So, you can compartmentalize well. You can justify anything. You can rationalize anything but are you an emotional cheat? You are if …

You talk about your partner or the problems in your relationship behind your partner’s back with a “close and special” friend.

You have someone with whom you feel justified in sharing your inner most feelings and get support because your partner” doesn’t get you.”

You meet that special person in secret places and spend time, but don’t tell your partner.

Stay out late without calling home, drink too much, say and do things you wouldn’t say or do in front of your partner.

Treat your partner in humiliating, embarrassing, demeaning, dismissing ways to assuage your own guilt.

Have secret passwords, accounts and codes to keep your partner from knowing about your Internet activities.

Hide your credit card bills.

Lie about the money you spend with or on your special friend.

Buy gifts for the “other” person but not your partner.

Play with the sexual energy between you and your special person.

Create webs of deceits to cover your tracks.

Visualize or pretend that you are making love with your special person, while being intimate with your partner.Feel a contact high just connecting with your special friend.

Toy with the idea of leaving your make but never discuss it with him or her.

Refuse to discuss the issues and problems in your relationship.

You feel more committed to nurturing and protecting the relationship with your special friend than the one you have with your partner.

David Hawkins, author of Power VS. Force, says that the difference between people who are conscious and those who are not, is simply that the unconscious person has not yet arrived at a level of awareness where he or she is willing to take personal responsibility. People who are emotional cheaters can rationalize and justify their affairs by simply saying neither penis’ nor vaginas were ever touched. What they don’t say is…hearts were – which is much more dangerous.
Couples connect on four levels in healthy relationships; intellectual, spiritual, emotional and physical. In emotional affairs, the intellectual, emotional and often the spiritual levels of connections with partner are severed and needs are met with a new interest. When people leave their partners and disconnect on this many levels, the next thing out the door is the relationship. First communication leaves. Then touching leaves. Then the spirituality or compassion and respect leaves. Then you leave.

If you are having an emotional affair and want to get back to focusing on your primary relationship you need to ask yourself what is the fear driving this behavior. Emotional affairs are borne out of fear; fear of intimacy, fear of conflict, fear of inadequacy, fear of rejection, and fear of abandonment. Shame-based or fear- based individuals compensate by acting indignantly, self-righteously and as if they are entitled to their bad behavior. This guilt-ridden feeling secretly causes people to manipulate, lie, coerced, intimidate and project blame onto their partners. If you want to save your relationship, you need to get real and start taking personal responsibility for your behavior. Tell the truth and stop the lies.

Next step is o go to work on your relationship. Start talking with your partner and if you need help, download the communication exercise off the DrDinaEvan.com site and set aside time to really connect. Partners who have become estranged begin to reconnect as soon as they start talking honestly with each other. The truth is ALWAYS healing. It isn’t always comfortable but it is always healing. If you have made an investment of time, energy and love in your current relationship, it may be worth the effort it rakes to bring the aliveness and love back. The greatest gift is the return of your own integrity.

© Dr. Dina Bachelor Evan 2013

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