15 Ways Emotional Cheating Can Destroy Your Relationship

When you cheat on your partner as a result of emotions, it usually begins as a friendship. What happens is you start thinking about somebody else that is not your partner. You can develop an emotional stronghold which tears your current relationship apart.

When you have an emotional involvement with a male, around 50% of these relationships end up by having an affair with the emotional partner.

When something like this starts, hurtful results end up being given to your partner. This is one of the reasons why you shouldn't keep secrets from your partner.

What is an emotional affair?

An emotional affair develops when someone puts more time in with someone that is not their partner. That relationship is stronger because of some emotional need that starts to develop. Someone may be better connected to that other person and may experience full blown feelings towards the other person.

Many times the person who was cheating on their partner does not feel guilty because nothing physical is happening between the parties. Their partner, on the other hand, feels that this type of relationship is more hurtful than an intimate encounter because there might be a stronger emotional bond.

A regular friendship is fine, but where it develops into an emotional affair is when a person gets more personal with the friend. Instead of telling personal things to your partner you tell them to the friend. The key instance is keeping secrets from the other person. This is where it becomes wrong. As a result of this new transfer of your affections to your friend, you can develop a strong emotional attraction.

Before getting involved with someone in an emotional relationship, you might want to reconsider the effects it can have on you and your partner.

15 You begin to live a double life

When you get involved with someone you're not supposed to end up with, you end up living a double life. You may not even realize it is happening until it is too late. By this time you are so used to living a double life that it seems somewhat normal. In one situation, you pay attention to your partner, you make sure they are your priority. In the other situation, you begin to find it hard to stay away from your emotional friend, after all you have developed a strong emotional bond. You may even be leaning on them for emotional support, to help fill whatever void you have in your life. Your significant other and your emotional friend might not know each other, but you end up trying to pay attention to both of them. In many cases, someone will end up getting hurt.

14 You can't pay attention to your job

Being emotionally attached to someone else can result in you daydreaming about them and fantasizing about things that have happened or can never happen. This is very dangerous territory. When you cheat in your relationship it will damage your concentration at your job in a couple of ways. Most of these relationships begin in the workplace. When you are at work, you find that you try to find ways to talk with your friend and you don't focus on your job duties. This is a direct result of having this only time away from your current relationship. When you are at home, it is not possible to think about your friend because your partner may suspect something is going on. It is easier to think about your emotional friend while away from home.

13 You begin to take advantage of your partner

Beginning a strong emotional connection to one individual will end up putting more distance in between you and your partner. Your partner will wonder why you are not paying attention to them like he used to. They will begin to notice that you have become emotionally distant. When an emotional relationship begins with somebody else, you expect your partner to treat you the same way they have been treating you even though you are not paying attention to them like you used to. You begin to have a struggle with your partner and your friend, and you give more attention to the person who is fulfilling your emotional needs. Your partner will feel the emotional change in the relationship.

12 Fights develop in your current relationship

When you begin to have an emotional affair with another person, little arguments are more than likely. The person that you are in a relationship with will begin to suspect that you're keeping secrets and will not understand why you are doing so. They will sense that you are keeping a lot in and are not sharing like you once used to do. They know that you keep to yourself more and seem to be much more distant. As a result of this, you are not paying attention to the person that you're supposed to. Your partner is being neglected and taken for granted. Instead of focusing on the one you have built a relationship with, you're giving your attention to someone else. Ignoring your partner will result in unhappiness for both parties.

11 Your life grinds to a halt

When you live a normal life, you think about goals and other things that you would like to do. Most people imagine when they will move out with their partner, some will wonder about marriage and others about starting a family of their own. The problem here is that when you begin fantasizing about someone else, you don't think about these types of things anymore. Your life becomes consumed with thinking about this other person. You begin to think about them too much, and you're always trying to figure out ways to spend more time with them. You completely put your relationship on hold and place your focus elsewhere. Before you know it, you begin to lie to yourself and just say that you are only friends with this person, but you don't understand how this wrecks your life.

10 Frustration begins to develop

Your emotions are all over the map. On the one hand, your partner brings you some sort of happiness, but your friend in your mind makes you happier. Even though your friend is part of your fantasy life, this life is not real. When this develops, you are not sure exactly what you have, and this can frustrate you. Deep within your soul, no matter how much you desire it, having a relationship with both parties just can't happen. This become too much for you to handle and the anger and confusion will taken over.

9 Whatever romance is in your current relationship you destroy

This is what happens when you have an emotional affair with someone else. There might not be anything wrong with your partner, but you begin to believe that your partner is not paying attention to your current needs and doesn't care about you the way they use to and you begin to lie to yourself. You lie to yourself and say this is the reason why you're falling in love with someone else.You begin to see problems in your current relationship that might not even be there. This is just one excuse to tell you it's okay to be attracted towards someone else. The problems you create and see in your partner you see as something that cannot be fixed. You begin to ignore problems in your partner and convince yourself that the situation can't be fixed.

8 What is important is that you change instantly

You can lie to yourself and tell yourself that you things have changed but immediately your partner begins to feel like they're being ignored and they cannot comprehend why you are doing what you are doing. You begin to get frustrated with your partner and the way they are acting towards you in your relationship. This is not the type of life you want. Many times you might start an argument with your partner to make an excuse to be comforted by your emotional friend, which quickly turns into guilt, sending you running back into the arms of your partner.

Your partner will notice the hot and cold personality you give off, and how it wasn't always this way between you. They will begin to anticipate the unpredictability of your personality. This can result in them behaving the same way.

7 Guilt

When you develop an emotional attachment to someone who is not your partner many times, you will feel a slight guilt as a result of what is happening. Even if there is not physical aspect, there is still a part of you that knows it is wrong. Keeping this in mind, a stronger attraction begins to develop which will lead to a full blown emotional affair. You soon be consumed with wanting to spend all of your time with this person, only wanting to be around them. At this point the guilt will be happening to both parties and will become harder and harder to ignore. You will bounce back and fourth from being attached to your partner as well as your friend. When you have feelings for two people, guilt will arise. As a result, you begin to ignore the guilt, and you put distance between you and your partner.

6 You turn into a liar

It is impossible to tell yourself the truth when you're in love with two people. You will tell yourself that you aren't in love with your friend. But the problem is when you become emotionally attached to another person, you begin to ignore the situation and pretend like nothing's happening. When you lie to your partner, they begin to suspect that something is going on.You may ignore and not talk about your friend to your partner, but lies develop when you make excuses to spend more time with them. This situation gets worse when you try to spend more time with your friend outside of a work environment. Your lies start out small, but they get bigger as time goes on.

5 You can't take it back

Once you begin an emotional affair with somebody of the opposite sex, it may seem like fun at the current moment, but nothing good can come of it. It is only fun for those short spurts of time, but those little pieces of your day to not make up your life. Once you go over the line and have an emotional affair with someone else, the result is not good and can only cause you pain. You can't take this action back and once you begin something like this and it can be tough to recover from.

4 You destroy trust in your relationship

A relationship is supposed to be built on trust. When one person goes out and has an emotional affair with someone else, you sow the seed of distrust. This can be extremely hard to mend. When you have trust in a relationship, you have something special. Having an emotional affair destroys what is special. Finding out that someone has mentally checked out of the relationship will cause seeds of doubt so strong that it will be difficult to fix. Trust will be hard to ever get back. Everything will be questioned and compared to the other person.

3 You sow seeds of grief

When you destroy the trust in a relationship, you can't help but develop grief. This might be happening before you even notice. Many times the other person will separate themselves from the situation to avoid pain and to keep confronting what is going on. By suppressing these feelings the relationship with start to spiral downward and seemingly out of control. The feeling of grief will soon become uncontrollable and will begin to consume you. People assume that by being involved in a nonsexual affair will rid the person of any guilt, but this in fact will still occur because the people involved do know it is wrong.

2 It turns into obsession

When your partner finds out about your emotional affair, that may force you to end it with that person. On the other hand, your partner is obsessed with bringing it up over and over again. Your partner just can't seem to forget it. They are looking for symptoms that it might happen again. Before you know it, your relationship has turned into a guessing game built on guilt, lying and distrust. The person that is hurt may go so far as to change their physical appearance because that is what they believe the other person wants. But the focus is that they may not quite get over the damage that has been done. This is when the relationship will slowly begin to deteriorate. The worst part is that the injured party also becomes obsessed with every detail of the other person's life, wich will in turn also hinder your relationship.

1 Destroys your spiritual life

Having a spiritual life causes you to become positive. When you are giving your attention to someone, who is not your partner you destroy that happiness. You can't respond to two people at once. You will realize quickly that this is nearly impossible and requires one relationship to be seriously neglected. Before you know it, your true relationship has been ruined before you even have a chance to notice it.

Having an emotional affair with someone else is not right no matter how you look at it. You may make excuses about what you are doing, but that still doesn't make it acceptable. An emotional affair not only affects you and your partner but it can affect your children as well. All types of negative consequences can occur as a direct result of your actions. There can be healing as result of forgiveness, but that takes time, and sometimes it destroys the relationship.

Resources: marriage.com, lovepanky.com, livestrong.com