To think there are no emotional affairs.

[welliesarefuntowear]

That they are affairs. They have been unfaithful and betrayed you. I see the words emotional affair used so many times almost as though it's a reasonable explanation for the lies that have been told. I think it does the person who has been betrayed a disservice to even to try and distinguish the two. And I truly believe it's used to give cognitive dissonance to the fact that they will have had sex with that person.

@crazycatladi I did see that there was something wrong, despite the fact that nothing happened with EA.

@WildChristmas Yes, I think it was awful for my husband (now ex). He is still angry about it some years on. However, some things are worse than infidelity or EAs, and he did all of them (not relevant to this thread).

The EA was part of a very bad marriage. As I say, I never discussed my marriage with my EX partner, though.

I have a friend whose husband was involved in an emotional affair - it might have progressed to a full blown affair if she hadn't found out about it, who knows.
It started with a colleague who was younger than him, who started by oversharing all her feelings and thoughts with him and, like an idiot, he started oversharing back with her. They became very close, very intimate - but there was no opportunity for them to have had a physical relationship at that stage.
I do believe this because I've also been involved in an emotional affair, almost without realising at the time - I was good friends with this bloke who lived in a different country but came back to the UK to see family - and he used to email me about all his troubles with his wife and his thoughts and feelings, none of which he felt he could share with her because "she didn't understand like I did". We got very close over the email but the next time he came back to the UK it was pretty awkward and our friendship fizzled out. No physical side.
In hindsight it was a bloody stupid thing for me to have done, but I was flattered at the time (stupid) - wouldn't do it again.

@thumbs at least you are honest that you were flattered by the married man’s attention - him saying you were better than his wife in effect as you ‘understood him’.

I think that’s very hard for the betrayed person, knowing that we are so humiliated and demeaned. It’s quite cruel. However I do know that my Exes women friends felt special. They were flattered that he confided in him. They used terms like ‘he’s my very good friend’.

Sorry OP but that's a bit confusing. Can you explain what you mean?

Also I'm very confused with all: friendship, emotional friendship, platonic friendship, emotional affair

I feel like a lot of women get confused about what an emotional affair is, as a lot of us have that female friend who we love fiercely and could easily describe as 'our other half'.

So when we see the checklist for an emotional affair and see that we do some of those things with our best friend who we are absolutely sure we don't want to be in a relationship with, it's all a bit

I think the term emotional affair is used to make the person/people cheating feel better about it. 'We weren't cheating, we didn't have sex'. They try to get out of it because it wasn't physical, but it's still cheating.

One very basic difference, @ChristmasSweet, is probably that you don't fantasise about snogging your closest female friend. You probably don't set up secret phones or email accounts to communicate with them, either.

That's make sense @Expearte, thank you!

I think emotional affaires are a big spectrum, unlike physical affairs.

The minute people kiss/ fondle/ never mind have sex they KNOW they are breaking the rules and betraying.

But emotional affaires are really unclear. On one end of the spectrum, it's an innocent friendship with perhaps a little underlying chemistry, which is managed respectfully and responsibly. On the other end of the extreme, there is lying, covering up, dissing the partners, fantasizing, and preparing to escalate to the physical.

I think on the first end of the spectrum, right and wrong is not very clear.

I had a very close male friend for about ten years while I was married. He was 25 years older than me and lived in a foreign country. Neither of us ever revealed with a gesture, glance, word never mind action, anything we felt for each other beyond friendship (and even now I don't know what he felt for me!). We always spoke about our spouses with total respect, never complaining about our relationships. Both spouses knew we were friends and the four of us met together sometimes, and there was nothing said in our correspondence that either spouse could ever object to.

But there WAS an energy and attraction of some kind that was different to friendship. I just felt it. And I looked forward to seeing him and receiving his emails in a way that I didn't with anyone else. In a parallel universe, I can imagine we might have dated - though I am also quite sure it would have ended in disaster! It is possible on some level it created a pocket of emotion/energy in me that distracted me from my spouse.....I was conscious of 'limiting it' - for example only writing one, lengthy email per month to make sure this didn't take over too much.

Was I having an emotional affair? Perhaps.... I still don't really know.

But there WAS an energy and attraction of some kind that was different to friendship. I think you describe it well. And if you can keep respectful boundaries and recognize it, you will probably keep on the safe side.

To me it’s like a full blown affair is swimming in the sea.

Flirting is dipping you toe in but you save your best for your actual partner.

What you described @BraveGoldie is wading in to your legs. A bit too far. Easy to go all the way in and is getting away from your husband. Who is the land.

An emotional affair is going right in the water but not swimming, then turning around to your partner and saying that you are not in the water at all, they are just jealous you are not in any water!

An emotional affair is going right in the water but not swimming, then turning around to your partner and saying that you are not in the water at all

Brilliantly described, @WildChristmas

@WildChristmas thank you. That's description is perfect.

I don’t think an emotional affair automatically leads to a physical one. However each other’s feelings about the other are acknowledged and it can get intense and it continues over a long period. It is hard to break away as it is a shoulder to cry on, an ego boost, attraction and perhaps mostly wishful thinking about being with each other.