Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2

Original poster

To ask what exactly is an emotional affair?

30 replies

LustyBusty · 02/08/2013 07:24

Kind of a TAAT, but... I'm a bit confused. I hear on here a lot about emotional affairs, and I'm not sure where you draw the line? And is it different if the friend is the same sex as you or opposite? The below example is a situation I found myself in with (now ex for unrelated reasons!) dp a couple of years ago.
I have 2 friends F (female) and M (male). F is the same age as me, known her 10 years, lives 300 miles away, share everything with her, but usually only once a month or so. M is 20 years older than me, known him 3 years or so, is a work colleague and I share most things with him, we usually go out for a drink once a week. (Context, I work away from home, don't see dp in the week at all.) I would say I get on equally well with both M and F, but they are different friendships. F is for girly chat, support, bitching etc, M is for fun, rude jokes etc. I would text both a lot outside of work.
Was I having an EA with M?
TIA, Lusty

OP posts:

Lagoonablue · 02/08/2013 07:27

Just sounds like a friend tbh.

Tee2072 · 02/08/2013 07:29

An EA is when you use a person who is not your spouse/partner for 100% emotional support. And, usually, your spouse/partner has no idea the person exists.

It's one thing to share things with friends. It's another to share them with your friends and not your spouse.

thebody · 02/08/2013 07:31

when you are sharing 'everything' with someone other than your partner its wierd I think. really everything?

your sex life, dreams,fears, jokes. is nothing private to you and your partner, just you two?

that's what your life partner is for otherwise why bother.

fluffyraggies · 02/08/2013 07:34

Yes, and i'd add that it's an EA if you are spending significant amounts of time thinking or day dreaming about that other person. Not necessarily in a sexual way. Wondering what they are doing. Wondering what you will say to them next. Wondering what they will say to you. Getting a thrill out of daily contact with them more than you are from your partner/spouse. Putting contact with them before contact with your DP.

CockyFox · 02/08/2013 07:37

I think an emotional affair is where you have the same type of relationship with a close friend of the same sex as your partner ad you do with your partner just without the physical part and your partner doesn't know they exsist.

Tee2072 · 02/08/2013 07:41

That's the whole point thebody. It's an affair. Just not a physical one.

It's just as damaging to a relationship as a physical one. Maybe even more so in some ways.

thebody · 02/08/2013 07:45

yes Tee agree. tred carefully op.

Mia4 · 02/08/2013 09:07

I see an EA as where you share your everything emotional/metal/verbal with someone who isn't your partner or your best friend and, quite often, pull away from your partner and lose that intimacy with them. Basically you're replacing your partner and giving to the other more. Also sometimes in EA the person cheating uses the other person to bitch and moan about their partner, intensifying the intimacy between them by taking problems outside the relationship rather then addressing them with their partner.

I don't mean texting your friend to rant 'X is really pissing me off today, why is he always so messy. No matter how many times i ask him to pick up his shit, he forgets!'' More 'X and I are having real issues, X never listens to me, treats me like a child, i just can't talk to X anymore etc'

Biggest warning is when you use or are told ' I can't speak to X anymore, you're the only one I can talk to about this.

Mia4 · 02/08/2013 09:08

And no, I don't think you're having an EA, sounds like friendship to me. But it could always possibly become one later down the line.

meditrina · 02/08/2013 09:29

You haven't told us enough about the the roleof these relationships in your life. Because it's not about whether you have friends, it's about whether the nature of the friendship has crossed a line into cheating.

Yes, of course they can be either hetero or homo.

They are characterised by concealing their existence or their extent from your primary partner, and by including intimacies that you do not share (at all, so fully or so readily) with your partner.

So: did your partner know how often you were in touch with M? Does DP know what kind of friendship it is? And if he read your texts and was a fly on the wall of your meetings, would anything that happened hurt him or leave him feeling betrayed?

Emilythornesbff · 02/08/2013 10:22

I (very unfashionably, I know) think that EAs exist in the minds of women.
I reckon that if a man is considered to be having an EA Then he's either shagging the OW or preparing to.
I know that lots of ppl on MN say they have close friendships with men and that I appear to be out of touch but ime, this just doesn't happen if one of the ppl in that friendship has a DP. I do have male friends but there is always a bit of distance, which doesn't exist with my female friends.i believe that is because the "sex" thing always has the potential to get in the way. This can be fun when you're single, like testing out whether you'd be compatible with someone. But I think it's different when you're in a sexual relationship with someone else.
I do have a close male friend. I've known him for 20 odd years (longer than my DH) he knows things about me that my dh does not, in the way that I might share with another woman, but I think that if he were not gay, it would be very different.
I suspect I will be flamed for my view. I know it sounds really old fashioned.
So. I don't know. oP.
Only you know how you felt about this man. No one else.
Maybe that's just how it is for me. We are all different.

cushtie335 · 02/08/2013 10:29

My heterosexual male friends only seem comfortable being my mate when my DH is around, even if they "knew" me first. My oldest friend is a gay man and that's probably the purest friendship I have. I think I would literally die for him, I love him so much.

cushtie335 · 02/08/2013 10:34

and Emilythornesbff, I think you are probably right, the old When Harry Met Sally adage that sex always gets in the way has always been the case in my mixed gender friendships (apart from the gay man of course). Others menu may vary of course, we are all different.

EllesAngel · 02/08/2013 10:35

For me an emotional affair is when you're investing time, energy and emotion into a relationship that you should be putting into the relationship with your partner/spouse.

I reckon that if a man is considered to be having an EA Then he's either shagging the OW or preparing to.

He might very well be planning on sleeping with the OW eventually but the ea exists before any physical relationship starts.

Emilythornesbff · 02/08/2013 10:38

I hear you ellesangel but IMHO, for him, that's not an EA. it's the run up to an affair/ shag. at shallow view by self.

IneedAsockamnesty · 02/08/2013 10:48

I talk about what ever I want with who ever I want, who I have in my friendship group is nothing to do with anyone else.

As long as I'm not doing anything inappropriate (for that I mean sexual) then I will conduct myself how I see fit. Sometimes that's interacting with my male friends in exactly the same way as I would a female friend others that may mean not doing so,its much dependant on the friendship or person in question.

I also expect any partner I have to behave in the same way if they wish.

And if anybody spouted crap at me like you can't do that its a emotional affair they would be told promptly to fuck off.

I'm a grown up I can be trusted to moderate my own boundaries and behaviour.

GoodTouchBadTouch · 02/08/2013 10:48

Personally Id much rather my husband had anonymous sex with a girl than had a close female friendship. That's what IM for. In fact I can see it happening in the future when I stop putting out every 3rd day... he has a high sex drive, and I don't have one at all.

Im pretty sure Id be fine with it. I would HATE for him to want to spend time with a girl who isn't me. I don't think that will happen though. We are well matched.

pianodoodle · 02/08/2013 10:53

Isn't the film "Brief Encounter" pretty much an emotional affair for the main part?

I know there's that bit at the end where they start to get physical but it's thwarted etc...

There's the part where the husband says "thank you for coming back to me" when technically she was never physically absent.

Sob - might have to download that film now it's a good rainy day for it!

SarahBumBarer · 02/08/2013 10:54

I agree in part Emily. I do not think that EA's are just in the minds of women and I don't think it is as pre-mediatated as "preparing to shag" the OW. It is an often slow sub-conscious crossing of boundaries where you genuinely feel that it is simply a friendship deepening and a "coincidental" contemporaneous deterioration in your relationship with your OH.

However I do agree that there is and probably should be a difference in male/female friendships so I'm old fashioned too and have been burnt in the past by a friendship turning into something else for a while (completely out of the blue) and then ending badly. So while I might have some good male friends I do not and would not confide any relationship issues that I might be having with my DH with them in the way that I would with my female friends.

My DH thinks, and I agree to a large extent, that there are certain things that I can get from friendships with women (and vice-versa re him and men) that he cannot provide but thinks that in the main whatever I can get from a friendship with a man should be something that he can provide and there is a danger element to seeking that outside the marriage. There is not a ban on opposite sex friends but an expectation that we each maintain certain boundaries which are different to the boundaries which exist with same sex friendships.

OP with regard to whether it is different if the friend is of the same sex then yes and no. I would not say that it is an emotional affair with someone of the same sex and in general the absence of any sexual connection does not trigger the same kind of emotional betrayal as takes place in an EA but that is not to say that that person of the same sex may not be a danger and may not be a "friend to the marriage".

Is it actually the opposite sex friendship which is causing concern?

JamieandtheMagicTorch · 02/08/2013 11:41

The EA is dangerous because it can go on for a long time with all parties involved reassuring themselves they are doing nothing wrong because no sex is involved.

It bamboozles the spouse because they can be accused of being jealous and ridiculous, because "nothing has happened".

The relationship between spouses is then damage and the sex can be the "justified" more easily.

JamieandtheMagicTorch · 02/08/2013 11:47

sockreturning

I think it's narrow to define "inappropriate" just as "sexual", for me anyway. I have been married a long time.

Maybe it depends on the nature of your partnership/marriage - and whether the introduction of a "new^ friendship changes that. An EA will mean the spouse won't be as emotionally "present", will be taking their spouse for granted, will be reserving their "best side" for the other OM/OW. In some cases will be spending time with the Om/OW that really should be family time.

thebody · 02/08/2013 12:34

I agree with you Emily.

TroublesomeEx · 02/08/2013 13:24

The EA is dangerous because it can go on for a long time with all parties involved reassuring themselves they are doing nothing wrong because no sex is involved.

It bamboozles the spouse because they can be accused of being jealous and ridiculous, because "nothing has happened".

The relationship between spouses is then damage and the sex can be the "justified" more easily.

That's exactly what my exH did. He was really upset to have it called an affair on the basis that no sex had been involved before we separated (but did happen within 3 days of me kicking him out!) and he liked to think of himself as 'not like other men' and being above all that affairs nonsense. He believed he'd found 'true love'.

Maybe he had! He dumped her but they've recently got back together. Some of his friends who've met her have said she's more matched to him than I was and he was punching well above his weight with me anyway

Emilythornesbff · 02/08/2013 16:42

I think you have a very good point jamieandthemagictorch

Dahlen · 02/08/2013 16:51

I think a relationship crosses the line from friendship into an emotional affair when its existence starts to detract from the primary relationship - either because of the time it takes up, the effort that goes into it, or because it's a precursor to a sexual affair.

Flip

1 2