Emotional affairs - have you or your dh/dp had one?

[highlighter]

Apparantly these are becoming more and more common particulary with colleagues due to long working hours etc. It is where you have an emotional but not physical relationship with someone which goes beyond harmless flirting. Can be spending a lot of time with someone, calling them or texting them out of work, hiding it from your partner etc.

They can be just as destructive as physical affairs, the feelings of betrayal and hurt on discovery can be just as bad. I just wondered how many of you had experienced them and how you had dealt with it or whether you don't really think it's a big deal if it's not physical.

(am regular btw)

Sorry had to work!

No not to me but to two of my good friends recently. They are both having real problems with it

I have to nip out will check back later.

yes mp, agree.
this guy is wonderful as a very close friend, but couldnt really see us having much fun in reality. he is old enough to be my dad and has different interests.
i dont think he would want to go camping and drink voddy round a camp fire all night while daring each other to streak etc!
pmsl
aw bless him, he probably would actually to make me happy!

men off load but women internalise?

he looks hot in a suit too and is a looker i think, but he does not look or the least bit arousing cycling to work on his bike in cropped pants with his helmet on and some of those awful wrap around ski sunnies on! lol

dh on the other hand, would!

i think a man would always be up for a shag but a women would think of the emotional consequences, blah blah.......

not sure about that one ebs...
my 'lover' has a very sick wife who he loves dearly and looks after although he has confided he loves her more as a sister now. whereas i still love dh passionately iyswim?
out of the two of us, i would think he would be more up for a shag because of the way he feels about his wife, but atthe same time i dont think he could betray her like that.

men off load but women internalise?

Then it's DEFINITELY gone too far

Damnit, who ARE these men who are always up for a shag?

I need some of them in cupboards in my office

Agree about men in suits being Very Nice but not so nice when sitting in tracksuits watching the football and moaning that you don't understand how important their ipod is and how you don't make tea properly

etc

i know
crap

actually men don't tend to off load

no, dh doesnt off load either.
i only found out a few months ago how upset he was about my miscarriage in 2004!

neither will he move house as we planted a memorial tree in this garden...
bless 'im.
wish he had told me.

anyhoo, have killed the thread! soz!

LoTF, swopping text messages ...here's one of mine..

'I love you gingerone, nighty night xxx'

That is a bit too close to the mark. Ignored it.

lol!

pmsl

LoTF, what about this one....

' Move your leg, getting a semi and enjoying it too'

Moved seats, never mind my leg!

That is the most risque of all of them (well, maybe one other that asked a direct question)

And yes, I did not tell my DH about that one. Does that mean I am deceitful and wicked??

My opinion in relation to the op...

Being emotionally close to someone of the opposite sex, flirting, lunches out, drinks after work, the odd text or e-mail, helping and confiding in each other etc etc... I would see as perfectly normal. A friendship. And an emotional closeness which people find in real friends that they are comfortable with.

An emotional affair in which either party becomes seceretive (i.e. knows they are doing something 'wrong'), or in which a person says or does anything (on a regular basis) that they wouldn't want their OH to know about - can be just as harmful as a full physical affair. In every way.

Agree with MLS; I speak from experience as soomeone who found out. It really is an awful thing to come to terms with: the secrecy/deceit/betrayal..awful, awful, awful. Anyone who thinks it is harmless is very mistaken imo.

Yes I do think for what it's worth that people get into these situations without thinking what the consequences might be, it is very thoughtless and can lead to terrible sadness and anger and even splitting up

just checked back and lmfao at
'getting a semi'

thats baaaaad.

I could NOT fancy a grown man who used that expression

I would suspect that getting a semi was probably the height of his excitement

Hence why I moved seats!

i have
inadvertently
it is pretty much as bad as a full blown affair except you don't have the guilt of actually having shagged someone
it fucks with your head just as much
in my case it was as a result of getting back into touch with an old very serious boyfriend and having the whole post mortem of why we had split up, discussion of feelings etc etc etc etc
it got out of control because feelings still ran very strong albeit very deep. although we had firm rules - always met in public, never drank alcohol, and never so much as touched (because if we had done, that would have been it), it still was an emotional fuckup
there was nothing clandestine about it on my part, I always told me dh when we had lunch or whatever, but he didn't know how screwed up I was getting over it and I didn't really tell him
anyway was finally resolved by deciding not to speak/contact etc again and we haven't done so for um almost 3 years now

those of you who think emotional affairs are all nonsense really haven't experienced it. brief encounter has nothing on it, really