weeks,
and then and only then can this new relationship begin.
I hope you found this helpful.
I know emotional affairs are really very common,
and I just hope that this not only helped
you better understand them,
but also show you what you can do
to save your relationship and for obvious reasons,
I couldn't include all the causes, red flags,
or ways to heal so please share
any insights you have in those comments down below
and I will see you next time, bye!
(stammering)
I don't why it's that hard.