Emotional affairs can be much more nebulous than physical affairs. They can be completely one-sided, where one party has romantic feelings for another completely unsuspecting person. Or, both parties can be engaged in an intense emotional affair that just hasn’t turned physical yet. And, the definition of emotional affair can vary from person-to-person: some people feel as though flirting constitutes an emotional affair. Others believe emotional affairs are more like a romantic relationship. If you’re having an emotional affair, and you’re looking to save your marriage, you may benefit from knowing how to end an emotional affair.
It May Be Difficult to End
A lot of people who have had an affair—physical or emotional—will tell you that the affair was addicting. For a lot of people, their affair partner represents the human embodiment of a fantasy: the person they’re cheating with appears to be this perfect person who doesn’t have the faults that their spouse has. This is because, when you’re married to someone, you’ll spend so much time together that you’re bound to find something you don’t love. However, when you’re having an affair with someone, you’re likely not living with the person you’re cheating with. Thus, you don’t exactly get a full picture of their faults. The illusion the affair presents can make it especially difficult to simply walk away—especially when intense emotions are involved.
Cutting off Contact
If you’re looking to end your emotional affair, you need to cut off contact with the person you’re having the affair with. How you do this will depend on your unique circumstances. Obviously, it would be much easier for a person having a one-sided emotional affair to simply cease contact with the person they’re enamored with as opposed to a person who has a full-blown romantic relationship with another person whom they haven’t met up with yet. Since there are so many different circumstances, there is no one size fits all approach to walking away from a person you are having an emotional affair with. You will likely need to cease contact with the person in order to completely move on from the affair—no matter what your situation is.
Evaluating Your Marriage
Take a moment to seriously evaluate your marriage. Do you have unmet expectations that have led you to seek fulfillment from outside sources? Do you feel as though you’re unsatisfied in your marriage? If you do feel unsatisfied in your marriage, what could your partner do to help you find satisfaction within your marriage? If your partner already knows that you’re unsatisfied with your marriage, or that they’re not meeting your expectations, and they aren’t attempting to change, that may be a sign your partner has checked out. If you know of things your partner could do to promote your satisfaction within the marriage, or if you have expectations that your partner is unaware of, you may benefit from bringing these concerns to your partner. This may be best accomplished through the use of a marriage counselor or other professional to help facilitate meaningful communication.
Getting the Right Help
Emotional affairs are complicated issues and you may need to enlist the help of a mental health professional to guide you through the feelings and grief that come with ending an emotional affair. Furthermore, emotional affairs are usually warning signs that all is not well in a marriage. Going through individual therapy may help you pinpoint what caused the affair in the first place. Depending on the circumstances surrounding the emotional affair, you may also decide to have marital counseling with your spouse as previously mentioned. Emotional affairs do not typically develop in happy and healthy marriages. Having a marital counselor can help you and your spouse work through the issues that have resulted in the emotional affair, and help you come up with strategies to prevent further emotional affairs.
Getting past the Affair
In some ways, emotional affairs can be easier for couples to overcome as opposed to physical affairs. This is because the definition of an emotional affair can be murky. Some people recognize early warning signs that an emotional affair is beginning and quickly take action to make sure it doesn’t happen. In cases such as the aforementioned, the individual may choose not to involve their spouse in the process of getting past the emotional affair. However, emotional affairs can easily become very intense, and they can escalate quickly into physical affairs. In cases such as these, fixing the relationship may be extremely difficult, even if you know how to end an emotional affair.
When an Emotional Affair Has Damaged Your Marriage
Unfortunately, not everyone is able to end their emotional affair. In some cases, even though an emotional affair has ended, the damage to the marriage has already been done. If an emotional affair has damaged your marriage beyond repair, CoilLaw is here for you. Our attorneys are ready to fight for you and your rights during the divorce process. If you’re ready to end your marriage, contact CoilLaw today for an initial consultation.
