A married man turns to a close female friend at work when he needs to talk about personal problems: he is having “an emotional affair.” I’ve heard the term many times, but I question the unexamined idea behind it. If someone in a marriage “has an affair,” it’s presumed to be about sex, with or without romantic love (either way, it’s labeled “an affair”). But the meaning of an “emotional affair” doesn’t seem to be “an extramarital romantic relationship that doesn’t include sex”, though sexless romance in affairs may not be uncommon – think: “We love each other, but it would be wrong to have sex.” Instead, “an emotional affair” seems to refer to a married man or woman’s intimate friendship with someone of the sex they are usually attracted to. This is classified as a form of “cheating,” morally equal to a sexual affair. Here’s a comment on Reddit:

“If you share intimate details about your life, it’s an affair.”

Yet if you are a heterosexual woman who confides in her girlfriend, or a hetero man who shares confidences with his male best friend, that wouldn’t be an “emotional affair.” It’s the intimate platonic relationship with a potential sexual partner, no matter how unlikely, that supposedly threatens the marriage. The general presumption is that once you begin to get close, you’ll be drawn into sin (i.e. sex).

But why is it wrong to “share intimate details about your life” with a friend, just because they’re of the gender you’re attracted to? What if you’re not attracted sexually to that individual, and never will be? That doesn’t seem to count. You must open up to no one but your partner, or you don’t love them, and you are a faithless husband or wife. 

The Reddit comment goes on: “If you have a problem with your spouse, go talk to them, not someone else.” 

Aha, now this is apparently the worst of all, maybe even worse than infidelity: disclosing trouble in the marriage to others. If you’re complaining to the “emotional affair” person about a problem with your wife or husband, that’s a no-no, if not a betrayal, the thinking goes. Complaining about your marriage is disloyal unless you’re on a therapist’s couch! And maybe even then. 

Really? Isn’t it human to want to turn to someone objective you can be honest with about your feelings, and whom you trust – especially if that person confides in you the same way, which balances out your friendship? Is it different if you talk with your sister or brother? Your family may not be a good option for intimate sharing: perhaps they’re already opinionated about your spouse, or just not close enough to you to share intimate matters. As for the wisdom of “Go talk to your spouse, not with them [the ‘emotional affair’ partner],” yes, we should be honest with spouses about problems, as we also should with committed partners, or friends. But sometimes that just doesn’t work, and you don’t know what else to do. Perhaps it helps to vent to a good friend, and be told it’s not as bad as you think it is. Maybe you do both: talk to your spouse and unload to a friend. Why in the world not? I know that for me, discussing an emotional problem with a close friend, male or female, is invaluable to my mental health.

This idea that we should share all our feelings with no one but a romantic partner tells us a lot about the problem with marriage in modern Western culture (not that it’s better in other cultures, but it’s often very different). Ever since romantic love became the supposed basis for marriage more than a century ago, each spouse is presumed to be everything to the other, and the marriage itself the center of one’s world – even if there are children, who pretty much need to be the real center of your world. You, my spouse, need to fulfill all my hopes and dreams, fend off my fears, dry my tears, and hear all that I feel and think, while we also put food on the table and run the household and make pragmatic decisions about the future. If I am unhappy, I must turn to you and you only, and vice versa. And if it’s you I’m unhappy about…the same. Let’s add still more to the pile of expectations and demands in marriage that are already overwhelming at times!

Besides the popular idea that marriage must be the sole vessel for all the emotions of our lives, there’s another pillar propping up the “emotional affair” meme: the belief that hetero men and women can’t have platonic friends of the other sex without wanting to sleep with them. This is used to justify the irrational jealousy of the spouse who condemns the platonic friend as a threat to the marriage.

In my own experience, this assumption is nonsense. I have a number of platonic male friends, some for decades, most of whom I’m not at all attracted to, and there’s no reason why they would be more of a risk to a monogamous relationship than my girlfriends. Yet I’ve had a couple of male friends I’m close with begin a happy relationship – and the new girlfriend righteously objects to our closeness, though she doesn’t object to his male friends. Of course he chooses to follow her rules so she will feel more secure, and the friendship ends. When unspoken ideas like the boundaries in an “emotional affair” aren’t questioned, these beliefs help no one, and stifle what could be an enriching network of relationships that support our inner lives.