For my wife, she was 7 out of 9.

It's too bad that we don't read this kind of information before the affair happens...or even before we get married.

This is so accurate it makes me want to vomit. Number 2 specifically, but also number 3, are the reasons why the emotional affair turned into a physical affair. Number 7 is why it stayed physical.

It's amazing to me that these steps are so detailed, yet so right on. I agree that I wish I could have had these signs BEFORE it took place. :-\

This says it all--absolutely spot-on. All of these were present in my husband's relationship with the AP, and led to the affair. Thanking God for 3 years together post-revelation and for the healing brought by the Affair Recover programs! It is possible to rebuild, renew and move forward.

My husband is a stranger to me and to intimacy. In almost 30 yrs. of marriage, he has run from conflict. We can't work through anything, including his infidelity, because he flatly refuses. But God is faithful. My hope, joy, and peace rest in Him.

This is the exact events that lead to my husband's physical affair. I told him what was happening but he just accused me of being controlling. Nothing I did was good enough while this was going on. I was blamed for his every problem and told that I needed to "shape up" if I wanted to stay with him. I'm glad I found out the truth sooner rather than later. He has come clean and we are waiting to stay EMSO. The part I still struggle with is that he still thinks that he and his AP are perfect and if her husband and I weren't so awful that they wouldn't have "needed" each other in the first place. How can I get him to see that he was the one making me out to be a horrible person and that in reality he was hurting me long before he started sleeping with her?

My husband started with a physical affair (from Ashley Madison) and said it wasn't emotional. Months after Dday he admitted that it became an emotional affair several months into it - but the emotional level was 3-4 on a scale of 1 to 10 (according to him.) After reading your article, I can see how much more of an emotional affair it was - almost every sign listed applies to him.

Wow... that article "sums it up". I now clearly see the pattern for most of our marriage, and boy oh boy do I feel stupid. He had many EAs but it was only when he decided to leave me for one - did I wake up and smell the coffee. I want to help other couples SEE !!! The deception, the blindness, the justifications it is all so gut wrenching to the betrayed.

Thank you for this Rick! As I read through this it was like you were narrating my affair(s). It is really sad to think that there are so many of us unfaithful out there that fall into these patterns but don't truly see it while in the midst of the affair. This is the cycle and it repeats itself time and time again from marriage to marriage. While in the entanglement of the affair one thinks that "no one else could possibly understand" or "this is different than everyone else's experience" and so many other thoughts to not classify it as an affair, but this article is proof that no emotional affair is any different or "special" than what any one else experiences. Thank you for putting things into perspective for me! We are 3&1/2 years out and every day I'm learning new ways to avoid bad behaviors and every day I continually try to change. It's a rough road and for all the betrayed that have stuck it through, thank you!

This sounds like my husbands emotional affairs. He continually justifies them (just friends , it didn't mean anything, I was just being nice, she was depressed , Ilied because I didn't want to hurt you, etc. ). He is still telling the same story. I think he is starting to believe it. When will he just come clean with what his intentions were. I cannot forgive nor respect him until he does. What other path do I have?

My husband betrayed me this way with my sister. 10 years later, we’re still together but it still hurts because he won’t tell me what they talked about. I feel he’s still protecting her. I cut off all contact with her but I can’t be sure he has. I will never trust him or her or anyone again. Before I found out about their secret phone calls, I felt in my gut something was up when we were all together but I didn’t say anything. I told him I thought it was inappropriate for him to be talking to her behind my back(she totally stopped talking to me and I didn’t know why) and yet, thanks to cell phone records I found he was still doing it. He would leave the room when she called and then lie to me who he was talking to.
I think it would have gone on to a physical affair if I want there that time she called.....I would leave him but I’m afraid to be alone after 28 years together. I have been spiraling down mentally ever since. I am one breath away from a total breakdown. Will the pain ever end? Will I ever get over it?
He has me convinced I am crazy and what I saw didn’t happen and he “doesn’t remember” leaving the room when she called or what they talked about and says they weren’t hiding it from me. Several times I said to him I hadn’t heard from her, despite leaving her messages and calling everyday and he never once said he just talked to her. MayBe they weren’t trying to hide it, but they certainaly weren’t putting it out there in the open.
She never once after I found out called me to explain herself. If it was just an innocent friendship as he claims wouldn’t she call me and say so? Idk.

This is exactly what happened to my husband of 23 years. He got a emotionally involved with a Japanese woman co-worker. They don't really work together but belong to the same organization and work in the same building.My husband is 67 years old and the woman is at least 30 years younger. He said they became very close early March . I discovered the affair September 30. The discovery is a miracle I believe God's compassion on me. I have been very trusting and very patient with his ever increasing emotional distance and sometimes outright rudeness and his treating me with contempt a lot of times just to avoid "strife" in our marriage.

I never met this woman or never heard her name till the D-day. My husband kept this all secret. Little did I know that at he has been consistently investing in her, meeting her pratctical and emotional needs, giving her a lift home after work every afternoon and driving her off to the bus station to catch her bus to another cuty on Fridays , to be with is lived in partner. Then my husband will pick her up again on Monday mornings from the bus station. On Fridays, they will tell each other how much they are going to miss each other and look forward to Mondays. My husband "stole' persimmons, feijoas, mandarins,and chokos form our garden and consistently supplied her. They are part of a tennis group that play doubles on lunch breaks, but they also played one on one for an hour each time , not a serious play , just frolicking and laughing and enjoying each other on the tennis courts .At the same time my husband also mentored her of tennis as h is 30 years ahead of her playing tennis. This is significant because he never did this to anyone, never to me or our children who are now 21 and 18 years old. He never took me or the kids out for a walk o outing, but he took her out one time for a walk in a beautiful gorge outside which is 1 and a half hours outside the city. They did this by taking one afternoon off one Wednesday. My husband came home that night close to 8PM, and I never questioned him. He also has taken her out for lunch in a restaurant (something he never did to me) and for a morning snack on a very nice cafe in town ( he never did this to me either). Sometimes my husband is away for his work or she is away for her work. When that happens they texted each other early mornings and at night and through the day updating each other, caring for each other, and how they look forward to see each other again. When my husband went away to Australia with my son for a week he emailed her updates and even took a beautiful photo of koala especially for her and sent it to her, He never emailed me or sent sent photos to me. Just texted me 3 times. When our family went for a short 3 day holiday , he was as usual cold to me and even to the kids. I learned later that he has been emailing her and sending photos to her.Clearly he was with us physically, but he was constantly thinking and missing this other woman.My husband was very u creative in finding opportunities to be with this other woman alone. They both work in teh dairy industry as researchers, but she is in social science science research, but my husband is in soil research so he gets to visit farms often while she is most of the times in the computer or attending conferences but never been to a dairy farm herself. My husband managed to take her to a dairy goat farm after work hours, just a personal trip. Could go on and on

At D-day, and subsequent weeks and days my husband said that did nothing wrong because they didn't have sex nor intend to have one. But he said they were very close and enjoyed being together and just de-stress. In his words they really enjoyed it as they have no expectations from each other, no pressure to have sex, no bills to worry about and no children, etc. He said that her company has a calming effect on him.
At D-day my husband said that she would make a very good catch as a wife and if he were 30 years younger, he would like to marry her. To make me feel better, he followed with saying that I am still his number one and she is her number 2 for companionship. However in practise, he never desired my companionship, he avoided me, and hid in his busyness every day at home at night and on at weekends. He said to me he is very fond of her and one who's company he really desire. He said he finds her finds her attractive and there is chemistry between f them. I told him its an emotional . Its a violation of the marriage vow. I told him that the cleaving in sickness and in health doesn't only means sexually but emotionally, in fact the emotional, mental and spiritual bond which he broke is at the very hear of our marriage. He gradually sort of accepted it, that it was an affair. Initially after the affair he promised he would distance himself from her,avoiding the on one they used to have. So after the first week he was still emailing and texting her.
After 3 weeks he met her in person to put a "closure". He did not allow me to be there when he talked to her. But he said that he told her that he really like her and don't really want the friendship to end, but he has to distance himself as it s hurting our marriage. He also told her that he is going to miss her.
About 2 weeks ago he talked to her again. I got mad and so I confronted her and wrote to her lived in boyfriend about it. I still hope things will get better. Thank you for what you are doing for hurting people like me and my children. There are too many of us out there, and there is not enough help, because this the kind of problem that you should keep secret to protect the reputation of the abuser, if you could consider this an emotional abuse

This is so my husband. From day one of our marriage (probably the two years we were engaged too), he has sought out emotional affairs online. No amount of love and attention on my part will make it stop. He is wonderful to me, until I put my foot down about the flavor of week, then he turns volatile. His first wife was a nice person, but a lazy, spendthrift hoarder. I am the opposite, so I've freed up a lot of time for him. I help run our jointly-owned contracting business (he did all the legwork himself before I came along), I keep our home immaculate, our gardens are a show-piece, and we are building up our savings account for the first time in his working career. Our interaction usually consists of business work, yard work (we own a lot of land), and an hour of TV now and then. I feel like I'm sleeping next to someone I've borrowed. He did tell me recently that he's grateful for me because it's the first time in his life that he's actually had a life. But he spends his new-found spare time on other pursuits. Knowing that there's probably another emotionally dependent woman waiting in the wings, just sucks the joy out of everything that we've accomplished together. For the first time in our relationship/marriage, I'm considering what it would be like to be on my own. I don't want anything from him and can manage just fine on my own. I just want peace in my life. Interestingly, he said part of the problem is that I don't need him--he needs a needy person. I replied, no I don't need you, but I do WANT you. His first wife was very needy, and it dragged the marriage down in every way. In actuality, I think he wants both, someone who's needy, and someone whos' self-sufficient--and not in the same person. I'm just at a loss at this point.