Understanding what an emotional affair is and how they develop can help you to avoid making that mistake in your marriage.
Talking Points:
- Emotional infidelity is developing a close, intimate bond with someone who is outside of your relationship. It often involves revealing intimacies about your relationship that should only belong to you and your partner.
- If you are developing a strong bond with a third party, you must share this with your partner. Be entirely transparent, no matter how hard or scary.
- Redirect the energy you give to this third party toward developing more closeness with your partner – even if it’s hard. In all likelihood, you’ll find that your relationship will start improving because you’re actually giving it the attention it needs to thrive.
Discussion:
- Initial reactions to this topic? What jumped out at you?
- Describe emotional infidelity in your own words.
- If you had to break emotional infidelity down into three main stages for simplicity’s sake, what do you think those three stages would be? Explain.
- What would you say are “warning signs” or “rules-of-thumb” for recognizing emotional infidelity?
- Why is it important to be honest with your partner when a friendship goes too far emotionally?
- What steps can partners take to protect themselves and one another from falling into emotional infidelity?
- Is there a step you need to take based on today’s topic?
