How to get over an emotional affair in 3 steps

How to deal with emotional infidelity

An emotional affair is the development of a deep relationship with someone who isn’t your intimate partner. But how do you get over an emotional affair?

When the emotional affair began, you may have felt like you really clicked with that person. The other person may have given you the attention you really craved, if not right from the start then doubtless later on. You increasingly felt ‘seen’, ‘heard’ and understood by them.

It’s natural, then, to feel a strong sense of connection because you, like all of us, were born with a brain that is made to respond to undivided attention – it’s a human given.

As human beings, we’re all capable of feeling a deep connection with another person – often inexplicably so or through shared experiences and perhaps a close working relationship.

It’s natural that such an attraction invokes a strong sense of longing and belonging. We can’t help but to want to feel that sense of togetherness and easy understanding again and again. That’s how we develop close couple relationships.

It’s understandable then if that has happened to you that friendship or co-worker relationship has increasingly challenged your boundaries, despite your already being in a committed couple relationship.

The closeness and availability of the other person now activate the pleasure centres in your brain leaving you at the behest of its addictive pleasure-inducing chemicals. You feel increasingly driven to develop that friendship based on that hugely satisfying feeling of being seen, accepted and loved by the other person.

That feeling is so addictive that even though you might never have considered yourself the type to betray your partner/spouse, you feel drawn more to this person than your spouse. But maybe, you’re still trying to convince yourself it’s not an emotional affair – it’s just a friendship!

It’s important, though, to realise that emotional infidelity doesn’t just happen. Allowing that friendship to develop into emotional infidelity involves making decisions at every step of the way.

This means that you do have a measure of control over those strong feelings and accepting that is the first step in getting over an emotional affair.

So, what now? How do you get over your emotional infidelity?

How to get over an emotional affair when you’ve already stopped it…

… and are no longer seeing your affair partner

When you’re no longer able to feed that addiction, your brain goes into overdrive. It’s constantly searching for ways to satisfy the craving you feel for the other person.

It’s just like withdrawal from an addictive drug. You’ll experience an intense longing. You’ll be anxiously searching for ways to relieve the pain. Ultimately, you’ll be utterly miserable if you can’t get that fix you feel you need.

When it comes to emotional cheating, withdrawal may make you feel as though you’ll never be happy again without the other person.

You may feel torn: part of you might want to do the ‘right’ thing and save your primary relationship and stop a divorce. It’s possible that you do still love your spouse.

The other part of you might be desperately wanting to relieve the pain and stop that longing by reconnecting with your lost love. 

Perhaps an exclusive relationship with the other person just isn’t on the cards right now, for whatever reason. Perhaps they’re married or are in a committed relationship, or your love is not being returned and they have started to reject your advances.

Whatever the reason for your being here, we’re going to assume that you’ve decided to stay in your primary relationship. You’re going to commit to it and help your partner (and yourself) to heal.

If your relationship was previously relatively stable, chances are you’ll eventually settle again. There’s the potential for your relationship to become even stronger if you can both weather this storm.

However, if you remain conflicted about your decision, disconnecting from the other man or woman can cause a personal crisis as well as a crisis in your relationship. If you can’t make up your mind, it’s possible that you’ll start to experience feelings similar to those of a nervous breakdown.

So, here’s my advice for getting over your emotional cheating…

Stay or walk away

You’re going to have to be very sure of your decision.

If you feel you ought to stay with your partner or spouse (rather than wanting to), your heart is no longer in your relationship. Your feelings for the other person have overtaken you, and/or the pre-existing problems in your relationship might now be too great to overcome.

It would, of course, be most unhelpful if you committed to staying in your primary relationship while maintaining contact with the other person.

Only through honesty and transparency, will you and your spouse be able to recover from the (emotional) infidelity. You’ll also need to devote time, energy and attention to your relationship.

Therefore, Step 1 (below) is the only way to start the process of healing…

Dealing with emotional infidelity
and stopping an emotional affair

Stopping an emotional affair – Step 1

Cut all ties with your lover to stop the emotional affair.

It may sound brutal, but it’s the only way to move on from all this.

Here’s how:

• If you’re having an online relationship, delete the other man or woman from every account you have, and/or block them on all your devices in all of your apps, including Snapchat, Instagram, Kik and Facebook.
• If your relationship was with a boss or manager, seek another job if at all possible. The power dynamics will have changed so much that you can’t expect to be accepted again as an ordinary employee. Also, if it was public knowledge, your colleagues might be miffed so just when you’re in need of support there’s likely to be none available at work.
• If your relationship was with a coworker, one of you will have to change roles, move departments or shifts.
• If you were both members of an organisation or club of any kind, quit.

Give your partner access to your phone and email/social accounts if necessary. They may want to see for themselves that you no longer have contact.

You may well feel as if you’re losing your freedom and that your partner is in control.

However, the sooner your partner feels reassured that you’ve stopped cheating, the sooner you’ll both recover. You’ll be wise not to set a time limit on that, though. It could take anything from a few months to a couple of years, depending on both of your relationship histories and how you generally deal with challenges and setbacks.

Stopping emotional infidelity – Step 2

Accept that you can’t just switch off your feelings of love for the other person however much you want to stop emotional cheating. For more about this, see also How to end an emotional affair.

Acknowledge that you’re hurting and don’t be tempted to try and escape your feelings with drugs, alcohol, excessive gaming, partying or contacting the other person again. Here’s what you can do to forget someone you love.

Your pain is normal under the circumstances. It is what it is and will subside unless you keep feeding it.

Stop reliving infidelity – Step 3

Feed your brain with new information. Take up a new hobby or interest. Commit to doing some voluntary work. Or, get a new job (you not have any choice anyway!).

The point is – you need to get completely absorbed by something new.

Best ways to get over your emotional cheating

You’ll have to stop building all the nerve connections in your brain around the person connected with your emotional infidelity.

However, just trying to stop thinking about that person won’t work. You have to give your brain something else to do instead. So what better than to focus on your partner or spouse? After all, rebuilding your relationship or marriage is going to take some work…

1. Reconnect with cherished memories of your partner or spouse. Listen to the music you listened to when you first met. Look at old photos. Remind yourself of what you felt, heard and saw back then. Relive them in your imagination.
2. Before you go to bed, make a list of the ways you can re-engage with your partner or spouse by writing emails, texts, PMs, IMs, leaving notes about the house or in their bag etc.
3. Before you nod off, remind yourself of all the good times with your spouse and the qualities you like about them instead of indulging in thoughts of the other woman or man.
4. Fantasise about making love with your partner (if at all possible), or bring your thoughts back to them if you’re plagued by fantasies about the other person.
5. Think of ways to bump into your partner ‘by accident’ during the day, just like you might have done with the other person.
6. Make a list of the other person’s flaws – all those things you were perhaps vaguely aware of but somehow managed to ignore. Write it all down, from the smallest observation to the major irritations. And while you’re at it, make a list of all the positive things about your partner :-)

Self-hypnosis can really help with this. And there’s a hypnosis download just for this: Get over someone and move on with your life. For further information, see my article: Hypnosis FAQ and downloads.

I suspect your feelings are all over the place at the moment. So, for further help and ideas on how to improve your mood, read my article on how to deal with depression without medication.

And just in case you need reasons not to continue cheating – emotionally and/or physically, see my article on dealing with infidelity.

How to deal with emotional cheating

Helping your partner or spouse get over your emotional infidelity

Another way to help you get over emotional infidelity is by helping your partner to heal. To learn a little more about how they might be feeling as a result of your emotional infidelity, read my article: How to survive infidelity.

I know this can be really tough because you’re hurting too. You might not have anyone to share your feelings with because your infidelity was most likely a secret. And you might not feel as though you can complain because you’re the one that’s caused all the drama.

Potentially the only person who could have offered you solace is no longer reachable. And now you’re having to cope with a partner and a relationship so damaged that you barely know how to put it right again.

I therefore highly recommend you get some expert relationship advice. You’d be sensible to also take this opportunity to address any relationship issues the two of you already had. It might even be that some of those issues – at least in part – contributed to you seeking out someone else to connect to in the first place.

Finally

Know that if you’re really committed to making your relationship or marriage work, your partner will heal – and you will too.

Learning how to get over your the other man or woman might take a little time and will definitely take some care and effort. But once you’ve survived this storm and are in a safe harbour again, you can rebuild your relationship and make it stronger than it ever was before.

Image by papagnoc