Dear ,So what do you think - is emotional cheating infidelity?Or is cheating only cheating when it's physical? In counseling couples, I've listened as a husband or wife claimed that their online friendship was not actually an affair, or that their close friendship, with obvious emotionalties, was not cheating. But in just about every case, the offended spouse was
unconvinced by their spouse's assertion that since there
had been no physical indiscretions, they hadn't cheated.So, what constitutes
infidelity? Infidelity is defined as a strong emotional and/or physical attachment outside of marriage. Under this definition, an affair can be purely sexual, purely emotional, or both emotional and
sexual.It's usually more difficult for the parties involved in an emotional affair to admit that their attachment actually constitutes cheating. "After all," they protest, "we haven't slept with each other!"But this singular focus on the sexual act fails to take into account the alienation of affections that occurs through a relationship with such strong emotional attachments.If the affections held for the third party do not actually crowd the mate out of his or her rightful place in their
spouse's heart, they certainly find themselves sharing
that space with an intruder; this is infidelity.Simply stated, emotional cheating is still cheating and any cheating can destroy a marriage.By the way, did you know that of these three types of affairs, the easiest for a couple to recover from is the purely sexual affair? The most difficult type of infidelity to overcome is the affair
that is both sexual AND emotional.But it is interesting to note that an affair that is purely emotional is more difficult for a couple to recover from than an affair that is purely sexual. Emotional infidelity possesses amazing power to destroy
a marriage.However, there is still some very good news in all of this.An affair, whether emotion, sexual, or both emotional and sexual, does not have to mean the end of a marriage.Counselors regularly help marriages survive all three types of affairs, and when the couple commits to doing the work required, they can heal the damage caused by infidelity, and, in mostcases, enjoy a marriage that was stronger than it was
before.Until next week, this is Mike & Gayle Tucker and we wantyou to be mad about marriage!
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