Effects of Emotional Affairs on Mental Health

An emotional affair, also known as an affair of the heart, refers to a close emotional connection and bond that develops between two people outside of their primary romantic relationship.

While no physical intimacy occurs, the intense emotional intimacy and feeling of shared purpose, meaning, and chemistry can deeply impact those involved and their primary partners. Understanding the risks and effects emotional affairs have on mental health is important.

Prevalence of Emotional Affairs

Emotional affairs are surprisingly common. According to a 2018 study published in the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, approximately 25% of people admit to having an emotional affair at some point when in a committed relationship.

This number may be even higher as many emotional connections outside a primary partnership go unreported. With the rise of technology and social media enabling more consistent communication with people outside one’s relationship, the opportunities for emotional cheating continue to grow.

Overlap with Workplace Affairs

Many emotional affairs begin in the workplace. Spending 8 or more hours a day working closely alongside attractive, like-minded colleagues while facing common challenges forms ripe conditions for bonding. According to one source, 58% of emotional affairs start at work. Their hidden nature, without outward signs of physical intimacy, also makes them easier to disguise or downplay at first.

Attachment Insecurity as a Risk Factor

Those experiencing attachment insecurity in their primary relationship carry heightened risks for developing outside emotional connections. Attachment theory, first pioneered by psychologists like John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth, highlights how early childhood relationships with caregivers shape adult intimate bonds and needs for security. Those with attachment anxiety constantly worry about abandonment.

Those with high avoidance distrust intimacy and have trouble getting close. When these attachment needs go unmet in a marriage or partnership, it becomes vulnerable to an outside emotional affair that offers compensatory stability, understanding, and preoccupation.

The Allure of Emotional Affairs

While breaking trust should give anyone pause, the allure of an outside emotional connection is multi-faceted. The novelty of a fresh person showing intense interest when a primary partner feels distant or disengaged has magnetic appeal during periods of relationship boredom or unrest.

The shared validation and laughter with someone new who “just gets it” offers an oasis for those feeling trapped in an affectionless marriage. Emotional affairs also carry a sense of freedom from the daily logistics and familiarity of one’s established partnership. They exist in a fantasy bubble outside reality. For all these reasons and more, the lure of an outside emotional affair can feel irresistible despite its implications.

The Chemical Highs

Alongside psychological drivers, chemical processes help explain part of emotional affairs’ runaway train appeal once they start. When two colleagues or acquaintances first start sharing intimate conversations, fun banter, and serious bonding there is a mood-elevating neurochemical effect. Feelings of anticipation and uncertainty mixed with enjoyable interactions flood the brain with dopamine.

This reward pathway makes them crave future interactions. Oxytocin, the body’s bonding hormone kicks in during intimate or prolonged contact, making them feel more affection, empathy, and positivity towards their secret emotional partner outside their marriage which starts rewiring neural pathways.

Short Term Ego Boost vs Long Term Damage

In the moment, emotional affairs offer a real boost. A thrilling rapport with an attractive alternative person floods the system with pleasurable neurochemicals and provides an ego boost to know one still “has it” when a committed relationship feels dull or low. However, long term the damage far outweighs any momentary high.

The deception required eats away at integrity and well-being. Emotional energy diverted outside the marriage slowly starves the primary connection. Resentment and distrust also enter once discovered. This makes understanding potential mental health impacts vital.

Mental Health Impacts of Emotional Betrayal

When an emotional affair gets discovered, a trail of mental health disruptions often get left in their wake for both parties and the primary partner. Common issues include:

• Loss of trust/sense of reality
• Plummeting self-esteem
• Spikes in anxiety, panic attacks
• Clinical depression
• Suicidal thoughts in extreme cases
• Symptoms of PTSD from the deception
• Intrusive rumination and obsessive thinking
• Hypervigilance about possible relapse or clues
• Feelings of going “crazy” due to the gaslighting

Many betrayed partners describe the discovery of a spouse’s emotional affair as inducing more longstanding damage than physical cheating in some cases due to the depth of intimate emotions shared outside the relationship. The wounds penetrate one’s very sense of self-worth and stability.

Recovery Challenges After Emotional Betrayal

For those whose partner secretly engaged emotionally with an outside person, regaining equilibrium presents real challenges including:

• Regulating intense surges of emotion
• Quieting obsessive inner monologues
• Overcoming vivid mental images
• Ever fully believing their version of events
• Feeling special to them again in uniqueness
• Reversing subconscious damage to trust

Even if the wayward partner answers all questions asked, the loss of relationship certainty the emotional affair created plants seeds of self-doubt moving forward.

Therapeutic Support Options

If an emotional affair rocked a relationship foundation, both professional counseling and support groups can assist. Many find working with an affair recovery specialist in couple’s therapy improves communication and rebuilt emotional intimacy.

Support groups like SAS for Partners offer the community with others experiencing emotional betrayal for comfort during the often isolating aftermath. Online counseling via platforms like Regain also supply affordable help.

Protecting Relationship Stability

While recovering from an established emotional affair proves difficult, protective measures do exist for inoculating relationships against vulnerability to outside emotional connections taking root in the first place. Methods to safeguard commitment include:

• Consistent dedicating bonding time
• Ongoing intimacy building via sex
• Expressing affection and appreciation
• Prioritizing transparency around activity

Structuring life to regularly energize the primary relationship fortifies it against seeking emotional attention elsewhere. It also lowers urges to sabotage stability subconsciously.

In Closing

Emotional affairs remain one of the top threats to modern relationships with 25% admitting to their occurrence. Their hidden nature and addictive neurochemicals high make them easy to rationalize despite real damage posed emotionally and psychologically when discovered. Next to physical cheating, the traumatic wounding they create can be even more devastating due to the perceived intimacy of shared feelings, dreams, and vulnerabilities outside one’s primary partnership.

Safeguarding relationship happiness necessitates vigilance against emotional betrayal. With proper recovery support, many couples heal stronger, but the road back never follows a simple path after deception enters from those closest.