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Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Featured Quizzes
Are You Having An Emotional Affair? Find Out
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Cheating emotional affairs love platonic friendships relationship issues relationships romance women
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Cheating emotional affairs love platonic friendships relationship issues relationships romance women
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How to Stop an Emotional Affair in its Tracks
- Quit cold turkey - setting boundaries for continued contact can be a slippery slope. It's best to cut it off completely.
- Remove temptation -- change your phone number, get a new e-mail address and start new social media accounts. If you work together, ask to be transferred. Avoid locations where you may run into each other. Throw away photos, love letters or physical reminders to avoid a relapse.
- Come clean - even if nothing happened physically, you need to clear your conscience and start a new trend of honesty and openness in your relationship. Be ready for the fallout of this decision and even be prepared to work with a counselor or other relationship advisor.
Once you remove yourself from an emotional affair, you can begin to pick up the pieces of your relationship. There is no doubt that your spouse or partner will feel extremely hurt and deceived, and it may take some time for him or her to come around to working on the relationship.
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1) We should prioritize a single emotional / physical relationship.
2) To develop another relationship that threatens or upsets this main relationship is inherently bad.
3) Physically or emotionally intimate relationships are zero-sum entities -- the importance we give to one relationship automatically diminishes any other relationship, and the development of a new relationship cannot improve or enrich our existing relationships.
Implicit in this set of a*sumptions is the notion that loyalty to one's primary / habitual partner must take full precedence over such things as personal fulfilment and happiness, opportunities for self-development, sexual compatibility, the abandonment of an oppressive living situation etc., and that it is therefore impossible to strike a workable balance with other intimate relationships. Indeed, the very term 'emotional affair' is itself a value-loaded expression, not a neutral descriptor.
My view is that there is no fixed set of a*sumptions about intimate relationships that works equally well for everybody. No two individuals will rank the issues or activities that are important to them in the same order, or with the same intensity of feeling. It is up to each of us individually to periodically renegotiate them with the people who are important in our lives. This applies even when we have caring responsibilities for others, such as children or dependent invalids: in such cases we may have to make greater compromises in our personal or romantic relationships than otherwise, but I think it is unreasonable to insist that we owe an unquestioning loyalty to a partner who is failing to meet some important needs.
The emergence of what the unnamed author of this article calls an 'emotional affair' is a clear indication that not everything is satisfactory in a person's habitual primary relationship, especially if it cannot be openly acknowledged. It is an unfortunate but sometimes unavoidable fact that a partner who seemed to answer all our needs when we were 25 will not do so at 45, either because they have changed, we have changed, or both. In this situation, one of the most salient questions for both parties to examine is the nature and extent of the shortfall.
Taking effective remedial action will involve trying to be honest both with oneself and the other individuals involved, and trying as hard as possible to be both clear-thinking and fair-minded regarding the best course to take.
The process may be difficult and painful, and it may sometimes involve the end of a long-lasting relationship; but if the alternative is remaining in a one-sided or loveless marriage, for instance, the price will probably be worth paying.