Emotional infidelity occurs when you or your partner become emotionally connected with someone outside your relationship, either in person or on the Internet.
One way of looking at emotional infidelity is that it is very dangerous, because it not only takes away time and energy from the marriage, but it can lead to sexual infidelity and possibly to the end of marriage.
Another way of looking at it is that it is a symptom of problems that already exist within a marriage. My experience with the couples that I work with is that, when the primary relationship is not emotionally and physically intimate, each person may be vulnerable to a form infidelity - either emotional and/or physical. Rather than blaming the affair for the problems, why not address the real problem?
Emotional affairs are compelling because it is so easy to be close with someone with whom you have no shared responsibility - no money issues, no children, no chores. It is easy to share your deepest feelings with someone with whom you have no conflict. It is easy to get the good feelings that you get when someone who doesn’t live with you and doesn’t see all your issues thinks you are wonderful. But it is a cop-out - an easy way out of dealing with the real issues at hand. And if this affair does lead to a break up of your marriage and into a new permanent relationship, the chances are you will end up with the same problems! So why waste your time? Why not deal with the problems now?
The primary problem that leads to emotional infidelity is emotional distance between partners. While emotional infidelity is a symptom of emotional distance within the primary relationship, the emotional distance is also a symptom of the deeper issues within the relationship. These deeper issues might be:
• One or both partners trying to have control through anger blame, and criticism - which are overt forms of control.
• One or both partners trying to have control through care-taking, i.e. giving themselves up and taking responsibility for the other person’s feelings - which is a covert form of control.
• One of both partners withdrawing and resisting being controlled by the other partner.
• Neither partner taking emotional responsibility for his or her own feelings of pain and joy. Each partner abandoning themselves - with self-judgment and ignoring their feelings through addictions, and/or making the other responsible for their feelings.
• Power struggles that result from the control and resistance dynamic and an inability to resolve conflict.
The relationship system that develops, when neither partner takes responsibility for his or her own feelings, and when each partner tries to have control in overt or covert ways, grinds down the love until each person feels disconnected from their partner and lonely in the relationship. This is when they are susceptible to emotional infidelity.
However, these patterns do not disappear just because you move into another relationship. You take your overt and covert forms of control with you into any relationship, as well as your underlying fears of rejection and fears of engulfment that underlie these forms of control. These patterns don’t generally show up early in a relationship or in an emotional or physical affair, but that doesn’t mean they are gone. If your new relationship were to become your committed primary relationship, these patterns would again surface.
Why waste what might turn out to be a wonderful relationship by not dealing with your fears, controlling patterns, and self-abandonment now, in your current relationship? Instead of addictively looking to someone else to fill up your emptiness and take away your aloneness and loneliness, why not learn to do this for yourself so that you can break your dysfunctional patterns and become the loving human being that you are capable of being? Imagine the wonderful relationship you and your partner might have if both of you were to learn how to take responsibility for your own feelings and your own ability to love!
译文:
情感不专对婚姻来说是多么的危险
当你或者你的另一半开始与除你以外的人有着情感关系，不管是生活中还是在网上，这时，情感不忠就有可能发生。
一种看待它的方法就是，这是非常危险的因为它不仅占据你们婚姻的时间和精力，而且它也有可能导致性背叛也有可能导致婚姻的结束。
另一种看待它的方式就是，它可能是早已存在的婚姻问题的征兆。我和那么多夫妻相处的经验告诉我当他们的关系不是情感上或是身体上的亲密时，他们自己很难形成忠实-不管是情感上的或是身体上的。与其说责备风流韵事的问题，还不如直击问题的真正问题所在。
情感问题是很重要的问题因为它很轻易的就与没人跟你分担责任的事宜紧密联系在一起-没有金钱问题，没有小孩子，没有家庭琐事。与没有跟你有过矛盾争执的人分享你最心底的感情是件很容易的事情。与那种不再你身边的，看不到你的所有事情的，并且认为你很完美的人分享你的感情，这是很容易让你获得好感的。但是这是一种简单的逃避眼前的事情的方法。如果这种事情将导致你的婚姻破灭来开始一段新的关系，很有可能你会以同样的问题结束这段新关系！那么为什么要浪费你的时间呢？为什么不现在就开始解决问题呢?
导致情感不忠的主要问题是你与你的另一半之间的情感疏离。当这情感不忠是与对偶的情感疏离的征兆时，这种情感疏离也是一种深层关系问题的征兆。这种深层问题可能是：
一方或配偶双方试图通过这些明显公开的控制方式如生气责备，或者批评来控制对方。
一方或双方试图通过这些公开的关心照顾-如，忽略自己，对另一半的感情负责来控制对方。
一方或双方抵制拒绝被另一方控制。
双方都不替他或她的痛苦或开心承担情感责任。任何一方都抛弃他们自己-通过自我审问，通过麻痹忽略他们的感情，或者为他们的感情作出别的责任。
来自控制，有力的阻止和无能解决冲突的实力之争。
当双方都不替他或她的感情负责，当任何一方试图通过公开的方式控制对方，削略感情直到每个人感到自己疏离了对方，只剩下孤单的时候，这时亲属制才发展了。这时它们才意识到感情不忠的存在。
然而，这些形式将不会消失因为你会投入到别的关系中去。你通过别的关系，同时也有潜在的受拒绝的担心，潜在的其他形式的控制的担心来掌握公开的控制。这些形式在关系的早期或者身体背叛显示出来，但是这并不意味着你已经消失了。如果你的新关系将成为你心有所属的主要关系，那么这些形式将会再一次的显现出来。
为什么通过不处理你的担心，控制形式，现在的自我放弃来浪费可能转变成美好的关系来浪费呢？与其花时间以看别人的方式去填补自己心中的空虚与孤独，为什么不去从这中学到一些可能改变你功能障碍的形式，变成一个你可以成为的可爱的人呢？设想要是你能试图去替你的感觉和你的自己所爱的人负责任的话，你和你的另一半的关系会是多么的美妙啊！