How to End an Emotional Affair

Co-authored by Moshe Ratson, MFT, PCC

Last Updated: October 2, 2022 Approved

Emotional affairs occur when a deep emotional attachment or bond is created with someone outside of your relationship and it consumes your every waking thought and action. This type of affair involves sharing deep secrets and wishes, innermost thoughts and a transference of the intimate connection you'd normally have with your partner or spouse to someone else instead. It can begin innocently enough, at a time when you feel things aren't quite right with your current love and you decide to pull someone else in to play a role you feel is lacking in your partner.

Yet, while it may have felt innocent enough to begin with, an emotional affair is just as difficult, if not more so, to get out of than a sexual affair. If you realize you need to end an emotional affair, breaking the pattern is essential for restoring the trust and faith your partner has in you.

Part 1

Part 1 of 5:

Spotting an Emotional Affair

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Understand the definition of an emotional affair. An emotional affair does not involve sexual relations. There are thoughts, emotions, and often behaviors, however, which are not appropriate to a non-marital relationship. Some argue that without sexual infidelity, such a relationship is not really "an affair". This sort of relationship is often extremely damaging to a marriage, just as much or more so than a physical one. The healthy bond between spouses are threatened because one (or both) spouses are investing time, affection, and attention to a "friend" which really should be spent with the spouse.^{[1]
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Research source}
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Identify feelings that indicate an emotional affair. The same emotions one may feel in an extra-marital affair is present in an emotional affair. This can be complicated, as an emotional affair means you have formed a strong emotional bond with another person. There may be a lot of affection and even love to the other person. But when such a relationship has crossed healthy boundaries, you may experience the following: ^{[2]
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Research source
Dr. Pamela Stephenson-Connolly, Dangerous Liaisons, p. 116, AWW, March 2010}
- Guilt: In an emotional affair, the person having the affair may feel guilt the amount of time spent away from the partner/spouse, the time spent with the other person, and doing activities that really should be spent with the romantic partner, and so on.
- Vulnerability : The person having the emotional affair may "over-share" intimate or sensitive information about the romantic partner, and this information may violate boundaries, privacy and so on. In a slightly different type of vulnerability, the emotional affair can avoid having difficult conversations or dealing with issues in the emotional affair, which does not solve the problems.
- Threatened: The romantic relationship is threatened by the direction this emotional affair is taking.
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3
Dishonesty: Emotional affairs can lead to lying or being misleading about your the person whom you are having an emotional affair, and your actions. Be honest when assessing what is happening with respect to this third wheel in your life. You probably already know deep down that there is an element of dishonesty and cheating involved with the other person. Facing this squarely may be very difficult but some of the things to help you realize you're skating on thin ice include:
- You know the level of depth of intimacy and connection with this person has become inappropriate. Your commitment to your partner is threatened or destabilized by someone else being so knowledgeable about the lives and happenings of the two of you.

Part 2

Part 2 of 5:

Determining Why It Happened

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Be clear with yourself about why this emotional attachment started in the first place. Understanding why you are in an emotional affair is important to help you move past it, provided you want to. Emotional affairs are a signal that there is something wrong with your marriage or long-term relationship.^{[2]
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Dr. Pamela Stephenson-Connolly, Dangerous Liaisons, p. 116, AWW, March 2010} When a friendship, acquaintance or work relationship turns into an emotional affair, it is likely that you found an issue with your current relationship or your emotional affair partner may be manipulative and you lack the strength to resist.
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Consider how your own emotional damage might be fueling the need to have emotional affairs. While you may be able to rationalize this current emotional affair as a one-off, if you don't deal with the underlying issues, you may simply fall prey to another such affair later on. Some of the underlying emotional hurt that might cause you to fall into emotional affairs include:
- An inability to take criticism. If you're liable to seeing almost everything your partner says as a criticism because you always need positive feedback, this might set you up to wander.^{[2]
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 Research source
 Dr. Pamela Stephenson-Connolly, Dangerous Liaisons, p. 116, AWW, March 2010}
- Any form of psychological trauma or long-term hurt not dealt with through therapy or other suitable help can sometimes lead to escapism behavior, such as getting involved in emotional affairs, rather than dealing with the deeper underlying issues. Getting help from a professional therapist or counselor may be one way to start breaking the cycle. Not everyone finds therapy useful, but acknowledging and finding some form of facing your emotional demons, is a good start to getting emotionally well again.

Part 3

Part 3 of 5:

Why Emotional Affairs are Unfair

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Realize how an emotional affair is unfair to all parties involved. Breaking off an emotional affair is easier when you realize this. Put yourself in the shoes of your partner, or the person you had an emotional affair with. Ask yourself: Would I really be happy if I were put in that position?. The unfairness is pervasive because:
- An emotional affair is unfair to the person you are having the emotional affair with. Instead of being truly your cherished friend or lover, this person is simply filling a hole in your existing relationship, without any of the perks of a real relationship.
- The affair is unfair to your partner. Your marriage or long-term relationship is a bond that requires faith, trust and long-term attentiveness. If you consider that your spouse or partner is continually unwilling to meet this need, your choice is either acceptance or moving on. If your spouse or partner is simply unable to connect with you emotionally, it's unfair to him or her to stay while you're secretly leaking energy outside of the relationship.
- Last but not least, the affair unfair to you because you're splitting your consciousness or self into different sections, alienating these sections from each other. Rather than deal with the pain of being with someone who is not there for you emotionally, you've decided to try to have your cake and eat it too; it's a situation that can end up deeply scarring everyone involved.

Part 4

Part 4 of 5:

Deciding What to Do About It

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Consider your commitment to your spouse or partner. Is it rock solid underneath it all, despite your escapist fantasies? Have you been under a lot of pressure lately and chose to seek a thrill to try to cope, downplaying how much pain this can cause your partner? If you realize that what truly matters is shoring up your actual relationship, your most pressing action needs to be to end the emotional affair immediately.
- Accept that relationships don't just happen without effort. They all require work, throughout the life of the relationship. The sooner you accept this, the better for your own emotional strength.
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Realize that this is going to be difficult. An emotional affair tends to last longer and stronger than many sexual affairs. Emotional intimacy tends to stoke the fires of desire and keeps the interest peaked rather than any gradual decline in excitement that is often the case with extra-marital sexual liaisons. There is always a "what if?" hanging over the relationship and a temptation to imagine that the two of you might suddenly be soulmates spending the rest of your lives together. The deep connection that has evolved can make the breakup harder to initiate. Moreover, if you have "secret" ways of keeping in touch, via text, emails, IM, etc., the temptation to stay in touch will be high at first.
- Accept that this isn't going to be easy. But if you've made a decision that your spouse or partner is worth stopping this unfaithful dalliance, that's a price you need to be willing to pay.
3
Break it off with your emotional intimate. If you've decided to break it off with the person you were intimate with emotionally, then a quick break is often better than a drawn-out affair. Perhaps in writing, perhaps over the phone, tell the person why you're ending the affair.^{[3]
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Research source} Or, be courageous and talk to him or her in person, explaining your well-rehearsed and considered reasons for ending the fling you two have been having:
- "I'm writing you this letter/calling because I feel like I've overstepped the boundaries of my relationship with you. I get along with you, and I enjoy being with you, but the relationship we had was not fair — to you, to me, to my [boy/girlfriend]. I take full responsibility for what I did, and I understand if this feels strange. I hope we can still remain friends, but I understand if you no longer want to."
- If seeing this person in person, there will probably be a lot more to say and respond to. Be ready for possible tears, indignation or even an insistence that he or she has never thought that there were overstepped boundaries. It pays to be honest and to stick to your own feelings, reiterating that you certainly had feelings for the other person that you're not wishing to act upon any further.
4
Take responsibility for the lack of integrity and honesty within yourself that created the situation. Your emotional lover may have sustained some lasting damage by being the shoulder to cry on without any of the other elements that come with a healthy relationship. Don't beat yourself up or allow guilt to overcome you, but use this opportunity for self-reflection and growth.
- Seek help from a therapist to work on deeper issues that you haven't managed to deal with yet. You deserve to live a happier, more whole life, and this isn't going to happen by allowing yourself to be subsumed by other people.

Part 5

Part 5 of 5:

Dealing with the Aftermath

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Have a discussion with your partner, addressing some of the issues that the emotional affair brought up. If you decided to end the emotional affair and rededicate yourself to the relationship with your partner, it might be healthy to try to address the issues that caused you to seek emotional solace in the first place.^{[4]
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- What aspects of the emotional affair did you respond positively to? If a deep sense of communication was missing from your relationship, what steps might it take to get better communication between you and your partner? Think about bringing something like this up with your partner:
  - "I'd like to talk to you about how we can improve our communication. I really value this relationship, and I love you, but I think we can improve how much we communicate, and the ways in which we communicate. What do you think?"
- Ask your partner if there are any issues that she or he is having with the relationship and try to improve those. Often, your partner will withdraw from a relationship when he or she is dissatisfied or confused, causing you to look for emotional satisfaction somewhere else. If you improve some of the issues that may be bothering your spouse or partner, you could find your own needs suddenly met.
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Write down what you have learned after you have made your decision. Get a journal and a pen, find a nice quiet spot to work, and free-write. Write down your thoughts. Write down your hopes. Write down what an ideal relationship might look like to you. Strive to turn your current relationship into that vision, recognizing that you must put in at least as much effort as your partner should.
- Deal with your own emotional demons rather than using escapist strategies to evade them. Writing them down can help start your understanding of what's wrong, as can talking to people you trust.
- Be open and frank with your partner about issues you think you need to tackle to feel like a more whole and healthy person. Your partner may just turn into your best ally over this, especially once he or she realizes the emotional challenges you've been facing and can see how you construed his or her behavior toward you.^{[5]
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  Research source}
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Think about changing some aspects of your relationship to make it better. Once you've had a discussion with your partner, it's time to implement some of the changes you think could make your relationship better.
- One big thing is distance. Maybe your relationship suffered because you felt smothered all the time. In that case, you'll probably want to take a little time for yourself. Or perhaps your relationship suffered because you didn't see one another enough. That would be an opportunity to carve more time out of your busy schedule to see one another, go on dates, and just be together.
- Ask yourselves if you're only in it for the physical relationship. Lots of people who engage in emotional affairs are satisfied sexually but dissatisfied emotionally. Having a healthy sexual relationship is great, but not if it's at the expense of a nurturing psychological and emotional relationship.
4
Take some time to think it over. If you're feeling unsure, hesitant, or just like you need a break, put some thought into taking a temporary hiatus. (Alternately, instead of putting the relationship on hiatus, just take a trip somewhere away from your partner to freshen up your perspective.) Taking a break is all about giving yourself a brand new set of eyes to look at the world. We only get one life, so we better make it worthwhile.
- If you decide that, despite everything, the current relationship is also not working, you may have to reach a decision to break up with the person, citing the unmet needs. It's always better to admit what isn't working despite trying than to condemn the two of you to a loveless, uncaring future.
- Take a step back and ask yourself how you're feeling. Are you feeling sad? Guilty? Angry? Remember that your feelings are valid and normal.^{[6]
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  Expert Source
  
  Moshe Ratson, MFT, PCC
  Relationship Therapist
  Expert Interview. 7 August 2019.}

Warnings

Do not get together with the person you have been having the emotional affair with if you decide to end the main relationship. Chances are high you will develop a highly complicated, co-dependent relationship with this person that is even more unhealthy than the one you just left. His or her motivation for bonding with a person who is already in a relationship in such an inappropriately intimate way could be an indicator of very deep seated issues, that could create a perfect storm when mixed with yours. Also, it's very likely he or she will leave you with unmet needs, that you will again have to get met outside of that relationship. A healthy person who is looking for, and capable of, having a functional relationship with someone that is fulfilling psychologically, sexually, emotionally and otherwise would not have entered into this affair with you in the first place. Of course, this like all other generalizations breaks down at a certain point but take this advice seriously.

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If you have created this emotional connection outside of the relationship because your partner is volatile, alternating between distant and violent, it may be better for you and your emotional lover if you don't tell about the affair when you break off the relationship. (If your partner is violent, get help to break from the relationship.)

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If you plan on coming clean to your partner and staying with him or her, you must completely cut off the relationship with the person you have been having the affair with. It's important to be honest about why you got involved in the situation, why you didn't feel comfortable trying to get the needs met with him or her directly, etc. Prepare yourself for a long process of rebuilding his or her trust, and respond to his or her various reactions with understanding of how you would feel in the same position.

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