Madonna and A-Rod: Friends or More?

Other therapists agree. “Emotional affairs exist because I think a lot of people stay in marriages that are not the best for them. This way, their feelings and emotions get taken into account somewhere else,” said Alice Aspen March, a Los Angeles-based author of The Attention Factor. “They are appreciated somewhere else, loved somewhere else, respected somewhere else, where they aren’t at home. It might just be keeping that marriage together. Sure they can be dangerous, but not necessarily.”  

The danger point, however, is when an emotional affair threatens a marriage by superseding it in priority and importance. “If the affairee shuts down emotionally at home, that can be a dangerous thing,” she said. “If he or she withdraws at home, the kids are going to know this. If mom is rushing to the phone or Internet to get her emotional needs met, then that’s not good. It means she is making choices that exclude her family and takes her focus away.”   

Of course, a lot depends on the specifics of the relationship. “In therapy, we don’t deal in black and white. Somebody who develops a friendship or closeness with someone outside the marriage, if it’s not sexual and they are just friends, no, I don’t think it’s dangerous. Why can’t you have friends in addition to your spouse?” said Jay Granat, 55, a couples counselor in private practice in Riveredge, N. J.   

But he added, it doesn’t mean that boundaries shouldn’t be in place with friendships with the opposite sex. “That’s not to say it can’t lead to something, especially if you are sharing things that you don’t share with your spouse. It becomes a problem when it becomes romantic in one person’s mind. That’s the gauge: Once it crosses over to having sexual feelings toward the person. The sexual element does create something different.”   

Tessina agrees. “Emotional affairs have a sexual component that friendships don’t have. A lot of times, that sexual issue comes up between friends and you have to deal with it. If you have good boundaries, you have to maintain them, because emotional affection does lead to physical affection. If you don’t have boundaries, it is likely to move into that sexual direction.”   

That is the bottom line, say the experts. Boundaries. One measure of those boundaries could be how the person who is involved in an emotional relationship would feel if his or her spouse were watching, said Michele Weiner-Davis, founder of www.divorcebusting.com and author of several books about marriage/relationships, whose practice is based in Boulder Colo. And Woodstock , Ill.   

“The person should ask themselves, ‘If my spouse were looking over my shoulder, how would my spouse feel about this.’ If the answer is ‘betrayed,’ then it’s time to rethink the relationship,” she said. “In our culture there is such an emphasis on making oneself feel good and following bliss. The fact is that healthy relationships are about mutual care-taking. The most important concept is real giving. We tend to give to each other in way we want to receive. We need to learn to give in way that our partners want. That’s what healthy relationships are based upon.”  

And dealing honestly with our spouses might be the another measure. “An emotional affair is a secret. A satisfying secret but still a secret. And as we used to say ... you are only as sick as your secrets,”added author March.   


TIPS (FOR YOU OR YOUR SPOUSE) TO AVOID AN EMOTIONAL AFFAIR

1. Talk, Talk, Talk.
"I would encourage any couple to do is communicate and create guidelines for what they consider out-of-bounds," said Della Casa. "I know couples who share one another's e-mail passwords and have agreed not to have individual relationships with people of the opposite sex and others who think cheating is only an issue when physical contact is involved."
 
2. Share your Disappointment.
Emotional affairs occur when one person is unable to share their disappointment, according to California clinical psychiatrist Mark Goulston, author of "Get Out of Your Own Way." "Acting out (as in an affair of any kind, many compulsive habits or even self-destructive habits) or alternatively acting in by shutting down and withdrawing are not an expression of disappointment, but coping devices to keep from experiencing the disappointment fully. The reason people try to avoid experiencing the disappointment fully is because they fear that it will lead to some irreversible action that they don't want or are not ready to take."

"Ironically when you can admit disappointment and feel it fully, exhale, pause and when possible express it to the other person using, 'When you do 'A,' I feel 'B,' and it makes me want to do 'C,' which I don't want to do, so that is why I am getting it out now," the disappointment ebbs and flows and then dissipates," he said.  "Marriages don't end because you stop loving each other, they end because you can't stop hating each other. And it gets to that stage because disappointments are not communicated with early on and then build up into frustration, anger, and finally hatred. Like acid, hatred corrodes the inner fabric of love."


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Lenore Skomal is author of nine books and columnist of an award-winning weekly column in the Erie, Pa., Times-News, she also teaches college journalism in Pennsylvania.