“Flirting is fun and usually begins in innocence. It’s a hard habit to break, even after marriage. Yet it causes jealousy. Worse, it puts us into situations we never intended to fall into, and it creates misunderstandings that can lead to infidelity” (Jerry Jenkins).
We’d like to address an important issue in this week’s message — the issue of emotional infidelity and flirting with someone other than your spouse. There’s no way we can adequately give it the attention it needs in the space of one marriage message but we’d like to at least scratch the surface and share with you some things to think about that you may have never thought of before.
This subject was sparked by a program we viewed on the Dr Phil program on December 5, 2002 entitled: “You’re Not the Person I Married.” We’d like to share some of the dialogue from that program because we found it to be insightful. In it, Dr Phil was talking with couples who married before really knowing one another—who after the wedding discovered some things about their spouse that they didn’t think they could live with.
The last couple (Joe and Karmen) that he met with was battling with the issue of his flirtations with other women and the emotional affairs he later developed with several of them. To Joe, it was all innocent —just fun, because as he said, “there was no sex involved.” But Karmen didn’t view it that way; she felt hurt and betrayed.
They set up that segment of the program showing a tape of both Joe and Karmen explaining their “sides” on the issue. Karmen said,
“I was in love with Joe, and he swore that he’d be faithful to me when we got married. Joe’s been involved with several women over the years, and he says they’re just emotional affairs, but they bother me just the same. I’m suspicious of everything that Joe says to me, and I’m constantly checking up on him.”
To that Joe responds,
“I never thought I would really be able to give up the attention I want from other women. The flirtations with women I have, they’re just romantic. There’s no sex involved.” And “when I tell the truth” (to Karmen when questioned by her) she”gets hurt, so I sometimes have to lie to save her feelings. To be honest, I never thought we’d be married as long as we are now. I think the kids right now have a lot to do with us still being together.”
They then, show a segment where Karmen’s sitting with her son who was crying telling his mom “it’s all my fault” for the problems they’re having. After the video, Dr Phil asks, “Joe, you just saw the toll this has taken on your son. So how much fun is that flirting now?” to which Joe replied, “It’s not fun at all.”
Karmen said,
“He didn’t know that was going to be on there, but I wanted him to see how bad he’s hurting our son without him even realizing it. My son came to me and said, ‘It’s my fault Dad’s unhappy with life because Dad told me he wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for us and he’s unhappy being here.’ I said, ‘Joel, he was trying to let you know how much he loves you; that even though he’s not happy with himself, he’s here for you, that he loves you.’ But, of course, my son didn’t take it that way.”
Dr Phil addressing Joe, said,
“You say, ‘I got married, knowing I wouldn’t want to give up the affection of other women. I’m having emotional affairs, but nothing physical.’ You know, just color me cynical, but I don’t believe that. I’m not saying you are or you aren’t —I have no evidence. I can’t prove one way or the other—all I know is what you say, and just one guy to another, I don’t believe that for a split second. But—that’s your position. And then you go say this to your children? Do you feel any responsibility to the health and welfare of this family as it relates to your choices?”
Joe replied, “I never knew my choices would really affect the family the way they have. I have, in the past, thought sometimes, it’s better we should just split up, however.” Dr Phil said, “Well, that’s one option, that’s true, to just say, ‘You know, I’ll just go—and y’all make your own way.’ Joe then admitted, “You know, I like what I have. You know, I love Karmen; I love the kids. I don’t want to give that up either.”
When Dr Phil asked Karmen if she felt betrayed by these emotional affairs, she said, “They hurt just the same as if he was out having a physical affair.” Dr. McGraw said, “Well, you are betrayed” and then turned to Joe and asked him if it truly was a betrayal to which Joe affirmed that they were.
Phil then said to him, “Because let me tell you, anytime you turn away from instead of towards your partner to meet emotional needs, physical needs, needs that are appropriate to a committed, intimate relationship, that’s a betrayal. So you have these needs, and you’re turning away from your wife to meet those needs. What do you expect her to do about that?”
Joe replied, “Well, I know I lost her trust. And I know it will be hard to regain it. But all I can do is say I’m sorry. The feeling I was looking for was that new relationship feeling. We’ve been married 14 years, and, you know, I miss that feeling.
Dr Phil then said, “So you thought, ‘I’ll just go get it somewhere else. And I’ll let my children pick up the tab for that immaturity, I’ll let my wife pick up the tab for that immaturity, and I’ll let our family go down in flames, so I can get a rush every 30 days?’”
Joe said, “See, I never really looked at it that way. I didn’t think it affected them a lot of times, I guess really it was, ‘What they don’t know don’t hurt’.”
Dr Phil then replied, “You said, ‘When I got married, I knew I wasn’t going to give up my want for these other women. I didn’t think we would stay married very long.’ So I guess you just thought you’d just bring some kids in the world and then just kind of leave them in your wake as you went to the next conquest. ‘What they don’t know doesn’t hurt them.’ Are you rethinking that as you sit here now?”
Joe said, “Oh, definitely, yes.” Dr Phil then said, “That’s a good thing because this is about wake-up calls. I’m not trying to beat you up. I’m trying to wake you up and get you to realize what you’re doing here.”
Joe acknowledged that he now saw his behavior in a different light and that he had been wrong but he wasn’t able to make a firm promise to stop for fear that if he failed he’d hurt his wife again with another “broken promise.” He did say he “wanted to” stop flirting and seeing other women.
At that point, Dr Phil said,
“Listen, I understand. Isn’t it all fun when you’re falling in love and everything is new and fresh and all that? That’s all fun just like riding a roller-coaster is great fun for some people. But the truth is, as we mature, we realize that love doesn’t get old; it just transforms.
You know, at first, you’re up all night talking and you’re doing all of this stuff and everybody gets all excited and everything. And I always hear them say, ‘Oh, we’re like soul mates. She knows me so well, she can finish my sentences.’ Then two years later, it’s, like, ‘Hey quit interrupting.’ OK? You know we get that evolution, but we label it as negative when really it’s just a change.”
“I don’t stay up all night talking to my wife because I want to go to sleep. But you know what? It may not be exactly the same; it’s better, but different. If you mature enough to allow that to happen, what you find out is—in exchange for some of the exhilaration in the unknown, you have comfort, you have security —you have a soft place to fall. And when you put effort and energy into it, you can create that exhilaration at the right time along the way.
But in the meantime, you mature into nurturing what’s there, learning to label that the same way you label the others. There’s a big difference between falling in love and being in love.”
We appreciated how Dr Phil tried to bring a wake up call to Karmen and Joe and to all married couples who feel flirtations aren’t harmful. If you’d like to read the whole transcript or order a video copy of the show go to www.drphil.com. We hope what we had to share was helpful because as Dr Frank Minirth said, “The problem with infidelity within marriage is greater than most Christians realize.”
What may seem to be innocent flirting by one person with someone other than their spouse can lead to all sorts of problems and by it, many innocent people can get hurt.
Something Jerry Jenkins said in his book, Loving Your Marriage Enough to Protect It (which we highly recommend) may shed some additional light onto this subject. He said,
“Because I enjoy having fun and being funny, and because my mind tends to find humor in words and unusual combinations of ideas, I could easily flirt with anyone I thought was receptive. Much flirting is funny. If someone says something flirtatious with me, my first impulse is to expand on it, play with it, see how quick and funny I can be. But I resist that. It isn’t fair. It’s mental and emotional unfaithfulness. I would be exercising a portion of my brain and soul reserved for my exclusive lover —my spouse.”
Something else Jenkins says that may be helpful on this subject is, “If you want to flirt, flirt with your wife. She may not look, feel, or sound the way she did when you first flirted with her years ago, but she still wants you to flirt with her. Try it. Wink at her across the room. Blow her a kiss no one else sees. Play footsie with her under the table. Give her a squeeze, a pinch, a tickle no one else notices.”
Then he asks the husbands, “Wouldn’t you like to be flirted with by someone who loves you, someone who can tease you about what she might do with you later and then deliver?” Try it—you may like it! We have—and it may just help you to keep the romance alive—just as it has for us in our almost 31 year old marriage.
Because of Christ,
Steve and Cindy Wright
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(USA) My husband and I have been going through a lot of problems recently. I asked him to move out for a while because of how dreadful, abusive, and ugly our arguments were becoming. I’ve always told him I don’t want a divorce, but we are in desperate need of counseling for several reasons. Today, I came upon an e-mail from a former lover of his that simply said “I love you”. I can’t explain how much it hurt to see that they were even in contact with each other anymore. He promised me he would stop communicating with her.
Now I feel as if there isn’t even any reason to try to salvage our relationship. The e-mail was sent before he even moved out, so I have no idea how long this has been going on. I have been trying to pray and ask God to help me move past anger and bitterness, but it’s so hard. I just don’t understand how a person can do such things and still claim to love you.
(U.S.A.) I am absolutely devastated by my husband’s emotional affair. I was so happy when he seemed to have made a friend at work so they could share the agonies of the job together. Also, I thought it was nice that he had someone to go for lunch with or a coffee. Little did I know, these lunches and coffees became a regular daily routine. They would text each other and call each other after work and on weekends yet continue to claim “Just friends” status.
I am regarded as the jealous wife that is controlling because I won’t let my husband have any friends. I am so sick about this situation. He will not cut off the relationship with her and it has really broken up our family unit. Even with counseling he claims he has done nothing wrong. I want to walk out but I have five children to consider. I feel so trapped and betrayed. My heart aches every day. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
(AUSTRALIA) I am going through this problem right now. My husband is doing exactly what you guys are talking about. We have been arguing about it for two months. He says “we are just very close friends and now physically touch; you have to get over it.” If he chooses between us he says he will choose his friendship.
I happened to look at his email and found out that they write something like “I miss you very much” “I am always thinking about you” “we never have long enough time together” “I dreamed of you in a inappropriate way” “I have a feeling for you”. It hurts me so much, but he dose not realize this. He thinks it is ok to do it and there is nothing wrong with it. I really feel hurt and betrayed. I am in the verge of divorcing, I can not take it any more. But then it is not fair for my child. I do not know what to do and feel lost.
(AUSTRALIA) Emotional Infidelity is just the word I am looking for. I thought I was too jealous and crazy. After reading the article, I realized I am not crazy. My husband said I need to see a psychologist. He says I am crazy. He is the one doing a wrong thing. I am not so scared of divorcing any more even though this is last thing to come into my mind.
(USA) Well, I found this interesting to stumble across. I THOUGHT I had one of the best marriages and truly nothing could ever shake that until an IM was left open one afternoon. It threw me for a loop to say the least and the forgiveness and trust has been equally difficult.
I’ve come around to the point in my life that if it ever happens again I will end my marriage. I cannot and will not or should I just say “don’t want to” tolerate it or anything else to that nature again. I don’t understand how if 2 people love each other how that all evolves. I am a firm believer in my daughter’s professor’s view that the internet has ruined more wonderful relationships that one wants to talk about.
Anyway, I didn’t really have a word or phrase for it up until now -but yep….it’s happened to me. I would find it interesting if I did the same thing to him behind his back how it would feel. I have always truly believed and still do… what goes around comes around… it may take awhile.
I TRULY LOVE HIM with all my heart but a hole got pierced in my heart that day. It’s been a LOOOONNNGGGG road for me and it’s been good to know as I read through these I did nothing to deserve it. Thanks for the website.
(USA) Like Dwayne above, I had an emotional affair (but was not thinking it was that at the time). My wife is 95% out the door and all I want to do is to have her stay, and I cannot.
I am looking for someone to maybe explain to me what I can do to prove to my wife I love her and want her, and that my emotion is all for her. I lack the ability to communicate my feelings and need that push.
I have devastated my wife, and potentially my child. While I wish I could gain advise from people, I can advise to people to open up to your spouse, and no one else. I love my wife and have basically lost her. Don’t do what I did.
(USA) My husband spent almost all of 2008 deployed to Afghanistan. He has always had a lot of female friends. In fact those were the only friends that would ever call him. Some of them were ex-girlfriends. I trusted him, so it never bothered me all that much. Right before he left, we found out that I was pregnant. It was both exciting and scary. At that time, our relationship was strong and healthy.
It didn’t take long before that all changed. A month after he deployed, he opened up a Facebook account and reconnected with all kinds of people, especially females. I noticed a change in him. He would become very irritable with me. I later found out that it was during this time that he was chatting up a girl he went to school with. I read the messages between them. A lot of them were very flirtatious. In one of them, he told her that he would probably leave me for her if I wasn’t pregnant. Reading that absolutely devastated me.
Their communication had continued throughout the year. She sent him a ton of pictures of herself early on, and then she sent him more a week before he returned home. The pictures that she sent right before he came home were nude pictures!
There were times towards the end of the deployment that he would tell me that I was ruining our relationship and that when things got tough that he just wanted to be done. I couldn’t understand where all of this was coming from. Deployments are stressful, but I thought we were getting through it pretty well. He went through periods where he wouldn’t talk to me. He called me a total of 5 times the whole year and the rest of our communication was through AIM or email. After a week of not talking to me, he called me a few days and apologized to me. At this time, I still had no idea about his communications with this other girl.
The first few weeks of him being back home were amazing! It was different beings we had a newborn now, but everything seemed perfect. The “friend” whom he would chat with and who sent him pics of herself would call him occasionally and text him and email him. She was having problems with her boyfriend and was looking for a shoulder to cry on. She was forwarding personal emails that her boyfriend sent her onto my husband! My husband thought it was funny.
One day when my husband wasn’t home, I went back and re-read those emails looking for a solution for her and her boyfriend (I didn’t know about her involvement with my husband yet). I came across some older emails from her and that’s when I came across the disgusting pictures! I was in absolute disbelief. I thought things between my husband and I were great, and here only a week before he got back, she was sending nude pictures to him! Who sends naked pictures of themselves to a married person! (And she knew that he was married and had a kid.)
I emailed this girl’s boyfriend letting him know that she was forwarding his personal emails to her to my husband and I also let him know about the inappropriate pics that she sent my husband. I didn’t care what he decided to do, but I just thought he should know what kind of a girl he was dealing with.
I debated on whether or not to confront my husband. I ended up confronting him that day. I asked her about his relationship with her and he responded that “she’s just a friend”. He got defensive and asked why I was snooping through his things. He was trying to make me out to be the bad guy. I told him that he had to chose between our family or his female friends. At one point earlier on, he had told me that if I made him give up his friends that we’d be getting a divorce. That’s the response I was expecting, but he told me that he would cut off all contact with all females. It was a relief, but it still hurt to think that during this past year, this woman had replaced me. I cannot describe the amount of pain that this has caused me.
It’s been about 6 months since I found out, and our marriage hasn’t been the same. I want to be able to forgive him and trust him, but it is so hard. There’s been days where I feel like I’m going crazy. He has done what I have asked, but it doesn’t make what he did go away. Emotional infidelity is very damaging to people and relationships. I don’t think he did this to hurt me. I think he thought that it was innocent at first, and then it just escalated.
After he got done trying to minimize what he did and minimize my feelings, he finally accepted what he did was wrong and has apologized over and over again. He wants our marriage to work. He said that he used the other women to vent when he was upset. He shared practically nothing with this woman, so I imagine it was an easy outlet. He never lived with this woman, paid bills with her, had a family with her, etc… He has told me that he has always loved me and never actually meant what he said to her. He never wanted her, but he would use her to vent and in return get free porn from her.
There has been some other women who have sent him pictures. I feel bad for these women because I think it is an ego boost for my husband. All he has to do is ask, and these women have no problem exposing themselves. Women need to be careful what they put out there because it can turn around and haunt them later on.
The bottom line: Do not under estimate the damaging effects of emotional infidelity. He thought that beings it wasn’t physical that it was fine, but that left me devastated and now our marriage is on the rocks. In an emotional affair, attention is being taken away from the spouse and is given to someone outside of the marriage. If you have to hide your phone, or emails, or other messages from a “friend” so your spouse won’t see it, then it very well could be emotional infidelity. It is easy to fall into, but very hard to come out of intact.
(USA) This is so incredibly sad and a huge relief (to see I’m not blowing things out of proportion) at the same time. I’ve been married for 23 years and stumbled across some correspondence just like everyone else. I was in complete shock as I believed everything was great, that we had the ideal relationship and I loved him so very much. I confronted him more than four times, regarding the communication only to be met with him changing his passwords and getting better at hiding the conversations.
I too, felt crazy, and when explaining it to others was somewhat treated like I was crazy because my husband is such a nice guy. I finally left; but he has the kids and the dogs and the house. Our kids, who have never seen or heard us fight are equally shocked and confused. They are all teenagers and I didn’t want to uproot them so I gave them the choice to move with me or stay and they stayed because it is their comfort zone. However, they are angry with me because they don’t understand all of the circumstances and without going into great detail about it with them, it appears to them I was just jealous of some female co workers their father has had.
This has been brutal. I am shocked and angry that he would do this to our family and to me his “soul mate” and I feel utterly and completely rejected.
Does anyone know of any online support groups for this type of issue? Counseling doesn’t help and I could sure use and would be glad to give support.
(USA) Ladies, thank you for sharing your sad stories. We are all in the same boat. The degree of suffering from mental torture, emotional breakdown and humiliation after each discovery and confrontation depends on our attitude.
This is my sad love story… My husband of almost 3 decades is a natural flirt and the worst part is he doesn’t consider it a bad behavior. He flirts in my presence, everywhere we go, in parties, restaurant, even in church functions. Definitely, he flirts at work too. In fact, 2 weeks ago, I opened a can of worms. A young woman co-worker called his cell phone on a Saturday morning and when I checked our AT&T phone bills I noticed multiple calls from this woman. Furthermore, this woman’s home address is camouflaged like an email address in his cell phone. Isn’t he clever?
Once again, he promised to change his ways. With a broken-heart I forgive and pray for divine intervention. Only the power of God can change my situation.
(US) My story sounds so much like every one else’s. My husband sent divorce papers last week. I don’t have a date yet, so in the meantime he turns my cell off. I am having a hard time understanding something. He walked out, and now is upset with me because I did not sign the papers. He is upset because he has to go to court and spend money, so he is trying to hurt me because I didn’t sign.
He has another woman, and has received a large sum of money and has not in the last year of separation helped with any bills. I have paid all the bills and now have been laid of from work. I am hurt and am trying to stay close to God in prayer for comfort. I pray for his salvation. If he is so happy, then why go out of his way to cause me hardships?