EA love

[candlelight01]

I'm a little confused at why those spouses in an Emotional Affair use it in connection with Love. They have never met face to face, yet they genuinely feel this.

 

What kind of love is in an emotional affair? For all you out there who may have been involved in an EA especially, please help me try and understand this. What were/are your feelings?

 

For those of you who haven't been involved in an EA, what is your best guess as to what this might be?

 

 

Thank you.

Edited November 3, 2012 by candlelight01

[Sasu]

I haven't been in one but dealt with one who was in one from time to time & it made a mess out of our relation .

 

My Online Emotional Affair–How We Survived It « Keeping The Gloves On

 

One of way ,it goes.

[BetrayedH]

People crave external validation. When someone gives it to us, we love how it makes us feel. We are grateful and want the other person to continue and so we reciprocate by providing them with the same external validation. They love how it makes them feel about themselves.

 

You don't need to be in the same room or have physical contact to give or receive external validation. Physical touch is just yet another way to validate someone (make them feel physically desirable). I think most would agree that it's many times the ultimate way to validate someone. The more that someone is so out-of-control passionate about desire for us, the more validating it is and the more we like it.

 

Some people have an excessive need for external validation (due to low self-esteem) such that having a spouse is simply not enough. If yet another person offers them external validation as well, they cannot resist it and will break their vows to get it. Some don't have such an excessive need that they cross the physical boundary. Some simply don't have the opportunity (long-distance affairs). Some just haven't gotten there yet.

 

We all enjoy being given external validation. Some would say we "love" it. Some would then say that they love the other person. When both parties are being validated by one another, we'd say they are "in love."

 

I think we just love how the other person makes us feel about ourselves. We love how we look through their eyes. We reciprocate. How far we go is dependent upon how secure we are with ourselves. Someone with high self-esteem is likely to invest less; someone with low self-esteem is likely desperate for external validation and will go to greater lengths to get it. Some could just use a little emotional connection. Some will lie and cheat to get validation from as many people as they can.

 

My theory anyway. But I'm a little bit jaded.

[Realist3]

Back when I was in 3rd grade our class did the pen pal thing. We developed a friendship and some 20 years later we met. It was not love, but it was a bond. The point being is that friendships and love do not reside only in the physical, they reside in the mental as well.

[candlelight01]

Can we have low self esteem without even knowing it, and regardless, what do you think some other issues are in falling in love with the external validation that someone gives us?

 

Is there any chance this is real love?

[Furious]

Before you edited your opening post, you said the other man has 7 children and has left his wife after only a three week emotional affair with your wife.

 

If you want to your wife to snap out of EA fog, all she'd need to do is to spend less than a week with the OM and his seven kids and see if reality compares with the fantasy in her head.

 

I seriously think your wife has some serious issues she needs to sort out.

[Realist3]

Wow! That was a huge edit.

[candlelight01]

Yes it was, and yes she did. She is getting help. The point was that it brought a bunch of other issues into the question that weren't necessary to answer it. Rather than a case-specific answer, I'm looking for more of a general answer.

 

What is this love in an EA? It's puzzling to me, and I'm trying to figure out how it's going to affect her. If it is the same love that she has for me (let's assume her love for me is the healthy, spouse kind of love), then it seems like we're in for some real issues. If it's something else, well, I'm looking for what else it is from those who have been there and how much it should affect things as well.

 

Thank you so much.

[frozensprouts]

I can't speak for your wife, as I'm not in her mind and don't know how she feels but one thing I have noticed with emotional affairs is that they quite often don't seem to be grounded in any sort of reality...they're just words with no actions...and besides, anyone can create a persona for themselves that isn't a reflection of their true selves, and having an online "emotional" affair makes that really easy...you only see exactly what the person wants you to see...there's no non verbal cues to base your feelings upon...

 

makes me wonder what would happen if your wife were to spend any real amount of time with him? she may very well find that her "knight in shining amour was just a dork in tinfoil" ( to quote another a Love Shack user)...

 

as odd as it may sound, when an emotional affair ends before the people involved have ever really spent much time together, there may still be the "fantasy image" that they have built up around their other man/woman...but the person they are in love with may be very different from the reality

[Realist3]

I can't speak for your wife, as I'm not in her mind and don't know how she feels but one thing I have noticed with emotional affairs is that they quite often don't seem to be grounded in any sort of reality...they're just words with no actions...and besides, anyone can create a persona for themselves that isn't a reflection of their true selves, and having an online "emotional" affair makes that really easy...you only see exactly what the person wants you to see...there's no non verbal cues to base your feelings upon...

 

makes me wonder what would happen if your wife were to spend any real amount of time with him? she may very well find that her "knight in shining amour was just a dork in tinfoil" ( to quote another a Love Shack user)...

 

as odd as it may sound, when an emotional affair ends before the people involved have ever really spent much time together, there may still be the "fantasy image" that they have built up around their other man/woman...but the person they are in love with may be very different from the reality

 

I agree with a lot of what you said, but I think in the real world most EA's are not with people they have never met. They are with co-workers, friends, people they know on some level. I know that is an anecdotal conclusion, but I do believe that is where most of them occur.

[Furious]

I agree with a lot of what you said, but I think in the real world most EA's are not with people they have never met. They are with co-workers, friends, people they know on some level. I know that is an anecdotal conclusion, but I do believe that is where most of them occur.

 

This also true...in the real world everyone has the opportunity to cheat, it's not rocket science.

 

 

By the way, how are u doing "JR Ewing":p....I mean Realist3

[Realist3]

I'm doing very well. Thank you for asking. .

[carhill]

IMO, it depends on what one's description of an EA is. Some are prosecuted without personal contact, some with personal contact and some with personal contact that may appear to outsiders to be platonic.

 

My opinion is that the *intent* of the party's is key to the description, in that such intent de-prioritizes the party's primary relationship(s) with their partner(s)/spouse(s).

 

The best arbiter of that potential de-prioritization is the partner/spouse in question.

 

OP, if you're interested in my personal experiences, my journals here provide background. The evolution series would probably be most applicable. Good luck.

[candlelight01]

She told me last night that she was "infatuated" with him. She said she knew it wasn't committed love, and that was the difference. It's almost like she's differentiating "in love" from "(in love + committed love)" and reserving the latter for me, while keeping the "in love" feeling for him.

 

So she tells me that even though it's infatuation, it's still love. So when he told her (even as recently as a week ago) that he loved her, she returned the favor.

 

She has also told me she thinks it will "fizzle out." I feel like the more she tells him, "I love you," (even though to her, she means the love from infatuation), the less likely it is to fizzle out. Am I wrong in this?

 

Is there love in infatuation? Note, they spent about 2/3 of their time just talking to each other and getting to know each other, sharing songs, walking in the parks on the phone...not on sexual stuff at all. She now readily says that's what it was...infatuation is still love but without the commitment. Is she right about this part?

 

Thanks for your help.

[Furious]

She told me last night that she was "infatuated" with him. She said she knew it wasn't committed love, and that was the difference. It's almost like she's differentiating "in love" from "(in love + committed love)" and reserving the latter for me, while keeping the "in love" feeling for him.

 

So she tells me that even though it's infatuation, it's still love. So when he told her (even as recently as a week ago) that he loved her, she returned the favor.

 

She has also told me she thinks it will "fizzle out." I feel like the more she tells him, "I love you," (even though to her, she means the love from infatuation), the less likely it is to fizzle out. Am I wrong in this?

 

Is there love in infatuation? Note, they spent about 2/3 of their time just

talking to each other and getting to know each other, sharing songs, walking in the parks on the phone...not on sexual stuff at all. She now readily says that's what it was...infatuation is still love but without the commitment. Is she right about this part?

 

Thanks for your help.

 

 

You're putting all your energy into trying to understand your wife. She's talking out of both sides of her mouth, and spinning your brain into a knot.

 

Start thinking about yourself, how much more of her double talk can you take, stop thinking if you were to understand her that you might be able to fix her.

 

From the sound of your posts, you seem frantic and desperate to lose her.

 

Let her go, let her make her own mistakes, stop being her enabler.

 

Your priority must be to yourself, and your own self respect.

Begin by focusing on you, that you are not a prisoner to her dysfunction.

[Owl]

Do a search for my first thread here posted back in 2004. I think you'll find some similarities there that could give you some insight.

 

If they've never met...you're not only dealing with her "feelings of love"...you're also fighting a fantasy version of him that doesn't even exist in reality.

 

IMO...that's much harder to cope with than a living, breathing, farting, forgetful, selfish, in your face human being that prevents you from harboring false illusions about what life with them would be like.

 

Her "love" for him is limerance for her fantasy of what he's like. Go to your local bookstore and pick up a copy of "The Five Love Languages", and read chapter 3 about the different types and states of love.

 

What are you doing to change the situation?

[candlelight01]

Owl, I am the other half of the story officers in the raiding guild on EQ2. Unfortunately, what happened is that after that, she actually did revert back and contacted him in game again, changing at that point to Skype, because she figured I would be checking the phone records.

 

I think she knows that it's a fantasy version of him, and that that's one of the ways that she could continue doing it. She also knew that he moved out from a loveless marriage and away from 7 kids when he told his wife about her..I have contacted his wife and asked her these things. That didn't matter to my W; she knew about it, and she feels like she loved him anyway. That's both hard to understand and hard to deal with, which is why I started this thread...I would like to understand the feelings.

 

One of her biggest love languages is Acts of Service.

 

What I am doing now...what I am doing now...

1) There is nothing about this that we don't talk about; we've covered time periods, what was said, how she feels, and even triggers. I am going to live through this with her, and so I would like to know how she has fundamentally changed. I didn't become attached to the person she is now, and so that's hard.

2) We're in counselling..well, she more than me, once a week.

3) We spend time during the day in intimate conversation...nothing explicit, necessarily, but just the kind of normal everyday chatter that people who really care about each other have. Her verbal conversations with him were mostly when she was at work, so I believe this also helps with that.

4) We've picked up geocaching again...nerds, maybe, but it's fun.

5) We uninstalled the game, and she asked me to change her password.

 

This love thing is what gets me the most, because I kind of wonder what it says about her love for me. She says she loved both of us, but that it was separate. That's one of the reasons why I'm trying to figure out what kind of love it is from anyone that's experienced it. Thank you.

Edited November 6, 2012 by candlelight01

[candlelight01]

Are these enough, or does anyone think more?

[Owl]

Here's my list of what worked for us.

 

1. We both quit the game for several months (when we quit, there was no set time on when we'd return, or if ever).

 

2. She gave me full access to her phone, computer, email, etc...

 

3. She agreed to NC with him...forever.

 

4. We both started IC (individual counseling) and MC (marriage counseling). We ended up dropping IC and using my therapist as our MC since he was a lot more capable than the first therapist we saw for MC.

 

5. We implemented a lot of changes as a result of MC. Spent more time together, etc...

 

We setup some good techniques for talking through all of the issues around her EA. We found that talking too much wasn't good, talkign too little wasn't good. Our MC was a good 'ref' to help us work through a lot of this too.

 

We helped her to learn/implement some solid boundaries around interactions with other folks, and developed her understanding on why they needed to be there.

 

We worked through things I could change to improve our marriage as well.

 

Eventually, we started gaming again. We ended up going to WOW for a while...and now we're pretty much done with MMORPG's on our own.

 

It's up to you what's "enough" or not.

 

What are you both DOING to rebuild your relationship, to repair the damage done, and safeguard it going foreward?

[NotCamelot]

I was involved in a EA a few years ago.

 

It was someone I had not seen in 32 years. It was a person I had a tremendous crush on back in the day. Lots of reasons nothing happened back then. Fast foward, things tense at home and then FACEBOOK. She was single and available.

 

It was easy to become involved with someone that I wanted back then who confessed that she wondered why I did nothing back then.

 

Thankfully she was 1200 miles away. Thankfully I got caught.

 

I bet a lot of the EAs are attributable to Facebook.

[justcantletgo]

we never had physical affair coz of the distance but i could tell and assure you that our feelings was as intense as those who were having PA. i tried to break it off with him and he begged me to not leave him and wrote me at least a thousand of "i love you" messages, called me until i answer him and his face broke my heart after i saw him, he was so miserable and his eyes looked so red from crying. he saw my pics with the guy i dated for a while and he said he he cried coz he was so jealous and hurt and everyone at work asked him what was wrong coz he looked so down. we were together for 1 and half year and went NC after the DDay when i told his BW about our A.