Talk:Emotional affair

Untitled
This page's tone, particularly in the opening (i.e, "They can be wonderful and life changing experiences. They are the stuff of great stories that teeter on the edge of consumation.") is neither neutral nor very formal. Links should also be modified (many still have an underscore between words). This article should include citations and focus more on statistics and studies. A section on incidence in literature/pop culture might be relevant, too.

Emotional affairs often involve deep friendship and intimacy as well as sexuality, which can lead to real problems if they cause another relationship to form. Tracing and proving this sort of infidelity can be extremely difficult, however. - Tracking Down Emotional Affairs

ServeNow 23:33, 23 February 2007 (UTC) servenow

This article needs to be overhauled
The tone of this entry is very one sided and not neutral in the least. It should be completely rewritten to reflect a neutral and formal tone, and not the tone of a self help book on emotional problems.

Dmaxen 21:31, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I am in agreement with Dmaxen. The tone here is off-informative. The entire first paragraph is a bunch of jargon, in my opinion.

Babyskates (talk) 04:17, 23 September 2008 (UTC) Babyskates 12:12, 23 September 2008 (EST)

Thirded! Has this been copy and pasted from Cosmopolitan or something similar? It's sub-magazine idiocy in places! Footcrab (talk) 18:24, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Opiates / Opioids
Sexual chemistry refers to opiates released in the brain in response to emotional/sexual arousal. -- Opiates cannot be released in the brain. Opiates are derivatives of Opium, which is cultivated from poppies. opioids (as endogenous opioid peptides) however, can be released by the brain. There are three classes of endogenous opioid: dynorphins, enkephalins and endorphins, and it is highly likely that the relevance here is with endorphins. As there are known blockers (eg Naltrexone) for opioids, it would be interesting to attempt to block 'sexual chemistry' in controlled experiments, but I'm unaware of any research done there. This leads me to think this article is based on supposition, rather than fact. 81.6.250.44

Emotional Affairs Hurt
My spouse recently confessed to me that he was having an emotional affair (not "had" past tense, but is having.) He works with this woman. I have seen her. She is beautiful. He claims that he cannot control the way she makes him feel. He says that his feeling for her do not diminish how he feels for me, but then, 3 out of 5 nights (he works 5 days a week) he tells me, right before we go to bed, "I couldn't stop thinking about her today...I really tried, but I just can't." Sometimes he tells me in the morning, "I don't know what to do about these sexual dreams I am having about her." I suppose I should not feel cheated on or in pain about this “platonic” relationship. He has a good job. I do not want him to quit his job. Moreover, I am glad he is being open about it and telling me. Still at the same time, I am deeply wounded. I wish the pain would go away. I wish I were enough for him. I wish I could believe that once this little “problem” is over it would never happen again. Is it true we really cannot control or manage our feelings?

I am the "other woman" in an emotional affair similar to the one you describe, with a co-worker. I will try to put some salve on the hurt. No one person can be all things to another. It is not any inadequacy on your part; it is just that there are other spectacular people out there, too. I am in love with my manager, and I think he is in love with me. His wife just found out. Things are coming to a head. I expect to be reassigned, but I don't really expect the affair to end. On the other hand, I don't expect him to leave his wife, and I don't expect that we will ever have sex, either. Their marriage is shaky and this will either stengthen it or blast it to smithereens. I hope it is the former. But I do hope to continue my "special friendship" with this man. So please be tolerant. Good can come of it. No one wants to hurt you. I think a major part of the problem is that your husband is confiding his every thought to you. That has got to hurt. Doesn't he have a male friend he can talk to about it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.253.47.232 (talk) 02:12, 1 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Thank you for sharing the experiences of an emotional affair from two sides.-- Ziji [[Image:Baby_tao.jpg]] ( talk   email ) 02:21, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

My husband has several female friends at work (he is a teacher). He even refers to one friend as his "office wife"-- they discuss personal issues, bring each other treats and little gifts, etc. He sees nothing wrong with this relationship, but has made it clear that he alone will be her friend, that is, their friendship is OUTSIDE of our marriage. Just because there is no sex (he is physically unattracted to her), doesn't mean that it is any less painful. It belittles the institution and sanctity of marriage, and has negatively impacted my self esteem. Right is right, wrong is wrong, and anyone who says there can be both is purposefully minimizing immature, self-serving behavior. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.38.89.213 (talk) 16:31, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

I have been in a very similar position to the man in the first paragraph here. First of all, my sympathies with the position you're in. I know from my own experiences that it can be very painful and difficult. I will point out that from my experience, it seems clear your husband wants to be honest with you and doesn't want to leave you for the other woman, despite his feelings for her. Clearly, his love for you is still strong. When I was in this situation all parties were aware and accepting of the situation, but what started to rock the boat was when I came across the concept of emotional infidelity. It was the idea itself, and the black-and-white portrayal of a situation that was without question "wrong" and which would inevitably end in disaster, that started to undermine everything and caused us a great deal of heartache, worry and arguments. Years later, my wife and I are still happily married and the friendship did not slide into a physical affair or have to be ended for the sake of all concerned. We drifted apart a few years later when we no longer worked together. In fact, the experience has in the long term had a deeply positive effect on our marriage as it taught us to communicate openly, to understand our feelings and insecurities, and to realise that even deep emotional connections to other people did not actually undermine our love for each other. In short, we found that a lot of what is claimed in the Wikipedia article wasn't true, and was alarmist stuff that did more damage than the "infidelity" every did. What we really needed was not prophecies of doom, but support in negotiating a new and challenging experience in our marriage. I hope you find an equally positive outcome, and I hope the wikipedia article can be updated to reflect the fact that the "it will always end in disaster" slant is not necessarily a true or neutral portrayal.

Emotional affairs do hurt- but so might over-diagnosis of the term
I have some doubts about the definitions of "emotional affair" given in this article and am left wondering about how well it complies with WP:NPOV. By the definitions given here, any friendship that has any emotional involvement at all can be construed as an "emotional affair" if someone's partner disapproves of the friendship and he or she refuses to disown the friend at the partner's request (thus amounting to "betrayal"). It's not uncommon for people's partners to disapprove of having any friends at all, and particularly friends of the opposite sex, on the basis "family before friends"- are we saying this is absolutely okay? What about cases where a partner has the fear that a platonic friend "might" turn into a threat for the relationship- is it reasonable for the partner to forbid the friendship on that basis instead of trying to get the pair of friends to alleviate the fear by confirming their support for the marriage?

If someone's marriage turns rocky or abusive, thus severing his or her emotional ties with the partner, if he/she has any close friends, he/she will automatically end up with stronger emotional bonds with the friends than with the partner. By the "you can't invest more emotionally into friends than your partner" diagnosis of emotional affairs, the friends could easily end up accused of having emotional affairs and scapegoated for the rockiness/abusiveness in the marriage, which doesn't seem right to me.

There are also some inherent "family before friends"-related double standards involved. If someone gets abused by his or her partner, and so confides in an opposite-sex friend for emotional support, this situation fits the definitions of "emotional affair" given here and is likely to result in the friend being scapegoated for the abuse within the marriage- but if it's a cousin who provides the support, then it isn't considered an affair purely because the cousin is considered a family member. I think this raises serious issues. I don't see why friends deserve to be vilified for giving support that family members would be applauded for giving- nor do I see why family members should be exempted from the issue since it's entirely possible for family members to prise apart marriages that they disapprove of using emotional techniques- this quite commonly occurs when cross-racial marriages occur and the family is prejudiced against one race or the other.

If these examples aren't considered "emotional affairs" then this article might need revising as it implies that they are. Tws45 (talk) 15:35, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

–

It should be noted that, common though it is, someone's partner disapproving of them having any friends at all is a core feature of coercive control in relationships, particularly abusive ones. This article is so very far from having a NPOV because of this.

It is written from a perspective that asserts coercive control is acceptable and healthy. This is not the case, and we should not pretend it is. 73.229.27.91 (talk) 06:22, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Attempted to fix up the first paragraph
Tried to add some more details into the phenomenon of an emotional affair, fix the sentence structures, etc so it was easier to read. Do edit / fix it up - especially to help me put in relevant citations etc - as you wish [short of outright reverting it please >_< heh].. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Travelsonic (talk • contribs) 18:38, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

The introduction paragraphs are very biased towards minimizing the fact that it is an affair. The spouse/partner is only mentioned in the context of conversations with affair partners, and later to suggest that opposition to the affair would entail coercion. It is presenting an emotional affair as no different to a platonic friendship. A major characteristic of an emotional affair is that is a breach of trust (being an affair and all). The second paragraph describes all the justifications for an affair, implies that the person being cheated on is being coercive for not accepting, and even disputes whether such affairs are inappropriate. It is the breach of trust that makes it an affair, and, in any relationship, a breach of trust should always be inappropriate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.172.192.248 (talk) 02:09, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Emotional affairs are subjective, period.
Saying that we understand what constitutes an emotional affair implies that we completely understand the boundaries of the alleged "victim" [of said emotional affair]. What I mean is, quite literally, ANYTHING involving ANY KIND of emotional contact from the 'other party' in a given relationship that violates the boundaries of the first person and that he/she considers a deception or violation of the sanctity of the relationship is absolutely an emotional affair, period.

In rare cases, I think it can be argued that the boundaries of the victim were either never made clear to begin with, or that a through a certain amount of deception, led the 'offender' to believe that he/she was not violating any boundaries at all. Of course, if you ask me, I don't know what kind of person commits to any sort of relationship without having a pretty good idea what kinds of things are going to hurt their significant other.

Rule of thumb here: If you have to lie about it, you shouldn't be doing it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JawnBen (talk • contribs) 10:31, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

The problem with the above is the implication that it is reasonable for someone's significant other to set up whatever boundaries he/she likes (bearing in mind that boundaries can shift with time, especially when relationships go through rocky phases, people get insecure, and react by trying to control their partners' friendships in ways that they didn't previously). If there are no limits on this, then someone's partner can just turn on all of his/her close friendships and say, "They're emotional affairs, because I said so." On that note, and also in relation to what I posted earlier, I think this Wikipedia article on emotional affairs is much closer to being neutral than it was previously. Tws45 (talk) 15:44, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Subjective to Objective
While it can be argued that emotional affairs are only subjective, at some point a relationship may become axiomatically inappropriate. Whether the emotional affair progresses to something physical, even if non-sexual, but certainly non platonic (kissing, hand holding etc). Or a primary relationship partner discovers something that is so intimate (again need not be sexual), that there is no doubt the relationship has become inappropriate. The consequence of presuming only a subjective nature is that it may cause the need for the partner who feels injured to seek proof and level consequences. It can be argued, that if you are not doing anything wrong, the partner(s) outside the perceived affair can level no consequences as there is nothing a reasonable person could object to or, if non reasonable, would be taken seriously if they did. The idea of cognitive dissonance may come into play. Where the people involved in the affair, even people surrounding the affair (work colleagues, friends) cause an echo chamber where they rationalize the relationship, even when they suspect or know it to be inappropriate. When evidence of the inappropriateness is presented and/or consequences felt, the partner in the inappropriate relationship will likely respond within the model of behavior indicative of cognitive dissonance. That is to say, denial, anger, resentment, and rationalization amongst other responses. This may further divide the primary relationship partners past the point of reconciliation. So yes, emotional affairs can be subjective, until they are not. Without a good internal objective monologue indicating the "wrongess" of it and action taken to make it right, what is occurring is the injection of energy into the situation which may result in highly undesirable results for all associated with the affair. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wmshade (talk • contribs) 14:32, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

Removing Template
I've gone through this article and removed any assertions lacking attribution. Where possible I found research that supported the assertions. If the neutrality template needs to go back that's fine. I'll do my best to continue researching and removing unsubstantiated opinions. leica 13:58, 16 July 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Leica0000 (talk • contribs)

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Regardless of subjectivity, there are NPOV issues
The article has (regained?) both style and POV issues, primarily in the introduction - see MOS concerning second-person pronouns in particular. I'm going to try to clean this up but the page needs a bigger overhaul. Exasperatedwolverine (talk) 21:41, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

This is one of the weirdest articles, tonally.
This has an almost judgmental attitude to some of the attributes. It's just so strange to me. I have never read an article on wikipedia that felt so informal, like a subreddit rule section or something. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Conoreb (talk • contribs) 02:26, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

"Therapy as subset"
It's strange and harmful to equate a patient-therapist relationship with that of an affair. Of course, the source is an obscure book from the 80s. 2001:871:20F:8946:3E68:57FC:794:935D (talk) 16:10, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Another non-neutral sentence
The sentence "Such closeness can also be a reaction to separate injury in the relationship, and indeed can be utilized to resolve the injury and heal the primary relationship" reads like a recommendation or justification for an emotional affair. This should be removed or needs attribution to a reliable source. I don't believe having an emotional affair is an approach to healing any injury or issues in a long-term relationship, except insofar as "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger." Rather, it reads like someone's justification for their own choice to pursue that path. Dmammenvt (talk) 16:09, 1 September 2023 (UTC)