Has any body ever had an emotional affair ..

[Raidmywardrobe]

And what was the outcome?

Are you ok, ÒP?

NC for this but upon taking a good hard look in the mirror I would say yes, right now. With my ex from many years ago.

There is no "outcome" as we are still talking daily however I have a sneaking suspicion it will end up physical - the question is when and how long for.

Yes, many years ago and it ended my marriage.

My husband had an emotional affair of sorts. Whilst it wasn't physical, it destroyed my trust in him, which had been unbroken until then.
I sometimes wonder how we are going to go the distance when I don't feel like I can trust him.

I had a year long emotional affair.. we fell out and agreed not to talk of meeting or sex - both married. A year on we’re friends and text a lot but just as “friends”.
It’s quite sole destroying but I can’t seem to stop. He keeps me at a distance emotionally and really I’m not sure why he wants to keep me as a friend. We live at opposite ends of the country and will never see each other yet keep in almost constant contact.

Why?

im in one. both married. i know exactly why im in one and ive worked out why hes in one.
i love my partner but never fou d him attractive. for years i always thought it was just me that didnt enjoy intimacy kissing etc...thought it was hormones. had a strong attraction to om. we kissed a couple of times, i loved it. we stopped it at that and have agreed to be judt friends....but we text every night for 1 or 2 hours and through the day.....we can kid ourselves we are just good friends but we clearly arent.

for him...i think he loves his wife to bits but she suffers from depression and doesnt sleep with him. no intimacy. he feels rejected and unloved. she said she wants to leave him but he wants to work at it for the kids sake, plus they are tied up with finances....
i know im just a gap filler. a void. i thinj if his wife showed him love and affection i would be dropped off the radar very quickly. he said it spins round his head asking himself if he loves me or not but to be honest i think i just fill the gaps.
its an emotional rollercoaster. an addiction. its a mess.
i know ive distanced myself away from my partner. im riddled with guilt and low self esteem. i feel like this guy has me dancing to his tune and im sitting by the phone all the time.
ive ended it a few times but we keep going back because of the heartbreak it causes. you grieve and its like a break up.
i need to be strong and break free. i know that if his wife left him and he went out with me i would always be the 2nd choice. just the eye candy on his arm. i could never settle for 2nd best to someone....so i know even if we ended up together, it still wouldnt be right.
if you want to talk and explain your situation feel free to pm me.

Thanks for so much insight and honesty. I’m struggling to determine difference between an intense friendship and emotional relationship . Both in relationships . Both colleagues. Nightly and weekend texting . Not much contact when with our partners but a lot of double entendre, I love you’s, comments on personal appearance and on personal traits otherwise. I don’t initiate out of habit .

What is cognitive dissonance

When you hold two opposing ideas or beliefs or where what you do is at odds with what you believe

Smoking kills - you smoke

Dogs are the best! I hate the barking buggers

You do realise your partner knows don’t you?

They may no very little at this point but deep down there will be that knot of doubt in their stomach that eats away at their heart, self esteem, mental health and respect for you.

You may be mentioning this other person much more than anyone else, you may have decided to not mention anything at all so you exclude your partner from your working life completely, leaving them feeling left out and missing the closeness of sharing tales of each other’s working day.

It’s a soul destroying way to live, knowing/thinking your partner is emotionally involved with someone else. Such a disgusting thing to do to someone you lead to believe we’re the one for you.

My partner knows the nature of our friendship. I was worried in case it was beginning to cross a line and that’s why I posted this. Something inside me f me tells me this is wrong, that my friend is meeting an unmet need , which he is . Cognitive dissonance makes sense. I don’t feel honest even though I’m not hiding anything . There is no issue or argument with my partner . I love my partner but I also love my friend in a different way . I do not want it to cross any boundary and that’s why I asked on this forum. I needed to stand outside the box and see if this was more an emotional affair rather than a deep friendship .

When I was With my ex there was no closeness or intimacy and he excluded me from a lot of aspects of his life. I became very close friends with a guy at work who had a girlfriend who lived in a foreign country. Nothing physical ever happened but we'd talk all the time and confide in each other. We would have lunch together every day and go for drinks one on one sometimes. I hadn't heard of emotional affairs at the time but it probably was one looking back.

The outcome was that I split with my ex and he decided to move to be with his girlfriend. They have since split. We are still face book friends and occasionally chat but it's nowhere near as intense. DP, him and I occasionally socialise together in a group whereas my ex never met him. We no longer confide in each other and I don't spend any time with him alone.

Well, what Mn generally calls an 'emotional affair' for me is a perfectly normal, non-sexual close friendship with a man, but what you're describing sounds far more like a rather sleazy flirtation and a testing of the waters:

a lot of double entendre, I love you’s, comments on personal appearance and on personal traits otherwise

I don't think double entendres and comments on personal appearance are a sign of 'intense friendship'.

OP, it is crossing a line isn't it - the messages for a start. The need to contact him.

How come you have the unmet need? Has communication with your partner become stale? Or is it not there and you can no longer do without? You will have to answer this and either renovate or leave.

If you see other things to love in this man, welcome to humanity. There are PLENTY of interesting, exciting, fresh people out there but you are with someone and you don't get to sample the pot in this way anymore. You don't get to have intense friendships with men one on one, you have to choose not to do it and choose to open that window to your partner back up.

What do you think you might do now?

It may sound sleazy but really it was a comment here and there about looking well on a given day or when there were problems in my personal life he would tell me that he loved me and that he would support me or if he hurt me and was apologising .I didn’t find it sleazy but still I don’t speak like that to my other friends nor they to me so that’s why I found it uncomfortable . We don’t really have much contact when we are with our partners but it’s constant when we are not . His relationship is a under a year old and is relaxed . He doesn’t speak about her really . Mine is years longer and I speak about mine in passing and in context.

Yes, I'm in one, via constant and intense texting only, both married.

We've both tried to stop, but fail miserably after 24 hours, and then it only seems to get worse and deeper because we realise and tell one another how much we missed the other and how we can't live without them.

It's never been physical or sexual, which probably makes the emotional bond greater, because it's easier to justify it 'but we're not doing anything wrong'

It's highly addictive and dangerous.

Quit now OP, while you still have some control.

I feel my marriage is over.

Crossed posts . I think i need to pull right back. He was with his partner two nights ago and did not contact me at all, yet last night he spent his evening messaging me ... for about five hours . I responded to every third or fourth message as I don’t understand the intensity of the messages when he isn’t with her and then minimal if none when he is.although I’ve noticed lately , as their relationship goes on, that he has started to contact me more when he is with her or very very late at night, perhaps when she is asleep or he has gone home . I’d love to read his mind

Thanks pp. we have never acknowledged or discussed our friendship or the intensity of it . We don’t tell eachother we miss eachother . There have been a few cheek kisses rather than the usual hug but this is subjective as everyone has different ways of greeting or comforting friends. He likes his girlfriend but is not in love with her by his account. His comments and compliments have eased off a little since he met her but still there now and again .i never ever compliment or pass any personal comments to him. I think he might respect and admire me but that’s where I stop. I once suggested pulling back from texting and messaging and comments but he was upset and said he felt like we were breaking up!!!we lasted a day .

That sounds like how mine started, although ours got intense very quickly - we describe no contact as a bereavement rather than a breakup.

Do you want to stop contact with him?

I think you're in dangerous territory

I take your point . I feel like I may be going into dangerous territory unless I put the brakes on . However, I thought it was a positive move that the contact and personL comments reduced when he was with her and seeing her . When he started the relationship basically . I would be sad to lose the friendship but don’t want it to develop into anything else as I don’t want to pursue any relationship with anyone other than my partner . I may be rambling but I find it confusing . Lines seem to be blurred

If there are no kids involved then I think you need to ask yourself if you are truly happy in your current relationship. There's nothing wrong with having your head turned and then realising you aren't happy where you are but you are the edge of an affair. If you wouldn't be happy for your partner to read everything you write then you've already crossed a line. Maybe find a therapist to hash it out with.

Texting someone constantly is VERY different than a warts and all relationship. Is it him you like or the idea of him? This guy sounds fairly intense.

Having been on the receiving end of one I think it’s often used as a distraction when other parts of life are going a bit shit. It’s the actual buzz and the secrecy that’s very addictive, rather than necessarily ‘that person’ who you are only seeing in a certain space and under certain conditions. It’s basically the thrill of the ‘new’. I do think some people struggle with life when it gets Groundhog Day, some get addictions to drugs, booze, gambling, porn, shopping, some to the buzz of attracting other people. All are rubbish but EAs have a massive potential to destroy your marriage without much sympathy from a partner

I have remained OP, but I have to be honest and say it has buggered trust somewhat and I don’t see him in quite the same light