EMOTIONAL AFFAIR

I don’t know about you but what comes to my mind when I see the word affair is betrayal, and sex, too. But apparently these two are not the only ones that have got to do with affair. It seems that there is such thing as emotional affair too. Interesting. Be warned, towards the end of this entry, some of throats might undergo sudden tightness. A classic sign that marks you are not that innocent. Read on.

So how do you know that you are actually involved in an emotional affair?

• You keep meetings and conversations secret from your partner.
• You say and do things with another person that you never would have done in front of your partner.
• You make a point to arrange talk time with someone other than your partner.
• You share things with another person that you don’t with your partner.

You facing difficulty to breathe / swallow?

“But that’s what I do with my friends, we share stuff / I don’t wanna hurt my partner’s feelings / I was only seeking for advises from the opposite sex, etc” - Reading the bulleted points above must’ve made you come up with all sorts of reasoning and excuses. But according to Dr Gail Saltz, those reasoning and excuses are just denials. You could share problems with your partners, you don’t have to hide your rendezvous from your partners. You don’t have to delete text messages in your handphones out of fear being discovered by your partners because you don’t wanna hurt their feelings – which ironically, by doing so, you would hurt him/her even worse.

When you find that it is easy to share things with another people, you will eventually become attracted / interested to that person. Ever experienced that your friendship becomes more meaningful when you shared your crushes tale / embarrassing moments / gossips etc with your friends? It becomes easier to talk to them. I suppose the same concept could be applied here. You will become dependant on that person to make you feel good, especially when you feel that it is such a relief to be able to tell other person about your problems, secrets and the likes.

If you DO feel that you are having an emotional affair or are heading your way there, here are some advices from Dr Gail herself;

ü END it. No halfway, no ‘kind of’. You have the power to curb this problem that you yourself had triggered.

ü Figure out why you did it. You can work it from there. If you heart is not in the relationship anymore, maybe it’s time to ‘fess up before hearts get severely broken.

ü I like this one the most – Be trustworthy to build trust back. DO what your partner needs you to do (eg : coming home right after work, breaking off ALL contact with the other person)

ü Be patient. Rebuilding trust takes time.

More often than not that we don’t appreciate what we have until we lose it.

So, do appreciate.

Saying I love you doesn’t end there. It needs acts and thoughts that show you mean it. And by attaching yourself in a relationship, it means lots of sharing needs to be done. If you’re not ready to do it perhaps it’s not time for you to BE in a relationship afterall.

(With close reference to Dr. Gail Salts article from http://gailsaltz.ivillage.com/love/archives/2008/07/emotional-affairs.html?dst=rss%7CMSNBC_Today_Love)