Cheating/Emotional Affairs
To Cheat or not to
Cheat - Emotional Affairs
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.
Arizona Together
May 2006
Dr. Dina Evan
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