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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think that term 'emotional affair' does the other person have to reciprocate?

50 replies

BoysofMelody · 30/09/2017 19:33

I see the term 'emotional affair' bandied about on here a lot. I've never been clear on the definition. I get that it involves a romantic or emotional attachment to someone outside the relationship, but wondered does the other person have to reciprocate for it to be an emotional affair? Surely an affair involves two willing participants, not one forming an emotional attachment that may not be reciprocal or they may be unaware of.

Otherwise it seems like victim blaming someone who is the recipient of someone else's obsessive behaviour.

OP posts:
MyBrilliantDisguise · 30/09/2017 19:35

I agree - for it to be an emotional affair, both have to be emotionally involved.

Trills · 30/09/2017 19:41

What's happening here?

Someone is claiming that you are having an emotional affair with their husband.
But you are doing nothing.
The husband is in love with you, but you are do not feel anything for him and are not encouraging him (and would actually prefer him to not feel it).

Something like that?

Original poster
BoysofMelody · 30/09/2017 19:46

Someone is claiming that you are having an emotional affair with their husband.
But you are doing nothing.
The husband is in love with you, but you are do not feel anything for him and are not encouraging him (and would actually prefer him to not feel it).

Something like that?

No, no - nothing of the sort, the idea that I could be the object of anyone's deep emotional yearning, is quite funny!

I was just interested in the term and if used to describe an unreciprocated arrangement, smacks of victim blaming and that being the object of someone's obsession could be as distressing for them as the partner, but casting them as a participant in an emotional affair falsely puts them on a par with the 'cheater'.

OP posts:
BarbarianMum · 30/09/2017 19:49

Yes i think that both parties need to be involved, otherwise it is just a crush, or limerence.

Trills · 30/09/2017 19:51

OK, so it's not you, but that is the sort of situation that you are describing?

Applesandpears23 · 30/09/2017 19:53

For me an emotional affair is a very close friendship with over sharing of personal details about their lives and their spouses, in jokes, constant contact, sneaking around to spend extra time together but not actually having sex. So yes both people have to be active participants.

Original poster
BoysofMelody · 30/09/2017 19:54

Trills I'm just thinking in the abstract. Absolutely no back story. Honestly.

OP posts:
Trills · 30/09/2017 19:56

Yes I got that it was hypothetical, I'm not accusing you of hiding a real situation.

WeeMadArthur · 30/09/2017 19:56

I think both parties have to be aware of the connection, and both doing nothing to discourage it. You can tell if someone is saying or doing something inappropriate, so if you take steps to discourage/ignore/back away then that's not an emotional affair. If you respond in kind/encourage/sympathise then it's an emotional affair.

An ex-colleague who I always got on well with occasionally made out of the blue comments on how he and his wife didn't talk/hold/hands/have sex anymore, if I had been unhappily married I can see how that could have been an opening to cry on each other's shoulders. You have to shut them down. If he had gone further I would have told him that the only person he should have been talking to about that was his wife! (But having my exH cheat on me with a colleague does make me very untolerant of that sort of thing).

I think that if you can assess it as 'Would I be happy if DH was doing this with another woman?' you will have your answer

Original poster
BoysofMelody · 30/09/2017 19:58

Ahh I see! Yes, that sort of situation or the object of the emotions being unaware or thinking it is just a friendship.

OP posts:
27Feb · 30/09/2017 20:01

Yes. Definitely. Otherwise it's not an emotional affair - it's having a crush.

Trills · 30/09/2017 20:19

From the point of view of the other party, it's definitely very different. They are not participating in anything.

From the point of view of "what is the cheater doing?" it could be very similar to an emotional affair.

Trills · 30/09/2017 20:20

I agree with you that e shouldn't use the phrase "emotional affair" for this situation.

stopfuckingshoutingatme · 30/09/2017 20:21

What the Jeff is limerance Confused

Redredredrose · 30/09/2017 20:32

Dunno. Someone had what I suspect was an emotional affair with me. His wife found our emails (which were in all honesty completely innocent and non-flirty, but revealed our long history of friendship, when she'd never heard of me). We didn't live close by but we're planning a meet up over Easter while she was away with their kids staying with family in a different country. I was devoted to my boyfriend at the time and truly had no plans for anything to happen, but he admitted to me later than he was feeling romantically towards me. It caused a lot of trouble in their marriage, and although we stayed in sporadic touch, he was actually forbidden from having any more contact with me. A couple of years later we started emailing again with more frequency. I was in a newish relationship with DP, and I realised I was looking forward to his emails with a little more excitement than I should have been (though again no flirty contact), so I stopped emailing completely.

Looneytune253 · 30/09/2017 20:32

But just say you were single and a married man was obsessed with you and you weren't interested. If he is running after you and making advances, sexting you etc. From the wife's pov it may feel like an emotional affair as he is emotionally attached to another woman.

Redredredrose · 30/09/2017 20:34

That should be 'were planning a meet up' not 'we're'! This was seven years ago and we haven't been in contact now for 5 or more years.

Crunchymum · 30/09/2017 20:35

To me yes an EA is reciprocal.

Redredredrose · 30/09/2017 20:38

And by meet up, I mean we were planning to go to an English Heritagr site, not go out for drinks. It was genuinely innocent as far as I was concerned.

MyDobbygotgivenasock · 30/09/2017 20:50

I'm not sure actually but only because I have been the faithful wife to the unfaithful husband and the other women really didn't concern me much (I think it's shitty if you know but I saw the lies he told, it would be vastly different had I known them as friends I suspect), they certainly weren't some novella style seductresses hell bent on 'stealing' my poor hapless man, there may be damaged people who do try to cause misery intentionally but usually any villainous casting of the other party is to ease the fury and pain of a heart broken by someone you trusted, someone 'good' doing a very bad thing and if it can be laid at another door it helps some hurting, broken people ease just a little bit of pain or it can let them allow themselves to be fooled back to a relationship they deeply value when they already just want it all to never have happened. Not great, not healthy, I understand it. For me it's his intention, he is clearly out for an EA and hopefully or probably more, the fact that one woman might slap him back doesn't stop that disloyalty on his part, it's merely one failed opportunity. The victim is the spouse/partner but can also be the other woman/man depending on the situation. The shit is the person who promised fidelity, they wanted an emotional affair and that's where your problem is.
There are a whole pick n mix variety of situations and nuance but I think my point is I see it similarly to being arrested for attempted anything, just because they didn't manage it doesn't mean they didn't try and that is where the charge is hung. If that makes sense to anyone else Blush

MyDobbygotgivenasock · 30/09/2017 20:59

Also, sometimes, sometimes rarely, there are a confluence of circumstances that lead to a genuinely deeply regretted mistake and it won't happen again. These types of situations are more likely to be attempted emotional affairs than physical and the other party might genuinely have no idea what the 'cheater's' deal is because it's all very murky altogether. Is it still an EA? Yes I think so but it's still not having to be a reciprocal deal because only one person is your partner. So if you have a contract with someone and they break it by, say, using another business you wouldn't get to give the other business a kicking in court because it's nothing to do with them.

haveacupoftea · 30/09/2017 21:07

I think it would be rare for one person to have the intensity of feeling to facilitate an EA without the other having similar feelings. Say I was messaging someone who wasn't DP. If we exchanged say 50 messages a day for weeks sure it could just be me feeling like I was involved emotionally. But would the other party really spend all that time messaging me if there was no emotional involvement there?

So if they weren't involved in the EA surely they would just reply a couple of times throughout the day or let the conversation drop for days or whatever?

Note: this is not happening in my actual life!

2rebecca · 30/09/2017 21:09

It depends what you mean by unreciprocated. If a married man just send another woman lots of texts or thinks about her a lot and the woman largely ignores him, doesn't text him back, doesn't have intimate phone conversations or meet up with him and listen to him then he just has a crush on her or fancies her.
On the other hand if the woman texts him back, or has long or regular phone conversations or meetings with them then even if she doesn't fancy him her behaviour is odd and she is encouraging him to have an emotional attachment to her.

Redredredrose · 30/09/2017 21:10

To me, once you realise you're having more than friendly feelings towards someone, if you're already in a committed relationship, you should immediately cut contact. I don't think you're necessarily culpable for starting to have those feelings, but as soon as you recognise them, you need to stop.

Original poster
BoysofMelody · 30/09/2017 21:10

50 messages a day for weeks sure it could just be me feeling like I was involved emotionally. But would the other party really spend all that time messaging me if there was no emotional involvement there

50 would be extreme yes, but the other person could see regular text contact, coffee and chitchat as wholly platonic. I do all these things with friends of the opposite sex and it isn't indication that I have an unhealthy emotional attachment to them or vice versa

OP posts: