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female
age
41-50,
anonymous
writes: Is it possible that a married man could just want to enjoy an emotional attachment to someone else without being physical? I know it isn't right but we are filling a missing piece in each others life by giving attention to each other that our spouses aren't providing. I love his attention in calls and text. We live far apart . Is it possible not to get physical but just enjoy what we have? Or do men always want more? It honestly seems to me he wouldn't ad he knows it isn't right but I wonder If he can be content or us looking for more once the kids ate grown.
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reader, anonymous, writes (10 January 2011): emotional relationships did not come in handy..it is built through time and effort.whatever the man seeks outside marriage is the one lacking in his marriage.. there is no hard fast rule on this kind of relationship..
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (5 December 2010): If he is sharing his emotions with you instead of his wife, he is being unfaithful. And you are implicated.
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (4 December 2010): Is your life really just about eliciting a response from anyone that is self affirming? A marriage is between two people. Do not use another woman's husband as a marital aid so you can get by.
You are stealing. Every single time he directs attention to you, it is attention that is owed to his wife that she isn't getting BECAUSE of you. So, rather than looking at this as benign and fantasizing over whether he'd want to take it to the next level... realize that you are a part of a big picture...
You create a cascade effect. You GET from this man and SHE DOES WITHOUT. You marriage sucks, you have no idea who he is (in actuality) or the state of his marriage... so you feel justified in TAKING whatever you can get just so you can feel better.
But is that the right way to live? Aren't you just as bad as your husband? You blame him for not GIVING you want you want. So, you get it from another man... who is TAKING it from another woman.
The ends do not justify the means.
In this life we live... we can be a part of the good in the world or we can be a part of the destruction. We can live on the sly... selling ourselves cheaply just so we have whatever we want... at anyone's expense.... OR, we can live with honor and dignity... We can take responsibility for our own relationships and make them work ... OR end them and move on in the light of day. Then, you are free to date... hopefully a single man. The same goes for Romeo.
Why on earth would you use another woman's husband (who is probably failing her in more ways than one) as a marital aid? As a crutch to keep your marriage going?
Imagine if marriage were to be taken seriously. It would imply a world where there would be no getting out of the vow... once it was taken. There would be only one source of everything... your spouse... and only your spouse. In such a world you would work hard to receive and to give... those things that you find important. There wouldn't be anyone to steal from... you would make the relationship work, or you would forever be unhappy and unfulfilled.
Thus is the hidden lesson in marriage. It is to uncover through diligence and faithfulness the wonders that lie within ourselves and the other.
But with the cheapening of the relationship, with the blurring of boundaries, with no respect for the vow... marriage becomes a transient state. You can always 'GET' whatever you want somewhere else. If your partner is unreceptive... well heck, just call some other dude... he'll take care of you... while you play your husband taking him along for a ride.
Sometimes guys get into emotional affairs, however it is rarely for the same reasons that women do. Women do it (quite often) because they need emotional attention. Men do it because they want their ego (or the alter ego... the penis) stroked.
Sometimes it stays purely as the emotional game... and sometimes the emotional game is played purely to get you into the sack. In which case... the other woman is usually summarily dumped and thrown under the bus.
Life isn't a free for all. Do not participate in the destruction of her life just so the two of you get yourselves pumped up. It is time to face your life and to grow up. Divorce or work on your relationship, but stay the heck away from her husband... he is not yours to use.
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female
reader, soontobe  +, writes (3 December 2010):
Possibly but you will end up ruining both your realtionships. How would you feel if you were his wife?? Emotional relationships are much harder for the wife to get over. First hand experience here. MY husband was hanging out with some woman housekeeper at his hotel, hes a manager and had coffees , dinners and all but no intimate contact. This woman took it to a whole other level in her head and its been 2 months since they talked or hung out yet im still beyond pissed at him for even talking to her. so stop it will erode both your marriages and really is it worth it?
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reader, anonymous, writes (3 December 2010): Female anonymous has hit all of the right notes on this one. And, she has lived it...I can tell because I lived it as well and I know the course these emotional affairs take. You will end up watching your marriage starve to death right in front of you over a period of time. It's not pretty. Once your marriage is dead on arrival, when you turn to your emotional lover, you can only hope he's on the same page as you. Not only is it unfair to your husband, but it is so incredibly risky to your emotional health. Your emotional fix is not available to you and vice versa. And, you may never be available to each other. So, you will be living a half-life -- one foot in your marriage, and the other in your emotional relationship (which is a terrible way to live). I luckily woke up in time to save my sanity and get out of an impossible situation. To answer your question, you will both end up wanting more. Trust me on that one. Or, worse, one of you will wake up and the other poor unfortunate will be left pining away for something that will never happen. If you both manage to keep seeking more from each other, the both of you will wreck anything in your way to get it - including your marriages, your friendships, your very lives. Then, once you have what you thought you wanted, you're left to look around at the devastation your desire has caused and wonder to yourself...was this worth it? It's not. What may seem wonderful now, looks completely different in real life. Right now, your "relationship" with this guy is all fantasy. You don't have to deal with the day to day drudgery, the housework, the kids, bills, boredom etc.... I can promise you that even if you dumped your husband and got with this guy, you would be in the same exact boat down the road. Work on making your marriage all that it can be. You'll be glad you did.
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (3 December 2010): Actually many believe that it is the emotional affairs that are the most threatening to marriages even if no physical boundaries have been crossed.
Even if you never get physical because you live far apart, the fact that you are sharing your private inner life with someone else besides your spouse means that you are investing yourself emotionally in someone outside your marriage. In other words you are giving your heart to someone of the opposite sex who is not your spouse.
This often means that over time, as you feel emotionally closer and more bonded to this other person, you feel more distant from your spouse. You feel no need to share your feelings or innermost thoughts with your spouse because (a) you don't need to, you already have someone else that fills this role and who is so much more connected with you (b) the more you withdraw from your spouse, the further apart you will drift.
This means that intimacy in the marriage gets eroded. You and your spouse start living separate lives under the same roof but have no clue what is going on in each other's minds or hearts or lives. You will start to care less because you no longer feel close. Not feeling close then makes you care even less..it's a vicious cycle that breaks down the relationship between you and your spouse. You can still be good housemates and parents of your kids, but your relationship becomes more like familiar co-workers rather than intimate partners. If both you and your spouse agree that this is the kind of marriage you both want, then nothing wrong. But most people do expect their spouse to be more than just a detached roommate and co-worker!
Your spouses may (probably will, actually) sense something is wrong at some point, that you are emotionally distant and no longer really interested in them. This will probably lead to conflict in the marriages.
Another issue is that many women find it hard to have sex with someone they don't care about or feel emotionally close to. If you are feeling detached from your husband emotionally, at some point it may affect your physical intimacy with him. You may lose interest in having sex with him, or you may downright start to dislike it and not want to have sex with him anymore. He will definitely notice this and this will be source of conflict for sure.
This is why emotional affairs are the most threatening to marriages, even if there is no physical sex involved.
and, if you and your affair partner do become very emotionally bonded, it's possible that at some point in the future one or both of you may desire to take the relationship further and involve physical intimacy as well. This for sure will threaten your marriages even more once you have both emotional and physical bonding with someone who is not your spouse, and will make it even harder and more painful to end the affair because you have invested so much in it.
I speak from first hand experience, have lived to regret it.
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A
male
reader, Cerberus_Raphael  +, writes (3 December 2010):
 This is complicated. In honesty though I would suggest divorcing your respective spouses or at least try to restore some of the love that once was when you got married.
Yes it is entirely possible for a man to be content with an emotional relationship, just make sure that such a thing is truly what he wants.
Work on your marriage first, let your husband know that this relationship lacks emotion, there is nothing holding you to him. If it fails, divorce but do not pursue this other man until he has dealt with his marriage.
I hope that helps.
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