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Flirting with disaster: emotional affairs
What’s all the fuss about?
Emotional affairs can begin quite innocently … supposedly.
A cup of coffee in the break room with a co-worker, a few intimate exchanges with a friend’s wife or a student or neighbor — all seemingly harmless, right?
What if these exchanges increase little by little, and the next thing you know the context becomes more intimate. For example, you begin to share personal tidbits that you would typically share with your wife/husband/partner. Next, you find yourself texting this person during the day or making intimate phone calls from the office.
Now you have created a new confidante and the relationship is beginning to grow. You’ve arranged to meet regularly in the break room; your day has a little buzz to it.
Time to take a beat and check in with yourself: What is missing in your life — your primary relationship — that leads you to seek emotional support and intimacy from another?
Ask yourself if this is harmless. Yes? Then why is your partner unaware of this person? Why do you keep these exchanges secret?
Chances are, because you are becoming involved in — or are involved in — an emotional affair. The consequences can be far-reaching.
Many emotional affairs lead to full-blown sexual affairs. Many marriages, families and partnerships are destroyed as a result.
If this post resonates with you, take the time to reflect on this behavior. Open up a dialog with the primary person in your life. Talk about what bothers you — what makes you lonely, unhappy. Speaking your truth ultimately has the potential to change things for the better.
Why not give your partner and yourself that chance?
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4 Responses to “Flirting with disaster: emotional affairs”
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Having been on the losing side of one of these workplace “friendships,” I know well the damage they can do to marriages and relationships. The family was destroyed as a result, just as you blogged Dr. Katrina.
This can happen so fast. It happened to my husband and his younger secretary. Luckily it was caught and stopped before it went to far. The relationship was purely texting, which seemed innocent. It was a close friendship that was definitely innapropriate and could have progressed to more. I am lucky it didn’t. I hope people can set definitive boundaries for themselves for opposite sex friendships. It is so easy to fall into the trap where someithing innocent explodes into something that is beyond one’s control.
Yes its so important not to minimize the seeds that are first sown in the early stages, but to trust intuition .
Thank you for your insightful and helpful comments
Dr K
I think one of these posters is kidding themselves about that happened.