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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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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:

27Feb · 30/09/2017 21:11

I guess the reason I don't like the term 'emotional affair' for an reciprocated crush is that people on MN are so horrible about anyone they attach the label 'OW' and it feels really unfair to drop that on a woman (or man for that matter) who hasn't done anything.

I can see why it would feel much the same either way to the cheated on party.

2rebecca · 30/09/2017 21:12

The secrecy and hiding contact intensity from wife (or husband) is also important as Redredrose says.

Original poster

BoysofMelody · 30/09/2017 21:13

MN are so horrible about anyone they attach the label 'OW' and it feels really unfair to drop that on a woman (or man for that matter) who hasn't done anything

That's my objection to the term too.

OP posts:

Redredredrose · 30/09/2017 21:15

In my case, rebecca, this was a guy I'd been friends with since university. Sometimes we'd have lots if contact, sometime we wouldn't talk/email for months. So I didn't immediately recognise he was having inappropriate feelings for me, especially since he was married with kids and knew I was in a relationship. I also didn't realise his wife was unaware of my existence (until she found our emails). One of the wurst things from her point of view was that our emails referenced an occasion a year previously when he stopped on his way back from a conference for dinner with me. Again, completely innocently and nothing happened, but he hadn't mentioned it to her which made her suspicious (not unreasonably really). It must have been a huge deal to her to find out he had a female friend from his university days, like no before they'd met, with whom he discussed lots of thinks, who she had never even heard of.

Redredredrose · 30/09/2017 21:18

God so many typos. Hopefully my meaning is clear. Typing with fat fingers on my phone.

2rebecca · 30/09/2017 21:20

I wouldn't get angry with the OW in this case, although I would be fairly cool with her and not want to spend time with her. I don't think it's surprising that people in committed relationships form emotional attachments to other people sometimes, to me that's part of being human. I would ensure my husband knew the contact had to stop if our marriage continued though as it does affect your emotional attachment to your spouse if you are thinking about someone else.

MrsTerryPratchett · 30/09/2017 21:21

I've had the situation where the wife of a friend wasn't entirely happy with the friendship but my DH wouldn't have cared. Because the friend was getting something from me that he wasn't getting from his wife and that was problematic. He was a mate to me.

I tried to make it OK but she wasn't going to be OK with it. She just wanted him not to hang out with me. And that's sort of controlling so who knows who was actually 'right'. Marriage didn't last...

2rebecca · 30/09/2017 21:33

If my husband said he was meeting up with a woman as a friend because he was supplying something that she couldn't get from her husband I wouldn't be happy.
She should be talking to her husband about it and getting professional support, not expecting my husband to be her comforter. That is the sort of situation that easily turns in to an emotional affair.

MrsTerryPratchett · 30/09/2017 21:41

Hence why it was problematic! It was more about her insecurities than anything else IMO but who knows? No one knows what the inside of someone else's marriage looks like.

27Feb · 30/09/2017 21:44

2rebecca - do you really get everything you need emotionally from your husband? No emotional support/connection/mental or emotional stimulation from anyone outside the relationship? And you think people should seek professional help if they aren't 100% emotionally engaged only with their spouse?

Iwanttobe8stoneagain · 30/09/2017 21:46

Tbh I'm always really confused about this term. I've grown up talking to my best friend about problems in relationships, having in jokes, telling each other private things. I wouldn't class this as an emotional affair, it's very claustrophobic expecting a partner to be the only person you would ever have these things with, we seem to expect our partners to fulfill every need. Is it the sex of the person you have this deep friendship with? Would it make a difference of my best friend was a guy?

27Feb · 30/09/2017 21:56

Iwanttobe8stoneagain - I think that's what I'm getting at too! I'm bisexual, so basically either gender could be the one I date, and I would hate it if I couldn't be emotionally close to anyone as a result.

DeadMorose · 30/09/2017 22:06

But it’s not the friendship that’s the problem. It’s the hiding of all the contact and oversharing about personal stuff.

Original poster

BoysofMelody · 30/09/2017 22:25

Thing is, I do have an emotional connection to my opposite sex friends otherwise we wouldn't be friends and in some cases share interests and in jokes due to a shared work/study/lesiure.

I've also relied and (provided them with, hopefully) emotional support over the years and sought relationship advice from them. I hope this doesn't make me a serial adulterer (without getting to do the fun bit).

OP posts:

2rebecca · 30/09/2017 22:25

If my husband decided he needed another woman to supply mental stimulation or emotional support I wasn't providing on a regular basis I wouldn't want to remain in the marriage as I obviously wasn't what he needed.
Some women may be happy with that, I wouldn't, especially if it was secretive and I was excluded.

2rebecca · 30/09/2017 22:27

I think it's the extent and intensity of the friendship though and that person being a "special" friend you mainly meet with alone. Different to group chat at work or cycling in a group and having a natter in the cafe.

27Feb · 30/09/2017 22:38

2rebecca - you don't have any friends you're ever alone with? That sounds terribly lonely to me. Hope you're OK.

2rebecca · 30/09/2017 22:51

I don't have male friends I'm regularly alone with whose wives don't know they are with me or who aren't happy they are with me and who text me every day and confide emotional stuff in me they don't confide in their wife.
On the whole I want my male friends to have happy marriages so if I knew their wife wasn't happy they were seeing me I wouldn't gloat about it and feel I should take priority over their wife but would back off if the man wanted to remain in the marriage.

Iwanttobe8stoneagain · 30/09/2017 23:07

2rebecca of your best friend though was needing your support through a difficult patch with her husband and needed to confide in you but didn't tell her husband as wasn't sure he would want her discussing things. Would you turn your back? Or head to the pub with her and provide a shoulder to cry on?

pobblewashere · 01/10/2017 00:27

Oh this brings back so much pain. I walked in on my husband telling a woman how much he loved her ( he was v. drunk at the time after a night out). Swore blind she was just a friend. Found out he had been seeing her for 2 years as 'mates'. He wanted more but she said no ' i'm not a marriage wrecker'. Now, i'm fine with a friendship but he was besotted. He told so many lies.Said he wasn't seeing her when he clearly was. All I asked was that it was out in the open, no more lies. He wouldn't let me meet her, made me out to be paranoid.I wanted to leave but we were looking after his frail elderly mother and I couldn't abandon her so we soldiered on. He thrived on the secrecy and once it was in the open the attraction was gone and now the friendship is no more. We are still together but there is no respect any more on my part. Just too old to start anew.

MyDobbygotgivenasock · 01/10/2017 01:43

Oh Pobble it's just the absolute pits and the insult to the injury is you being hurt further because of your integrity. He's a fool if he doesn't know what he's lost for nothing.

Dontknowwherethelineis · 01/10/2017 08:18

I think the circumstance where you actually find out whether the feeling is mutual is going to be rare so it's not realistically an objective term. I can't imagine many scenarios where the partner asks the 'OW' whether she had the emotions to constitute an EA, so I think I'd consider the emotional attachment of my partner only when deciding whether I thought he'd had an EA.

I also think the intentions of the parties are a deal breaker if you're going to call EA. I'm pretty much an open book emotionally and overshare with anyone who asks. I had a male work colleague who was pretty much the same. We'd been friends before I was with my partner and once I was with my partner we'd continue to go for lunch together and discuss our relationships, including his serious problems, including his attraction to specific other women (not me).
He also discussed his problems with other female friends too so other than feeling that he was treating his gf badly by not breaking up with her I just saw it as a normal friendship. I was completely open with my husband re. The content of the conversations and later found out he was furious and thought they were inappropriate, which was genuinely a complete surprise to me.

Trills · 01/10/2017 09:11

If it's 50 messages a day every day then the allegedly uninvolved person is either very stupid or deceiving themselves. And possibly secretly liking the attention.

That reminds me of the thread recently where someone had posted "miss seeing your face xxx" on and ex-colleagues's Facebook (about 5 times...) and had been asked to stop. Nothing had been going on between them, it sounded like he was a bit shocked at the exuberance, but she should have known it would look bad.

Past a certain point the other person will find it hard to claim complete ignorance, and they have to say not only "I thought we were just friends" but also "and I thought this was appropriate behaviour"..

27Feb · 01/10/2017 09:42

Trills - Messages stack up very quickly - my (straight female) best friend and I exchanged 27 messages on Thursday, just organising a dinner we were doing the joint catering for. 50 messages at 10 seconds a pop is what? Less than ten minutes out of someone's day. Hardly all consuming.

I'm not saying people can't have inappropriate friendships. I just think some folk on MN seem very keen to read the absolute worst into any kind of interaction between men and women.

Iamclearlyamug · 01/10/2017 10:16

I agree that both parties need to be emotionally involved to deem it an "emotional affair" HOWEVER even if the other person isn't interested that doesn't make even a crush acceptable. As far as I'm concerned if my partner had a big crush on someone else it would mean they were no longer fully invested in the relationship with me and I'd be saying byebye

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