Shirley Glass reported in Not 'Just Friends' that, among those who claim to have had an affair, 44% of husbands and 57% of wives indicated they had a strong emotional involvement with the subject of the affair without intercourse. Ĭhaste and emotionally intimate affairs tend to be more common than sexually intimate affairs. For both genders, sexual and emotional extramarital involvement occurred in those with the greatest marital dissatisfaction. Research by Glass & Wright found that men's extramarital relationships were more sexual and women's more emotional. Such closeness can also be a reaction to separate injury in the relationship, and indeed can be utilized to resolve the injury and heal the primary relationship. It is theorized that an emotional affair can injure a committed relationship more than a one night stand or other casual sexual encounters. In this view, neither sexual intercourse nor physical affection is necessary to affect the committed relationship(s) of those involved in the affair. The role of an affair is to create emotional distance in the marriage.' 'A relationship between a person and someone other than (their) spouse that affects the level of intimacy, emotional distance and overall dynamic balance in the marriage. High levels of platonic emotional intimacy in adults may occur without the participants being bound by other intimate relationships or may occur between people in other relationships as a normal course of life. Indeed, forbidding your partner from maintaining and participating in close friendships is a common feature of coercive control. It is disputed whether this is inappropriate. The intimacy between the people involved usually stems from a friendship with confidence to tell each other intimate aspects of themselves, their relationships, or even subjects they would not discuss with their partners. However, nearly all friendships serve these roles to some degree. An emotional affair may emerge from a friendship, and progress toward greater levels of personal intimacy and attachment.Įxamples of specific behaviors include confiding personal information and turning to the other person during moments of vulnerability or need. An emotional affair is sometimes referred to as an affair of the heart.

The term often describes a bond between two people that mimics or matches the closeness and emotional intimacy of a romantic relationship while not being physically consummated. The term emotional affair describes a type of relationship between people.

Shirley glass not just friends pdf