Reader Response: The Emotional Affair

Thanks to reader SeekingSolace 1971, who wrote the following on the message board for one of my guilt posts:

I really struggled with a situation not too long ago. I didn't have a full-blown affair, it was more like a very close friendship but with some definite romantic overtones. It's over now but I really miss this man, but I also feel horrible about having any feelings for him in the first place. I don't know how to handle the guilt, and wonder why I don't have an easier time with this. The relationship seemed to bring such positive things into my life, but I'm clearly messed up. I wonder how you balance it day by day.

First of all, to appease some of your guilt: Shirley Glass, author of "Not 'Just Friends,'" found 55 to 65 percent of men and women she counseled had participated in relationships she considered to be emotionally unfaithful: secret, sexually energized, and more emotionally open than their relationship with their spouse. Eighty-two percent of unfaithful partners had had an affair with someone who was at first "just a friend." And with more women and men working together in the workplace--not to mention burgeoning technology and social networking sites to assist online relationships--emotional affairs are more rampant than ever in today's culture.

"The new infidelity is between people who unwittingly form deep, passionate connections before realizing they've crossed the line from platonic friendship into romantic love," says Glass.

During my outpatient treatment program at the hospital, the therapists concentrated for two weeks on the topic of unhealthy relationships, and, in particular, breaking away from unavailable (usually married) love interests--because these kinds of friendships and romantic fantasies are invisible factories of depression. True to Glass's statistics, four out of the six patients were involved in an emotional and/or physical affair.

Take Marjorie, the 40-year-old graphic designer who had become intimate with her business partner. The two hadn't slept together--just some kissing. But she felt as though she had given her heart to him and couldn't get it back. Three months after breaking off communication with him, she still thought about him constantly, fantasized about making love to him, and crossed out every day on her calendar that she succeeded at not calling him.

This graphic designer was as obsessed and infatuated as she was Catholic (of course, because we are a passionate and somewhat neurotic breed), which didn't help her guilt complex.

"I know my feelings for him are bad, bad, bad. He's not my husband," she told the group. "But he understands me better than anyone ever has. He's my true soul mate."

"A soul mate isn't a guy who has similar interests and beliefs as you, who feeds you some lines to get you in bed with him. He is the person who is there for you every day...like your husband is," said Carolyn, a woman who had a good marriage of 40 years.

"I'm afraid I'll never stop crying if I don't reconnect with him, that my happiness depends on our togetherness, or at least on our communication," Marjorie explained.

"But when you call him you feel guilty," a nurse said.

"And the more you call him, the more guilty you will feel, and then the more depressed," said another patient.

"Does this fellow want to leave his wife and kids for you?" asked another patient, a man involved with a married woman who claimed she was leaving her husband after her kids went off to college.

"No. He said he wants to keep his family intact," Marjorie replied.

"Then he's using you and he's extremely selfish," said Jane, a woman who was on affair number three, trying to summon the courage to leave her lover. "And don't think he's shed a tear over this thing, because he's probably moved on to another graphic designer by now."

"Let's look at some patterns in your past relationships," said a nurse. "Have you been involved with any other unavailable men?"

Marjorie described her first love relationship in college with her English professor--he wrote her love poems and swept her off her feet with his intellectual poise and sophistication. She was crushed when she learned that his collection of love poems was quite substantial--she was by no means the only student he fancied. That was just one of her several toxic love affairs.

I related to much of her history because, back in college, I had quite the priest fetish--"The Thorn Birds" complex. I blew off available guys my age at Notre Dame so I could chase men with white collars (and seminarians, when I could find a heterosexual one). That way if I got rejected (and I always did), it was for the sake of God. And who could argue with that?

My first four years of therapy went primarily to this issue--becoming comfortable enough with myself and identifying my childhood baggage--so that I could begin to date fellows in jeans (not robes). I worked with the right counselor: she married a priest the year after I graduated. (I cried at the wedding.... "Why not me?")

All of this, SeekingSolace, is to say that you are not alone. To find out what the hospitals nurses told Marjorie to do, click here.