Emotional Cheaters - Spouses Beware!

Affairs are difficult enough to spot, especially if your significant other is smart, but emotional cheaters are the hardest to catch. Emotional cheaters can disguise their affairs in various ways but they can cause all the pain and heartache of a regular physical affair.

Basically, it's a situation where your spouse and an acquaintance are attracted to each other, become emotionally attached, but neither act upon the attraction in a physical way. An emotional cheating spouse experiences all the aspects of cheating without having sex.

This new form of infidelity is, in part, due to the internet. Now people can spend their spare time chatting in chat rooms and meeting people on MySpace. Many emotional affairs start this way.
And because this situation can be shrugged of as "just talking," many partners must suffer in silence as their lover's attention is continually directed toward someone else.

There are signs that your spouse is an emotional cheater.

If your partner has a lot of after-work meetings with a co-worker of the opposite sex, this can signify an emotional attraction. If your partner is distant, emotionally or physically, it can be evidence of emotional infidelity, especially if they have friendships that you are not privy to, or have regular nights out with a friend of the opposite sex. Your spouse may also refuse physical intimacy with you and stop sharing their feelings and problems.

Talk to your spouse. Make it a point to be open about feeling neglected, without making hurtful or angry accusations. Tantrums and nagging will only make the new "relationship" more attractive to them.

Set a date night together and spend sometime bringing the intimacy back into your relationship. Let your spouse know how much you appreciate them with your words or with a kind deed or gift. Show your partner how much you love them and you'll quickly put the intimacy back where it belongs.