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Glossary
Emotional affair
The affair without sex, where your heart and your confiding go to someone other than your partner.
What is an emotional affair?
An emotional affair (Dutch: emotionele affaire) is a bond with someone outside your relationship that mimics the closeness and intimacy of a love relationship, without any sex involved. The excitement and the confiding go to the other person, and that usually stays secret. The lightest form is popularly called micro-cheating.
| Dutch term | emotionele affaire |
| Also known as | micro-cheating, the popular name for the light end; also emotional infidelity. Close neighbor of a regular affair |
| Category | falls under attachment style: looking for connection when it falls away at home |
| Not to be confused with | an ordinary friendship; the difference is in the secrecy and in what you can share with the other person that your partner no longer hears |
| Core | emotional intimacy plus secrecy, without sex |
| Main risk | it can hit a relationship harder than a one-time fling |
How an emotional affair starts
An emotional affair rarely starts with a decision. More often it creeps in. A colleague or old acquaintance who listens well, a text thread that gets cozier by the day, and slowly the attention your partner no longer gets goes to someone else. According to the encyclopedia, that damage needs no sex and not even physical affection.
Why an emotional affair cuts so deep
The pull is being seen. With someone new you feel interesting again, and that validation often pulls harder than sex. What it costs is trust: an emotional affair is thought to be able to damage a relationship more than a one-time fling, precisely because there is feeling in it. Research by Morrissey, Wettersten and Brionez asked women themselves how they describe emotional infidelity and mapped three things: what it is, how it starts, and how you protect a relationship against it. What an emotional affair does not do is repair what was already off at home.
Sources
- Emotional affair. Wikipedia. Provides the definition as a bond that mimics the closeness of a love relationship without sex, and the finding that such an affair can damage a relationship more than a one-time fling.
- Qualitatively Derived Definitions of Emotional Infidelity Among Professional Women in Cross-Gender Relationships. Morrissey, Wettersten & Brionez, Psychology of Women Quarterly, 2019. Provides the three core themes from women’s own stories: defining emotional infidelity, how it starts, and how you protect a relationship against it.
Related terms
- Attachment style. The pillar an emotional affair falls under: how you attach often explains why you look for connection outside your relationship.
- Affair. The broader outside-relationship connection, of which an emotional affair is the form without sex.
- Erotic distance. Why desire sometimes flares up precisely outside the safe bond.
- Anxious attachment. The attachment style that most strongly drives looking for validation elsewhere.
- Emotionally focused therapy. The couples therapy that repairs the bond an emotional affair shows a crack in.
Frequently asked questions
What people still ask about an emotional affair.
What is an emotional affair?
An emotional affair is a secret, intimate bond with someone outside your relationship that mimics the closeness of a love relationship, without sex. Your confiding and your attention go to the other person. The lightest form is popularly called micro-cheating.
When does a friendship become an emotional affair?
A friendship becomes an emotional affair once secrecy enters and you confide things in the other person that your partner no longer hears. It is not about one single line, but about where your feeling and your attention flow. If you are in doubt, that is often already an answer.
Who can you turn to with questions about an emotional affair?
To Victor, a gigolo with about twenty-five years of BDSM experience and a background as a psychotherapist. He does not judge how an emotional affair starts and thinks along with you, with no obligation, about what you miss at home. You can ask him a question through the contact form or first chat for free.
Blog
Articles about relationships
This page gives the term. These articles show how distance, missing something and desire play out within a relationship.
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Learn more
Still have questions about an emotional affair?
I am Victor, a gigolo with a background as a psychotherapist. I do not judge how a bond outside your relationship starts, I listen. Want to talk it over calmly? Ask your question with no obligation, and I will text you back at your ease.