Tuesday, 21 February 2012

• The Controversial Boundaries Between Friendship and Emotional Infidelity

  

  Before recent events, I had only witnessed one occurrence of "emotional cheating" in my life and that was several years ago when my aunt was carrying on what my mom called an "emotional affair" with her kids' little league coach and her former classmate. Before then, I never even knew such an affair existed. I had always thought that cheating was purely physical. Boy, was I proven wrong.

  Recently, I introduced two of my best friends. One, a single man in his early twenties, with wishes to start a life in the military - the other a young woman in her early twenties with wishes to move to a bigger city and pursue her dream of art. The catch to this: she was in a relationship with a soldier who was stationed 2,000 miles away.

  Over the months after I introduced them, they became significantly closer, even going so far as to exclude me from group outings, movie dates, lunch dates, and whatever else. When I got excluded, they began doing more intimate things: seeing movies as a couple, going to lunch as a couple, having dinner with each others' families, and even going so far as to spend the night at one another's house. She began to confide in him about her relationship and her overprotective boyfriend, but who wouldn't be if their girlfriend was cavorting around town with a man he didn't know, who was basically serving as a replacement for the man who was actually her boyfriend?

  A few days after New Year, my friend expressed extremely strong feelings for the aforementioned young woman. He basically stated that he felt sorry for her and that he was scared that she wouldn't be able to handle being single once she and her boyfriend broke up and that he might as well step up and be the one "she stays up all night and talks to on the phone because she would have no one else to do it." I couldn't believe my friend was being so cavalier about it, especially after he had seen her behavior when her boyfriend was all the way across the country.

  Over the summer, my guy friend will be going on a mission trip to Alabama for three months and immediately after, he is leaving to enroll in the coast guard, which leads me to believe that she will replace him with someone else, as she did her previous boyfriend. Obviously, she needs someone tangible, who can be there for and with her at all times and he won't be able to be that soon.

  I found this article online and most of the characteristics (with the exception of sex) listed matched their "friendship" perfectly:

  What are some of the red lights that detect whether you are an emotional cheater?

  • You keep aspects of your intimate life for your “friend” and do not share them with your partner.
  • Your friendship shifts from platonic to romantic and you feel less connected to your partner.
  • You think about your friend most of the time and you fantasize about him or her even when you are making love with your partner.
  • You feel recognized, appreciated, even loved by your “friend” so you do not feel the need to connect to your partner. You feel a distance between you and your partner.
  • You withhold and “cut off” valuable aspects of who you are, particularly your intimate self and your intimate life from your partner. You stop having sex with your partner.
  • You discuss the things you don’t like about your spouse or your married life with your friend and not with your spouse.
  • You tell your “friend” more about what goes on regarding your workday and your work life than you do with your partner.
  • You feel as if your “friend” has your heart.
  • You are dishonest with your spouse about the extent of the friendship and feelings with and for your “friend.”
  • You would be embarrassed if your partner read the e-mails, notes, or eavesdropped on a conversation, or saw the way you interacted in person with your “friend.”
  • When you are with your “friend” your body language communicates that your feelings are stronger than friendship.
  • There is sexual tension and you can discuss it openly with your “friend.”

  The girl confessed on a social networking site that feelings did accumulate while she was still in her previous relationship, so I'm not just completely speculating here. 

  So, what do you think is worse, or are they the same: Physical or emotional affairs?

  I feel as if the two are bad in their own ways. With physical affairs, you're sharing something as intimate as sex with someone other than your partner. But with emotional affairs, you're sharing something even more intimate than sex: your mind, your heart, etc. with someone other than your partner. This is a battle even for me, because I have no idea which would be worse: knowing that my fiance had sex with someone else or knowing that my partner was emotionally and romantically connected to someone other than me.

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