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Emotional Infidelity
Jul
Protect your marriage by avoiding friendships with members of the opposite sex.
Adultery is one of the gravest blows to a marriage, as well as a painful rejection for one partner. But you don’t have to be intimate with anyone else to be unfaithful.
Emotional infidelity is just as — and at times even more — destructive to your marriage. Couples I counsel are absolutely outraged when I tell them that they could well be committing emotional adultery when they flirt with coworkers, send around funny emails to colleagues, or hang out with members of the opposite sex at gatherings. But they are, and so probably are you.
Stopping this kind of relationship is the single most important thing you can do for your marriage. It’s not about where it may lead. It’s about where it has already gone, far from your focus on your marriage.
When you find yourself getting irritated with what I have to say, consider: Why does it bother you? Why are you resisting the idea? Why not see if I’m right by making some changes? What is it that you’re trying to protect by maintaining the kind of relationships you’re presently involved in? If these relationships aren’t as “damaging” as I say, because you say you don’t find them that important and they aren’t going to lead anywhere, then prove it to yourself by letting go of them. If they don’t mean that much to you, why the irritation when I ask you to cut back on these friendships? Remember what it is you’ve always wanted from your marriage, and start considering the large, determined commitment that is absolutely necessary to creating a happy marriage.
Most of us won’t fall in love in cyber space, yet we find it okay to share a different kind of space with friends of the opposite sex. We discuss our problems, air out our issues, and settle disagreements with our business colleagues. We chat with our friends and neighbors. What’s the harm in a man having a casual friendship with a woman when either is married? Surely, every friendship doesn’t lead to an affair. Yet we forget the emotional harm of relating to someone outside the marriage when that same energy can be used to relate to our own spouse. Marriage is about relating to a member of the opposite sex with an intimacy felt with no other.
When a spouse places his or her primary emotional needs in the hands of someone outside the marriage, it breaks the bond of marriage just as adultery does.
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HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU’RE BEING UNFAITHFUL?
The first step in developing a happy marriage is to close our peripheral vision to others so that we can be fully focused on our mate.
FOCUS ON YOUR MARRIAGE
When you make the choice to truly commit to each other, you face a huge obstacle: the world around you doesn’t understand commitment. They don’t know that you really plan to live the rest of your life with your spouse. No, you don’t want to do it in pain and misery. But it can be wonderful only if you learn to be there through thick and thin. When you know that you can be at your very lowest and your spouse will put loving arms around you and pledge undying love, you’re married forever. If we can just banish the urge to find this kind of love outside our spousal relationship, we’ll be forced to put incredible effort into the greatest thing we have going: our marriage. If you feel you are missing that “connection” with your spouse, choose to find the way to create a new bond with your spouse instead of looking to an opposite sex friend to fulfill you.
Countless people have told me that getting involved with members of the opposite sex isn’t a problem for them because it would never lead to adultery. Having an affair is far from the only problem. You will simply be chipping away at your marriage every time you get that ping of excitement from an emotionally stimulating moment with someone of the opposite sex. It’s dangerous to your marriage, and not just because it may lead to sex. It drains your marriage of the immense energy it needs to grow: the energy to flirt with each other, to be emotionally stimulated by a different point of view, to share the excitement with someone who wants to know who you are. When you place your emotional energies elsewhere, without even realizing it, you don’t offer your spouse the opportunity to provide you with that same ping of excitement you are looking for elsewhere.
Refocus on the one you married and how you can get whatever it is you’re getting from these other relationships from your own marriage. Find outside relationships with members of the same sex and keep the “chemistry” between you and your spouse.
