# The Emotional Affair



## David Baxter PhD

12 Ways To Recover from an Emotional Affair
By Therese J. Borchard 
April 11, 2009 

Jimmy Carter isn’t the only one with lust in his heart. I receive a handful of e-mails a day from my readers who are either stuck in an emotional affair or have ended one but are still extremely heartsick. How can I let go and move on? they ask me. I researched what the experts say on this topic and pulled from my own battle with obsessive thinking to come up with the following 12 steps to help folks recover from an emotional affair.

*1. Distinguish romance from love.*
In his book _We: Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love_, Robert A. Johnson distinguishes human love from romantic love. When we yearn for a forbidden, passionate romance like in _The English Patient_ or _The Bridges of Madison County_, we are often blinded to the beautiful, committed love that is with us in every day life, the “stirring-the-oatmeal” love. Johnson writes:
_
Stirring oatmeal is a humble act–not exciting or thrilling. But it symbolizes a relatedness that brings love down to earth. It represents a willingness to share ordinary human life, to find meaning in the simple, unromantic tasks: earning a living, living within a budget, putting out the garbage, feeding the baby in the middle of the night.

_​*2. Schedule some obsessing.*
As I wrote in _15 Ways to Stop Obsessing_, sometimes the best treatment for fantasies is to pencil them into your schedule. When you find yourself fantasizing about an intimate moment with the woman who has custody of your heart, don’t yell at yourself, “Snap out of it!” Simply say, “Thought, I appreciate your coming, but I’ve scheduled you for 7 this evening, at which time you can totally distract me if you want.”

*3. Be accountable.*
This technique is especially effective for Catholics whose first lessons on human morality involved scary confessions. Do I have to tell everything? What if he sends me to hell? Moreover, accountability has always worked for me because, as a stage-four people pleaser, I crave a good report card. So I better make sure I have a few people in my life passing out such reviews: my therapist, my doctor, my mentor Mike, my mom (she can still read my voice like a map, dang it), my twin sister, and my best friend. By giving them the skinny on what’s really going on inside my margin for error decreases ten-fold.

*4. Invest in your marriage.*
The best way to prevent an affair is to invest in your marriage. And the best way to recover one is to invest in your marriage. It’s a simple physics equation: the energy and time you supply to one relationship has to come from another one. That is, you can’t build and nurture a true partnership if you’re spreading intimacy over too many places.

After a violation of trust – and according to marriage expert Peggy Vaughan an affair is more about breaking trust than having sex – the best reconciler in a marriage are small acts of kindness. Because for most spouses, “I’m sorry” doesn’t cut it. Contrition needs to be supported with evidence: backrubs, special dinners, cleaning toilets, a listening ear.

*5. Replace it with something.*
Whenever I grieve the loss of an important relationship in my life – whether it be a friendship that falls apart or a loved one who passes unexpectedly – I’ve found it helpful to immerse myself in a new project, or new challenge.

*6. Stay with the loneliness.*
I’m not a big fan of loneliness. Because that aching hole in your heart feels too much like the scary black chasm of depression. But they are different beasts. One can be treated, the other must be felt. Writes Henri Nouwen in _The Inner Voice of Love_:
_
When you experience the deep pain of loneliness, it is understandable that your thoughts go out to the person who was able to take that loneliness away, if only for a moment. When you feel a huge absence that makes everything look useless, your heart wants only one thing–to be with the person who once was able to dispel these frightful emotions. But it is the absence itself, the emptiness within you, that you have to be willing to experience, not the one who could temporarily take it away.

_​*7. Outsmart the body.*
A little biology lesson here. When you are infatuated with someone, your brain chemistry whispers lies into your ears that can have you doing really stupid stuff. The spike in dopamine and norepinephrine produced with heightened sexual tension might tell you that all your troubles would end if you only kissed the handsome guy you just friended on Facebook, or ran off with the barista that makes you a perfect cappuccino. Helen Fisher, an anthropologist at Rutgers University, author of _Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love_, explains why emotional affairs feel so good:
_
Love is a drug. The ventral tegmental area is a clump of cells that make dopamine, a natural stimulant, and sends it out to many brain regions [when one is in love]. …It’s the same region affected when you feel the rush of cocaine.

_​Thus, identifying the physiological components of infatuation can be a strong ally in fighting the war against infidelity.

*8. Treat the addiction.*
Categorizing an emotional affair as an addiction is helpful in two ways: First, it depersonalizes the experience, making it easier to let go of, and it also provides some tangible steps a person can take to kick her habit. Addictions induce a trance-like state that allows the addict to detach from the pain, guilt, and shame she feels. She buys into false and empty promises — a flawed sense of intimacy and fulfillment — until reality hits. Hard. And the addict is forever vulnerable to buying into this distorted vision, which is why recovery from emotional affair never ends, and involves one smart decision after another that fosters true intimacy.

*9. Surround yourself with friends.*
For a person who has just broken off an emotional affair, friends aren’t optional. They are a life-support system. Safe friends are especially important if the relationship you are mourning formed at work, among mutual friends. You’ll need to befriend colleagues who are not connected to him in any way, or hang out with your non-work friends, safe folks, until you feel strong enough to socialize with friends who might talk about or involve him.

*10. Think with your new brain.*
In his bestselling classic _Getting the Love You Want_, Harville Hendrix distinguishes between our old or “reptilian” brain that is weighted down with unconscious baggage from our pasts and reacts automatically in fear, and our new brain: the “analytical, probing, questioning part of your mind that you think of as being ‘you.’” Harville theroizes that when we get sucked into intense and damaging emotional relationships our old brain is holding the helm. It wants to recreate the pain of our past in order to heal the wounds.

So what we have to do is to squeeze some of the rational and cognitive skills of our newer brain into the old brain before the unguided driver gets us into too much trouble. This means to apply a little logic or to fill in the details of our love story. For example, imagine sharing a bathroom with the Facebook Romeo of yours. Yuck?

*11. Write about it.*
If you get the feeling your friends are quite over hearing about your emotional affair, try putting your emotions to the page. In a 2003 _British Psychological Society_ study, results indicated that writing about emotions might even speed the healing of physical wounds. If journaling about pain can heal your knee scab, think about what writing might do for your broken heart.

*12. Let yourself grieve.*
A relationship without sex can be every bit as intense as one involving lingerie. A special connection between two kindred souls needs to be grieved just as a marriage or committed partnership.

In the case of an emotional affair, guilt can impede the grieving process. Since a person feels as though she is wrong to have had these feelings to begin with, she often won’t allow a time of tears and loneliness that are necessary for healing. But just because the relationship happened outside of a committed relationship doesn’t mean the heart isn’t broken and needs to heal. So be as gentle with yourself as you would a friend who just ended a primary relationship.


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## busybee

Okay then, this has been helpful to me. I have talked about an affair and actually met someone on a dating site, ............. Being alone and suffering from loneliness and grieving for the might have beens. I stopped seeing him, only met 3 times and so intense in such a short period. I decided I deserved someone who could be emotionally available to me, to have a connection. so .... I met another man on a dating site. Lovely emails and full of laughter. We meet and cut to the chase straight into physical contact ............ I don't even know who I am anymore.  I feel guilty ............  I know I have soo much to sort out in my head from my marriage.  I don't want to screw with someone else head. But my therapist said no relationships for at least 12 months and I am so lonely.  Just trying to take one day at a time. work fine but planing my leisure time.  This site has really helped me.  I can see my road is not as difficult as some, lovely funny things with the interaction of the Anti Canandian threads.  Just a smile.  So hard not to shed a tear.  Thanks.


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## jeresteem99

> *9. Surround yourself with friends.*
> For a person who has just broken off an emotional affair, friends aren’t optional. They are a life-support system. Safe friends are especially important if the relationship you are mourning formed at work, among mutual friends. You’ll need to befriend colleagues who are not connected to him in any way, or hang out with your non-work friends, safe folks, until you feel strong enough to socialize with friends who might talk about or involve him.
> 
> *10. Think with your new brain.*
> In his bestselling classic _Getting the Love You Want_, Harville Hendrix distinguishes between our old or “reptilian” brain that is weighted down with unconscious baggage from our pasts and reacts automatically in fear, and our new brain: the “analytical, probing, questioning part of your mind that you think of as being ‘you.’” Harville theroizes that when we get sucked into intense and damaging emotional relationships our old brain is holding the helm. It wants to recreate the pain of our past in order to heal the wounds.
> 
> So what we have to do is to squeeze some of the rational and cognitive skills of our newer brain into the old brain before the unguided driver gets us into too much trouble. This means to apply a little logic or to fill in the details of our love story. For example, imagine sharing a bathroom with the Facebook Romeo of yours. Yuck?



I need this. 

Your very helpful mister David. 

Thanks


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## Darkside

I took this to its natural conclusion and paid the ultimate price. I divorced my wife, left my children, married the woman and was divorced again less than 3 years later. Looking back, I actually followed many of the steps David listed, but what I didn't have was a confidante ... someone I could share my secret with and who would give me perspective and force me to look at what I was doing. I talked in general terms about it, but I never said, "look, I think I am in love with another woman."

Perhaps I would have ended up divorced anyway, but I regret that it happened the way it did. My children (as all children of divorce) have the scars. 10 years later I have not fully recovered.


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## W00BY

Nice post David,

I feel internet land breeds emotional affairs with ease.

It is very easy to become enamored with someone you hardly know because they tick boxes at that point in time, because of something that is lacking or you feel is needed.

I think it is an education at the same time I know from my online dalliances it is easy for people to become quickly sucked into something that is neither real or good for them yet it brings us something desperately wanted.

I have tried to educate my children as much as is possible about being sucked in emotionally online by people, particularly my daughter because as well as sexual predation online, I feel there is as much if not more emotional predation and teenagers are very vulnerable emotionally.

It is a very faint and unclear line between appropriate friendship and becoming emotionally invested to the detriment of those you love and I think until you have experienced it, it is difficult to work exactly where that line begins and ends.

Again like many of the topics discussed on these boards it is a secretive and unseen yet can be incredibly damaging activity. Ironically I met my boyfriend online and he's the best thing ever to happen to me.


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## Korinlanin

Wondering if you could give advice on how to recover from finding out your spouse had a very long emotional affair.  Although we are still married, I never feel truly sure it wont happen again.  We have worked really hard at getting past it.  It is tough trusting and hard not to bring it up.....he hates when I do.  What do I do?


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## MHealthJo

Sorry that you have gone through this. Really really hard...

Has your husband been able to have empathy for what you experienced fron this situation - understood your need to grieve and work through the difficult emotions?

And been able to show  remorse and care for the hurt you experienced?

Marriage counselling or couples therapy can be important for many couples, to be able to go through the difficult emotions, understand what the other partner has been feeling and honour those emotions, and get to the other side where the emotions can feel healed and regain balance.... or individual therapy if one partner is still healing and the other has done all they can.

But if that is not affordable or something just at the moment, sometimes we can get benefits from books and resources designed for recovering from things like this... short workshops or classes for couples are held in some places too.


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## Korinlanin

Hi Jo,  thank you for the reply.  Now you may see a little of the "why" I may possibly be down on myself.  This happened three years ago, we did go to counseling but he was actually still having the affair after I thought and the counselor thought it had ended.  He has a hard time empathizing because he feels it was not as much of an "affair" because he never actually met this person face to face....so strange that this thing was able to linger on and do the damage that it did to me. (She is the one who contacted me...long ugly story) ( Also this is how I heard how his family feels toward me...she sent me emails....not pretty).  But it is over.  Yet my trust took a hit and I am sad to say, I have not quite recovered.  I do love him and I do forgive him.  Forgetting is the problem.


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## MHealthJo

Yes... and it sounds like that empathy factor might be one of the really hard parts. After all, if he has not 'got' what it did to you and how and why it hurt so much, it would be hard for you to trust that he 'gets' why it was a really big deal and that he now knows better.

I am trying to think of a good resource that could be helpful, but nothing is coming to mind just now....

However.... the other thing that comes into my mind is how much individual support and healing through our own process can get us to a better place of clarity and strength in tackling lingering issues. Often, too, more clarity comes that way, in knowing how much of the lingering worry or hurt exists as part of healing that would still be beneficial as a couple, and how much is the individual journey.

Important, too, to remember that couples therapy could be something to revisit - if he was still involved in the emotional affair before, he would not have been very engaged. It's hard to know how much empathizing, healing, and therapy would have actually been occurring! With it being over, that puts you both now in a different place.

You have been through something really difficult, I'm so sorry. But him still being with you demonstrates that ultimately his loyalty seems to be to you, and that plenty of potential for growth and recovery of a good relationship is likely to be there as you untangle the lingering issues that remain...


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## Korinlanin

I do look at all of it as something we can grow from.  I am not a perfect person and I made mistakes that I learned from, so I have hopes that he has and is doing the same with this.  For anyone on either side of the emotional affair, it is such a shaky thing.  I totally agree that the technology we have at our fingertips makes this way too easy to step into and feel "detatched" from enough to believe it is harmless.  But it confuses the person involved in it and it hurts the ones that have faith in that person.  Tough one to bounce back from.


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