After the Affair: Finding Healing After Emotional Infidelity

Trust takes time to develop. You don’t just share intimate details about yourself or put your most vulnerable and private thoughts out there for strangers to consume. You also don’t share your body with just anyone. When emotional infidelity happens, it threatens the intimacy and trust that forms the foundation of any romantic relationship.

It’s easier to break something than to build it, or to rebuild it after it is broken. If you’re trying to build trust and develop intimacy with someone, it takes time and sustained effort. You need to spend time with the person, experience them in a variety of settings, allow them to build up a track record of faithfulness and dependability, and allow yourself to be vulnerable with them.

The negative effects of emotional infidelity

When an emotional affair happens, non-sexual intimacy has occurred with someone other than one’s committed partner. Not all intimacy is sexual in nature, but it is intimate, nonetheless.

An integral part of a romantic relationship is being willing and able to share problems, secrets, fears, and aspirations with your partner. An emotional affair redirects that intimacy toward a third party who becomes the beneficiary of such closeness.

An emotional affair often results in one partner being cut off from enjoying exclusive intimacy. We only have so much emotional energy to give to the people around us, and the typical result of an emotional affair is that one’s partner gets displaced and no longer receives the bulk of one’s attention. One’s thoughts, time, energy, and focus get directed to the other person, impoverishing the committed relationship.

Additionally, when an emotional affair happens, it leads to being critical of one’s partner and viewing the other person as being better. Criticism of one’s partner and unfairly comparing them to the other person means there will often be a deep sense of dissatisfaction with the committed relationship.

Emotional infidelity may seem harmless because it is not seen as physical, the typical description people think about with an affair. However, it forms an emotional connection with another person which can easily match or surpass the intimacy in a romantic relationship.

Forming that connection with another person erodes the intimacy of the primary relationship, and it inevitably undermines the trust built in that relationship. It redirects attention, time, and energy away from the relationship it rightly belongs to.

Healing and wholeness after an emotional affair

An emotional affair can be just as devastating as an affair involving physical intimacy. To find healing from emotional infidelity, the infidelity needs to be acknowledged as such. Emotional infidelity crosses the line and is more than just being friends with someone. It often involves secrecy, deception, and making sure that the communications with the person as well as time spent thinking about or with them aren’t public knowledge.

An emotional affair can develop intentionally or entirely unintentionally. The circumstances will determine a couple’s next best steps. However, regardless of whether the infidelity was intentional, it still has the result of weakening your commitment to your partner, and ultimately eroding the foundations of your relationship.

Someone once said that affairs are a symptom and not a cause. When an affair of whatever sort happens, the focus is inevitably drawn to the affair itself, and the betrayal that it represents. This focus is necessary. However, it is just as important to look beneath the affair to try and understand the reasons for it. This can raise uncomfortable but vital questions such as, “Why did the cheating spouse do what they did?”

Asking these important but uncomfortable questions will help a couple address the root issues that affect their relationship that may have contributed to the infidelity. It is not about blaming or shaming one another but strengthening the relationship. An emotional affair can develop when a gap develops between two people. The gap may be caused by needing to work more than usual, or by developing new interests you don’t both share.

The gap that develops between you and your partner might be no one’s fault. Yet, even when your partner deliberately turns from you, you are not entitled to do whatever you please. You are still responsible for your choice of making or seeking emotional connection elsewhere.

When you recognize that you’ve been building a connection with someone else, that’s the moment to stop and reemphasize your boundaries. This might mean stopping late-night texts or unprofessional conversations at work.

It’s also important to talk with your partner about what’s happened. They may have been feeling as though something was happening and may need room to express their hurt. As a couple, you need to set healthy boundaries for what counts as a betrayal of trust. Most likely, that is a conversation that you may need the guidance of a couple’s counselor or therapist.

Getting outside help

If you and your spouse have experienced an emotional affair, please reach out to us at Encinitas Christian Counseling today. We will equip you with what you need to heal and understand one another with the help of a trained professional in Encinitas, California. One of the counselors in our directory will be more than happy to walk the journey with you and your spouse through the impact of emotional infidelity.