Post by Simply_Uneque on Apr 23, 2004 11:29:51 GMT -5
Have you been in a relationship and… Confided about your relationship problems with a friend, rather than your partner?
* Met for a lunch rendezvous in secrecy?
* Bared your soul to a cyberspace friend?
If you answered yes to the above questions, you may have been guilty of emotional infidelity.
Affairs are not always physical. We often hear about relationships and marriages where one partner has physically cheated on another. But what about emotional cheating? Sometimes emotional affairs can be more damaging than sexual affairs.
"We're just friends" paranoia... The most common form of emotional infidelity is the "we're just friends" case. In gay relationships, with promiscuity and being faithful already major issues, spending extensive time with a friend of the same sex can be damaging to your relationship, causing paranoia and distrust, especially if you don't tell your partner about it.
There is the argument that there should be trust in a relationship, but why add fuel to the fire? Disclosing this information with your partner means there can be no misunderstandings or suspicions that there may be something more than a harmless friendship.
The best friend betrayal... Similar to the above situation is the one where a boyfriend tells his best friend about the issues, rather than discussing them with his partner. This often leads to feelings of betrayal and can cause undue distress. There is also the fact that some people find this very uncomfortable; they prefer intimate details to be kept between them, rather than shared with outsiders, even if they are mutual friends.
"I told my friend Tad about a problem Shane and I were having," says Brian, 27. "When Shane found out, he was annoyed with me for not talking to him about it, and even more upset that I had chosen to confide in Tad. It really upset him."
Sometimes you can feel "frozen" in your relationship, unable to raise the issues that you want to talk about and you find it liberating to discuss outside the confines of your relationship. When this is the case, seek outside advice or confidence sparingly.
The cyberspace affair... Research has proven that we open up hastily over the Internet, and find a "safe haven" in cyberspace. We quickly lose our inhibitions and find ourselves confiding about various aspects of our lives to a "handle" or "nickname" that we barely know. The cyberspace affair can prove the most harmful, often because it develops further. There have been stories of people in relationships meeting strangers off the net and developing a closer bond than they have with their partners.
Rebuilding intimacy... Most often, all that is lacking in the relationship is intimacy. If emotional infidelity is a difficulty that you are experiencing, or have in the past, perhaps you need to realise that it is a warning sign to resolve nagging issues, spend more time together, cautiously set boundaries on your friendships and let one another know what you are doing. Most of all, emotional infidelity is saying that you need to communicate with one another more.
* Met for a lunch rendezvous in secrecy?
* Bared your soul to a cyberspace friend?
If you answered yes to the above questions, you may have been guilty of emotional infidelity.
Affairs are not always physical. We often hear about relationships and marriages where one partner has physically cheated on another. But what about emotional cheating? Sometimes emotional affairs can be more damaging than sexual affairs.
"We're just friends" paranoia... The most common form of emotional infidelity is the "we're just friends" case. In gay relationships, with promiscuity and being faithful already major issues, spending extensive time with a friend of the same sex can be damaging to your relationship, causing paranoia and distrust, especially if you don't tell your partner about it.
There is the argument that there should be trust in a relationship, but why add fuel to the fire? Disclosing this information with your partner means there can be no misunderstandings or suspicions that there may be something more than a harmless friendship.
The best friend betrayal... Similar to the above situation is the one where a boyfriend tells his best friend about the issues, rather than discussing them with his partner. This often leads to feelings of betrayal and can cause undue distress. There is also the fact that some people find this very uncomfortable; they prefer intimate details to be kept between them, rather than shared with outsiders, even if they are mutual friends.
"I told my friend Tad about a problem Shane and I were having," says Brian, 27. "When Shane found out, he was annoyed with me for not talking to him about it, and even more upset that I had chosen to confide in Tad. It really upset him."
Sometimes you can feel "frozen" in your relationship, unable to raise the issues that you want to talk about and you find it liberating to discuss outside the confines of your relationship. When this is the case, seek outside advice or confidence sparingly.
The cyberspace affair... Research has proven that we open up hastily over the Internet, and find a "safe haven" in cyberspace. We quickly lose our inhibitions and find ourselves confiding about various aspects of our lives to a "handle" or "nickname" that we barely know. The cyberspace affair can prove the most harmful, often because it develops further. There have been stories of people in relationships meeting strangers off the net and developing a closer bond than they have with their partners.
Rebuilding intimacy... Most often, all that is lacking in the relationship is intimacy. If emotional infidelity is a difficulty that you are experiencing, or have in the past, perhaps you need to realise that it is a warning sign to resolve nagging issues, spend more time together, cautiously set boundaries on your friendships and let one another know what you are doing. Most of all, emotional infidelity is saying that you need to communicate with one another more.
