Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha.
Speaker 2: I'm welcome stuff.
Speaker 3: I never told you production I heart radio. So this
Speaker 3: classic has actually been on my list to bring back
Speaker 3: for a while, but after the recent Monday mini that
Speaker 3: you did Samantha on work Spouses, it's like, yeah, we
Speaker 3: should bring this one back. It's about emotional affairs and
Speaker 3: emotional cheating, which Kristen and Caroline did. I at the
Speaker 3: time had never heard of it, but when I listened
Speaker 3: to it it learned about it, I was like, yes,
Speaker 3: I know what that is. You know what I mean,
Speaker 3: Like I didn't have kind of the terminology. I hadn't
Speaker 3: really thought about it.
Speaker 2: And we.
Speaker 3: Have so many ideas listeners, and a lot of them
Speaker 3: we get from you. But one that I've mentioned and
Speaker 3: has been put off and put off and delayed and
Speaker 3: delayed is on divorce. And I have actually heard from
Speaker 3: some of you. So thank you for sharing your story
Speaker 3: about how complicated divorce can be just legally, like not
Speaker 3: even the emotional part, but just legally getting your affairs
Speaker 3: in order, your finances, all of that stuff. And the
Speaker 3: frustrating thing is that I did not know is that
Speaker 3: depending on the state, it varies pretty wildly. Here in
Speaker 3: the ums. Yeah, so I want to We are going
Speaker 3: to do it. It is in our folder. I already
Speaker 3: have the documents. I don't think it'll happen in March,
Speaker 3: but it will happen.
Speaker 1: I'm really I.
Speaker 3: Think it's just going to be a lot of a
Speaker 3: lot of work to dig into in different states. But
Speaker 3: I do want to do it. It is going to happen.
Speaker 3: But I thought this would be a good since we
Speaker 3: did that episode on work spouses and then in preparation
Speaker 3: for the upcoming episode on divorce, a good one to
Speaker 3: bring back, So please enjoy this classic episode.
Speaker 4: Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from how Stuff
Speaker 4: Works dot Com.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 4: I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline, and today we're talking about
Speaker 4: emotional cheating.
Speaker 1: Yeah, basically when that work spouse we talked about last time,
Speaker 1: maybe things go a little too far.
Speaker 4: Or you've got a friend that you start confiding in
Speaker 4: more and more and more, and suddenly that friends starts
Speaker 4: looking more and more attractive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you're not like getting naked together, but you're
Speaker 1: just having these long, deep conversations and really connecting and
Speaker 1: confiding and bonding.
Speaker 2: And slowly abandoning your own relationship.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, this is such a rich topic to
Speaker 4: talk about because we have a lot more emotional cheating
Speaker 4: capabilities than we used to you thanks to social media,
Speaker 4: which we'll get into, but also because it's one of
Speaker 4: those areas in long term relationships where you have to
Speaker 4: be so honest with yourself because it's easy to make
Speaker 4: excuses to yourself or to your partner, to whomever that
Speaker 4: Oh no, this isn't problematic at all, because it's not
Speaker 4: like we're kissing, we aren't having sex, we're just talking
Speaker 4: a lot.
Speaker 2: We're just like going to lunch every day. I'm just
Speaker 2: kind of in love with her. Oh no, it's fine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there's a lot of self preservation delusion
Speaker 1: that goes on during a lot of emotional affairs that
Speaker 1: keeps them going well.
Speaker 4: And this is also one of those things that comes
Speaker 4: up all the time in terms of gender and cheating,
Speaker 4: the whole assumption that men will be more jealous of
Speaker 4: physical cheating, of someone having sex with another person, whereas
Speaker 4: women are more jealous of emotional affairs.
Speaker 2: And we'll get into that some, but let's go ahead
Speaker 2: and put it out there.
Speaker 4: Do you are you familiar with emotional affairs. Do you
Speaker 4: know anyone who has had an emotional affair?
Speaker 1: A friend of mine, a very good friend of mine,
Speaker 1: was in the danger zone a couple of years ago
Speaker 1: her high school. She's married kids, she's been married to
Speaker 1: the same guy for a long time, been with him
Speaker 1: for a long time since high school, and a previous
Speaker 1: high school boyfriend resurfaced having some marriage trouble. He reaches
Speaker 1: out to her. They start up like a Facebook back
Speaker 1: and forth side note and we will get more into
Speaker 1: this in a little bit, but Facebook is cited in
Speaker 1: a massive number of divorces. So anyway, I knew that
Speaker 1: I had on my podcasting research in my brain as
Speaker 1: she's telling me about this, and you know, she's doing
Speaker 1: the total stereotype, like everything's fine, We're just talking all
Speaker 1: the time. This woman with her children, with her full
Speaker 1: time job. She was literally like giving up sleep to
Speaker 1: get into these long drawn out Facebook, email, text conversations,
Speaker 1: not to mention, like on the phone conversations, not only
Speaker 1: like counseling him as he was going through this rough
Speaker 1: patch in his marriage, but like confiding in him about
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff. And I was like, you've got it.
Speaker 1: You've got to stop, Like, I know that you're really
Speaker 1: happy to be back in touch with someone from your past.
Speaker 1: He was a nice guy back when we knew him.
Speaker 1: That was a long time ago. You guys are both married,
Speaker 1: and you you are confiding really personal things in him
Speaker 1: that he doesn't need to know, frankly, And she basically
Speaker 1: said that, well, just you know, it feels good to
Speaker 1: talk to someone aside from my husband about this stuff.
Speaker 1: And I mean if I could have shown up at
Speaker 1: her house with like those airplane direction wants and be
Speaker 1: like no, stop, go the other way, I would have
Speaker 1: and things eventually cooled down. Luckily, she and her husband
Speaker 1: are great and fine and everything's fine. The other guy, uh,
Speaker 1: did end up having an actual physical affair with someone else,
Speaker 1: leaving his wife and now he's with a woman that
Speaker 1: he had an affair with.
Speaker 2: Dangerous own city totally.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's that dangerous ledge of like, once you
Speaker 1: start forming that intimate bond with someone else and add
Speaker 1: the excitement of someone new, relatively, that's a recipe for disaster.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I mean anecdotally, the emotional cheating that I've
Speaker 4: witnessed tends to follow a very similar pattern of reconnecting
Speaker 4: with an ex, whether you sought them out because they're
Speaker 4: troubled waters in your own relationship, or it just happens
Speaker 4: that you two ran into each other, whether offline or online.
Speaker 4: And there's something about those particular kinds of reconnections with
Speaker 4: an X that get so dangerous so fast, because there
Speaker 4: is that sense of a false sense of intimacy that
Speaker 4: can arise, where it's like, oh, I forgot I could
Speaker 4: talk to you like I couldn't talk to anybody else.
Speaker 2: And because as you're telling me this about your friend.
Speaker 4: And how good it felt for her to say some
Speaker 4: of those things to someone other than her husband, the
Speaker 4: first thing I think is, well, where are your friends
Speaker 4: who you didn't.
Speaker 2: Date where things couldn't get complicated?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: I mean, she was talking to you.
Speaker 4: But obviously there's that satisfaction that we derive from the
Speaker 4: attention that exes can give us. Not to say that
Speaker 4: emotional cheating only happens between exes, but I'm just slam.
Speaker 2: I've seen it happen a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean that's not to say that people
Speaker 1: can never be friends with their exes. Obviously, you know,
Speaker 1: obviously people can, but that's that's just dangerous water. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well, especially it all seems to hinge on motivation, where
Speaker 4: it's like if you're suddenly talking to your X again
Speaker 4: and things just so happen to be not so healthy at.
Speaker 2: Home might be a red flag. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Practice and self awareness, yeah, check.
Speaker 2: In with yourself.
Speaker 4: So what are the hallmarks then, of emotional affairs versus
Speaker 4: just having a close friendship, Because, like you said, it
Speaker 4: is totally possible to be friends with your exes. If
Speaker 4: you are straight, you should be able to have opposite
Speaker 4: sex friendships, et cetera. But where does that line start
Speaker 4: to get blurry?
Speaker 1: Well? All right, so here are some things that hopefully
Speaker 1: should serve as an excellent blowing up of any denial
Speaker 1: you're in. So you avoid telling your significt and other
Speaker 1: about the person and your interactions, which that sort of
Speaker 1: secrecy automatically makes you, guys a unit. It automatically makes
Speaker 1: things a little more exciting. Do you find yourself getting
Speaker 1: dressed up for that person, putting on a little more makeup,
Speaker 1: doing your hair a little bit nicer? Do you find
Speaker 1: yourself telling this other person about your day, your frustrations,
Speaker 1: your hopes and dreams, your fears and anger, whatever, Rather
Speaker 1: than telling your significant other. And that's an important one
Speaker 1: because a lot of psychologists and researchers that we read
Speaker 1: their stuff about this. We're saying that when you share
Speaker 1: those deep thoughts and fears and et cetera, that breeds
Speaker 1: this intimacy that can deepen those bonds and can lead you,
Speaker 1: like my friend, to start feeling like, perhaps this person
Speaker 1: just gets you more than your significant other does.
Speaker 4: And that would probably open the door to maybe confiding
Speaker 4: in that person about your own relationship to satisfaction and
Speaker 4: then another moment to check yourself before you wreck yourself
Speaker 4: or your relationship. You start comparing that person to your
Speaker 4: significant other, so essentially like you're building an idealized version
Speaker 4: of whoever this alleged friend is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and because you're already in like total delusion land,
Speaker 1: it's easy to only see the pros of someone rather
Speaker 1: than the cons as well. Do you find yourself thinking
Speaker 1: obsessively about the person? And if you're like, well, no,
Speaker 1: I mean, of course, like he's funny and like, you
Speaker 1: know whatever, do you think obsessively about your friends?
Speaker 2: Here in Carolina? I think about you all.
Speaker 1: The time, because I guarantee you, my friend who was
Speaker 1: going through all that was not sitting around her house
Speaker 1: like obsessively thinking about when the next email for me
Speaker 1: was going to come in, because frankly, I don't email
Speaker 1: that often anyway. And the whole thing of like, are
Speaker 1: you increasingly finding more justification for your behavior or for
Speaker 1: continuing the relationship when you start feeling really defensive or
Speaker 1: entitled to this interaction, that's probably a bit of a
Speaker 1: red flag as well.
Speaker 4: Yeah, to pay attention to your own relationship either if
Speaker 4: you need to get out of it or get it
Speaker 4: working again and.
Speaker 1: Get it together.
Speaker 2: Get it together. People.
Speaker 4: On the flip side of that, if you are with
Speaker 4: someone that you suspect might be engaged in this kind
Speaker 4: of emotional cheating, what are what are the kinds of
Speaker 4: things that you should pay attention to and kind of
Speaker 4: validate for yourself.
Speaker 1: Well, one thing to pay attention to is are you
Speaker 1: starting to feel crazy? And I don't, I mean, I
Speaker 1: say that sounds really flip, but like, are you starting
Speaker 1: to feel as though something is just off and something
Speaker 1: feels wrong. Maybe your spouse your significant others acting a
Speaker 1: little differently and telling you nothing's wrong. That's called gaslighting.
Speaker 1: Your gut doesn't lie, and so even if you start
Speaker 1: to feel like something's off in your interaction, maybe ask
Speaker 1: ask what's up. And related to that is that you
Speaker 1: sense your partner isn't himself around you. Maybe he or
Speaker 1: she is getting something else from this person that he's
Speaker 1: having an emotional affair with, and he can be more
Speaker 1: playful with that person or more silly or more serious
Speaker 1: whatever it is that he feels, for whatever reason, that
Speaker 1: he's not getting with you. And then like, have you
Speaker 1: ever been in the situation And this could totally be
Speaker 1: innocent where you're like, well, how is your day, honey,
Speaker 1: and the person's like, ugh, I mean I already told
Speaker 1: Karen all about it.
Speaker 2: You're like Karen.
Speaker 1: You're like, Karen, are you telling Karen all about your day?
Speaker 1: I want to hear about your day. I'm your person.
Speaker 4: Also rudest response, how's your day? Well, you know what
Speaker 4: I already told Karen, So I'm.
Speaker 1: Sick of talking about it. Karen gets me, just talk
Speaker 1: to Karen. But it's that idea of like, oh, you
Speaker 1: already told someone all about your frustrations and whatever you're
Speaker 1: you're not confiding in me as much. And another big
Speaker 1: thing is sex feeling detached. Diane Gerhardt who's a professor
Speaker 1: of marriage and family therapy at California State University, told
Speaker 1: Red Book magazine in April of twenty fifteen that as
Speaker 1: the intensity of the emotional connection with this other person builds,
Speaker 1: it detracts from the emotional connection in your own marriage,
Speaker 1: and that can't help but affect what goes on physically
Speaker 1: and emotionally between you two.
Speaker 4: So there is a physical element to emotional cheating, but
Speaker 4: it's with your person and not this person who you
Speaker 4: are becoming attached to. And if you start noticing that,
Speaker 4: let's say your person keeps bringing up Karen comparing, you know,
Speaker 4: kind of in a way of comparing everything you do
Speaker 4: to what Karen does better.
Speaker 2: You know, like you know, Karen loves.
Speaker 1: Uh, just she loves hot dogs.
Speaker 2: Karen loves hot dogs. She can eat so many of them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's she's basically like a competitive food eater.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, red Flag.
Speaker 4: If you ever, if your spouse ever talks about a
Speaker 4: coworker's eating.
Speaker 2: Habits, you get to that therapist days up.
Speaker 4: No what on a serious note, I mean, it's those
Speaker 4: kinds of things of you know, person makes a joke
Speaker 4: and maybe you don't laugh, and then your person's like, well,
Speaker 4: Karen thinks I'm funny.
Speaker 1: God, you know what, Karen, you can just well.
Speaker 2: Maybe Karen doesn't know, but this is going on. Maybe
Speaker 2: Karen's just like politely laughing.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Maybe he's obsessed with Karen.
Speaker 2: Maybe Karen's oblivious.
Speaker 1: Maybe we need to warn Karen.
Speaker 2: We got to talk to Karen.
Speaker 1: Oh God, I'm sorry, Karen. I didn't mean to judge you,
Speaker 1: but so one of my favorite resources in the world is,
Speaker 1: of course a magazine. Of course, if you know me,
Speaker 1: you know it's Sandwiches Cory Giese an oh magazine, and
Speaker 1: Gail Saltz, who's a therapist, was writing a column about
Speaker 1: the danger zone that can prompt an emotional affair or
Speaker 1: kind of push you over that edge, and three sort
Speaker 1: of dangerous dangerous activities she lists are flirting with other
Speaker 1: people because you can you can get kind of hooked
Speaker 1: on that that high of like the attention you get
Speaker 1: when you're flirting.
Speaker 2: Unless that's part of like you and your your person's rag.
Speaker 1: No, that's good. That's good if like you and your
Speaker 1: person are flirting.
Speaker 4: Well no, I'm saying, like, if if you and your
Speaker 4: person are into flirting with other people.
Speaker 1: Right, Well, but then that that requires communication. And the
Speaker 1: whole thing with emotional infidelity is that you're hiding it exactly.
Speaker 1: So if you are flot with others in an intoxicating,
Speaker 1: hidden secret fashion, stop it. Two innocently spending time alone
Speaker 1: with old lovers that's that whole denial thing, and three
Speaker 1: hanging out with emotional cheaters who kind of normalize that behavior.
Speaker 1: This is the same thing Kristin and I have talked
Speaker 1: about before when it comes to like kids in smoking,
Speaker 1: or like sexual activity from a young age or whatever,
Speaker 1: Like if all your friends are doing it, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe you're still not sure, but if everybody around you
Speaker 1: is doing it, it seems more normal and acceptable. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: Gym's getting away with it. Maybe Karen and I can
Speaker 1: go sneak off and exchange text messages.
Speaker 2: Yeah, side by side.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I mean in middle school, all my friends were
Speaker 4: emotionally cheating left and right.
Speaker 2: I couldn't resist. And there's that avoidance factor too, Like
Speaker 2: you said.
Speaker 4: I mean, communication and a I feel like is the
Speaker 4: answer to every relationship problem. You're either not doing it
Speaker 4: or not doing it effectively. If you are avoiding talking
Speaker 4: about your issues and things that you might feel are
Speaker 4: lacking in your relationship. That can definitely backslide into finding
Speaker 4: someone who can be your sounding board.
Speaker 1: It's hitting those rough patches in your own marriage. And
Speaker 1: you sort of touched on this earlier in the episode
Speaker 1: about you know you're hitting a rough patch. Maybe you're
Speaker 1: feeling lonely or unfulfilled somehow, maybe you're just depressed, and
Speaker 1: assume that this is just how marriage is. That there's
Speaker 1: not good communication and the other person gets you less
Speaker 1: and less, and so rather than communicating with your person
Speaker 1: you're sick nificant other, you seek that fulfillment and excitement elsewhere.
Speaker 1: And what's interesting is that Gail Saltz wrote inn O
Speaker 1: magazine that she's actually seeing more emotional infidelity these days.
Speaker 1: A because she says, we're so used to being exposed
Speaker 1: to sexually suggestive material quote that there's no longer an
Speaker 1: obvious verbal or physical line we think we're crossing. So
Speaker 1: maybe that's that dangerous flirtation of like, stop stop flirting
Speaker 1: with other people. But B she says, we are connected
Speaker 1: with others more than ever before thanks to technology and
Speaker 1: social media, so it's entirely possible that you might have
Speaker 1: some sort of roster of ex'es, or just like people
Speaker 1: that you're kind of interested in on Facebook or Twitter
Speaker 1: or whatever that you wouldn't necessarily be keeping in mind
Speaker 1: if you weren't on social media.
Speaker 4: And it's become so common that researchers call it remote infidelity. Hello,
Speaker 4: here's a statistic that might surprise. It seemed awfull high
Speaker 4: to me. A Wired magazine reported that as many as
Speaker 4: forty two percent of Tender users aren't single. Now, granted,
Speaker 4: that would technically include me. For an evening when I
Speaker 4: was out with friends, one of whom was single, you know,
Speaker 4: and so we all got on Tender, like in solidarity,
Speaker 4: and it was fun for an evening. And then I
Speaker 4: realized that my now husband was also on Tender, and
Speaker 4: I was like, oh, no, we cannot do this. He
Speaker 4: was he got on Tendered that night. I should say
Speaker 4: I didn't like find him on tender.
Speaker 1: Oh lore, but I bet that happens, oh totally.
Speaker 4: Oh and the whole thing too of online dating relationships
Speaker 4: that start and then you go on some dates and
Speaker 4: you go on to Okay, Cupid or Tender to shut
Speaker 4: down your account, and then see that they're still active
Speaker 4: and you're like, what's up with this, Come on now,
Speaker 4: But Facebook seems to be really the the playground of
Speaker 4: remote infidelity.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, because Facebook is supposedly so innocent, like, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, here's like Johnny from middle school. Here's Johnny,
Speaker 1: and like this is fine, right, I'm just connecting with
Speaker 1: old classmates because oh there's Karen and Jim and Johnny.
Speaker 1: This cast of character thinks apparently they're all like nineteen
Speaker 1: fifties Bobby socks ers or something. But you know Facebook,
Speaker 1: like your mom's on Facebook, your grandmother's on Facebook. What's
Speaker 1: the harm?
Speaker 4: Well, and how often does Facebook probably serve up those
Speaker 4: you might know?
Speaker 1: Oh god, I wonder how many of those are my
Speaker 1: boyfriend's ex girlfriends, because my boyfriend does get like you
Speaker 1: should be friends with and it's like an ex of
Speaker 1: mine and I feel the need to apologize, even though
Speaker 1: it's not my fault. It's Facebook stupid algorithm.
Speaker 2: But thanks Facebook.
Speaker 1: So Facebook normalizes and sets the expectation that you're going
Speaker 1: to keep in touch with people from your past, and
Speaker 1: that you're going to connect with acquaintances. You know, maybe
Speaker 1: there's someone who's caught your eye in the office or whatever.
Speaker 1: But it's totally normal. To be Facebook friends, right when.
Speaker 4: In fact, what you might be doing is setting up
Speaker 4: a backburner so that if things turn south, or if
Speaker 4: you you know, if you are just kind of dissatisfied,
Speaker 4: you feel like your relationship is in a slump and
Speaker 4: your eye starts wandering, you might just innocently enough kind
Speaker 4: of reconnect with some people on social media and have
Speaker 4: the people on the back burner so that you can
Speaker 4: you can leap straight from your old relationship that's going
Speaker 4: down into flames into at least someone else's bed.
Speaker 1: I think, I mean, I have been a back burner.
Speaker 1: I years ago now, there was this guy that I
Speaker 1: was really interested in, and we flirted all the time,
Speaker 1: and we talked about hanging out, but like it never happened,
Speaker 1: and it was like, why isn't he asking me out?
Speaker 1: Like we're both clearly interested in each other, And I
Speaker 1: had like broached the subject of hanging out and kind
Speaker 1: of never picked up on it. But I still was
Speaker 1: like getting heavily flirted with, so like all this cognitive
Speaker 1: dissonance going on in my head. And we finally hung
Speaker 1: out and he you know, uh, we were actually playing
Speaker 1: scrabble and he at the end of the night, he
Speaker 1: like dashed right, he like ran basically he had to
Speaker 1: leave really soon. I was like, all right, ended up
Speaker 1: seeing him at a Braves game, a baseball game, with
Speaker 1: not only a woman, but a baby.
Speaker 2: My jaja dropped.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so I was like, oh, well, that could
Speaker 1: explain why he was so weird about like why it
Speaker 1: took so long for us to a go on a date,
Speaker 1: but b why he madly dashed out so fast at
Speaker 1: the end of the night.
Speaker 2: He never disclosed that he had a baby.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't even know if it's I don't know
Speaker 1: what the situation was, but no, he didn't disclose any
Speaker 1: of that, and like, clearly it was not his sister.
Speaker 1: That's all I'm saying, you know what I mean, Like
Speaker 1: this woman was clearly not like, Oh, I'm in town
Speaker 1: with my sister. And months and months and months later,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm dating someone else. I'm happy, it's everything's great.
Speaker 1: And I get a Facebook message from dude and he's like, hey,
Speaker 1: how's it going. Uh, it looks like you're, you know,
Speaker 1: having a great time and just hope you're still kicking
Speaker 1: ass and blah blah blah blah blah. And I mean,
Speaker 1: I blocked that guy so fast, like get get out
Speaker 1: of here. And I was telling dud roommate about it,
Speaker 1: and he's like, oh yeah, that guy's checking to see
Speaker 1: if you're still on the roster. And so I'm pretty sure,
Speaker 1: like I was totally a back burner because what I'm
Speaker 1: assuming is that he was so weird because he was
Speaker 1: in a serious relationship, potentially with a child. I was
Speaker 1: not privy to any of that information, but he made
Speaker 1: sure to remain in touch on Facebook until I realized
Speaker 1: what terrible things were happening. And it's interesting these researchers
Speaker 1: in twenty fourteen from the University of Indiana found that
Speaker 1: men tend to have about twice as many backburners on
Speaker 1: Facebook as women do, but it's still a widely practiced
Speaker 1: phenomenon among men and women well.
Speaker 4: And that study also cited a separate survey from one
Speaker 4: Poll which found nearly half of all women keep in touch.
Speaker 2: With a quote unquote backup husband. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Oh man, so we have like our work wife, our
Speaker 4: backup husband.
Speaker 2: We just got people all over the place.
Speaker 4: And on average, respondents in relationships said that they had
Speaker 4: romantic or sexual conversations with two people besides their current partner.
Speaker 1: I how do you? I I don't have the mental
Speaker 1: energy to like a even do that. But be like,
Speaker 1: don't you want to address the problems in your relationship?
Speaker 2: No, because that is harder.
Speaker 4: That takes speaking words, whereas typing words is.
Speaker 2: You know, we have so much more hutspah, yeah, I guess.
Speaker 1: And part of this is related to conversations we've had
Speaker 1: and lots of articles we've read about how supposedly online
Speaker 1: dating is ruining dating and relationships for everyone all the
Speaker 1: time forever. It's not yeah, well yeah, But the theory
Speaker 1: is that now dating is like the wild West, and
Speaker 1: you have so many options available to you that you
Speaker 1: never have to settle because there's always fifty more people
Speaker 1: in line on tender okaycubit or whatever that if you're
Speaker 1: fed up with someone, rather than working on it, you
Speaker 1: could easily just find the next handsome woman or man
Speaker 1: on an online dating site.
Speaker 4: But I wonder if people would be discouraged from doing
Speaker 4: that if they knew how, you know, other, how widespread
Speaker 4: that is.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
Speaker 4: It's like you're not special for having a roster of
Speaker 4: back burners, because, for all you know, your back burner
Speaker 4: considers you a back burner, and that's not sexy.
Speaker 1: No, that is not sexy. But the whole availability of
Speaker 1: options thing is a factor that researchers and psychologists site
Speaker 1: in terms of these emotional infidelity issues and even sexual infidelities,
Speaker 1: So not just emotional stuff, but affairs in general, that
Speaker 1: if you perceive there to be this huge network of
Speaker 1: available people, you are more likely, if you're already predisposed,
Speaker 1: whether it's because of relationship problems or whatever, you're more
Speaker 1: likely to partake well.
Speaker 4: And oh, complicating matters too is how we tend to
Speaker 4: curate our social media presences. So we're showing how fabulous
Speaker 4: our life is, how interesting we are, and so that
Speaker 4: probably adds to the idealizing aspect of a lot of
Speaker 4: this emotional cheating too, because it's like.
Speaker 2: Oh, my god, look at her. She's on a boat.
Speaker 4: Then she's eating she's eating so many well plated meals,
Speaker 4: and there's a parade that she went to. What a
Speaker 4: cultured gem I forgot about?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Karen, Karen and her parades. My god.
Speaker 4: Well, moving aside how technology facilitates this, we need to
Speaker 4: unpeel some of the psychological layers that keep us going
Speaker 4: back to these kinds of dangerous relationships.
Speaker 1: So we've taken away all of your excuses and your
Speaker 1: deniability about like, oh, we're just friends. Know better now, Karen, Karen, Jim.
Speaker 1: We're looking at Johnny, Johnny, Susan. So despite knowing all
Speaker 1: of this stuff, it can be hard if you're wrapped
Speaker 1: up in it, to stop, to just stop, even if
Speaker 1: you're like I am threatening my marriage. This is a
Speaker 1: bad idea someone could find out. But it just feels
Speaker 1: so good. What why are people not stopping? It is
Speaker 1: so addictive?
Speaker 4: And the thing is, as Athena Stike over at psych
Speaker 4: Central wrote about in twenty twelve.
Speaker 2: It's less about how special.
Speaker 4: This other person is and more about the neurochemicals that
Speaker 4: reward us in communicating with that person.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, because we already talked earlier about how
Speaker 1: you know. Oh, it just it just feels good and
Speaker 1: it's secretive and it's exciting, especially if you're understimulated, if
Speaker 1: you feel understimulated in your own relationship. And Stike cites
Speaker 1: Craig Nacan who wrote The Addictive Personality, Understanding the Addictive
Speaker 1: Process and Compulsive Behavior, and he says that addiction is
Speaker 1: quote a pathological love and trust relationship with an object, person,
Speaker 1: or event. It's the out of control and aimless searching
Speaker 1: for wholeness, happiness, and peace through a relationship with an
Speaker 1: object or event. And clearly that can apply to when
Speaker 1: you're filling that gaping emotional whole with alcohol, when you
Speaker 1: are abusing drugs, when you're shopping obsessively, but that can
Speaker 1: also apply to all of those happy chemicals flooding your
Speaker 1: brain when you're having a secret emotional affair.
Speaker 4: So what Nakean says is that we derive pleasure from
Speaker 4: numbing the pain, shame, or guilt because we've distanced ourselves
Speaker 4: from taking responsibility for issues happening in our relationships that
Speaker 4: have led us to this point. Because, after all, irl
Speaker 4: relationships that we care about carry the risk of pain
Speaker 4: and failure and have ups and downs. Everybody goes through
Speaker 4: rough patches. But if a person chooses to stray from
Speaker 4: their relationship, are there predictable differences in whether men and
Speaker 4: women are going to get physical with someone else or
Speaker 4: get more emotional.
Speaker 1: Well, so the stereotype is that women are going to
Speaker 1: have the emotional affairs, but they're also going to be
Speaker 1: more upset if their partner has an emotional affair, whereas
Speaker 1: men are going to get physical and they're also angrier
Speaker 1: when their partner has a physical sexual affair with someone else.
Speaker 1: And this has been looked at up, down, and sideways
Speaker 1: according to gender sexuality, sexual identity, gender identity, all of
Speaker 1: these different factors. And it's not that actual studies haven't
Speaker 1: supported the assertion that men, you know, hate sexual affairs
Speaker 1: more and women hate emotional affairs, but there's a lot
Speaker 1: of disagreement over why that particular stereotype might be the
Speaker 1: case for some people. So there was this two thousand
Speaker 1: and two article from the American Psychological Association's Monitor magazine
Speaker 1: that reads, to me anyway, like the most boring, hilarious
Speaker 1: academic catfight, because it pits evolutionary biology theorists against people
Speaker 1: who are like, can we leave off with the cave
Speaker 1: men and women who were fighting with each other in
Speaker 1: the caves and just deal with the emotional and neurochemical
Speaker 1: things that are going on? So tell me more. Well. So,
Speaker 1: the evo bio explanation for why a man might be
Speaker 1: more upset about physical cheating and a woman might be
Speaker 1: more upset about emotional cheating is that they argue, we
Speaker 1: have evolved with special sensitivities to the type of infidelity
Speaker 1: that threatens us most so in this theory, men are
Speaker 1: more concerned about sexual infidelity because of the risk of
Speaker 1: inadvertently raising another man's child paternity uncertainty exactly, whereas women,
Speaker 1: they say, are more concerned about emotional infidelity because of
Speaker 1: the threat of losing their mate's support in raising those children.
Speaker 1: And so they see the malemate's emotional engagement with another
Speaker 1: woman as a sign that he's about to pack those
Speaker 1: caveman's suitcases and head out of the cave to somebody
Speaker 1: else's cave. It's not a euphemism, and that triggers jealousy.
Speaker 1: But there's also an interesting dynamic when it comes to
Speaker 1: what men and women, and we're talking in of course,
Speaker 1: binary and heteronormative terms here when we are discussing these
Speaker 1: cave people, there's some interesting dynamics about assumptions that men
Speaker 1: and women are making about each other. Researchers found that
Speaker 1: men assume that emotional infidelity is happening in conjunction with
Speaker 1: sexual infidelity. They just assume they're happening together because and
Speaker 1: this is in very stereotypical broadbrush terms, But men are
Speaker 1: more likely to believe that women are not going to
Speaker 1: get sexually involved with someone they're not emotionally connecting with,
Speaker 1: whereas women are more likely to assume that men are
Speaker 1: just having a sexual affair that doesn't necessarily involve emotions.
Speaker 4: So that's what the evolutionary biologists claim. Yes, But then
Speaker 4: of course we have these other researchers who take a
Speaker 4: look at the methodology and say, okay, these are all
Speaker 4: based on forced choice surveys, where it's.
Speaker 2: Like, if pretend that someone's shooting on you, would you rather?
Speaker 4: And they say that that produces false results and that
Speaker 4: it also glosses over individual circumstances. Clearly, like you said,
Speaker 4: I mean, it's talking in very broad brush terms.
Speaker 2: There is no nuance to that whatsoever.
Speaker 4: And it also claims that sex differences vanish when you
Speaker 4: remove the need to pick one or the other and
Speaker 4: have participants focus on a separate task while being asked
Speaker 4: the question.
Speaker 2: So you're kind of like distracting your brain.
Speaker 1: In an effort to what probably like get that gut response, yes,
Speaker 1: of like what makes you feel terrible inside?
Speaker 2: Fold these clothes? Now tell me your thoughts on affairs?
Speaker 1: I hate laundry. Actually I love laundry. But they found
Speaker 1: that when you are like waving a shiny set of
Speaker 1: keys in front of somebody as you ask them the
Speaker 1: question everyone, man, woman, straight, gay, bisexual, whoever, everybody's more
Speaker 1: upset about sexual infidelity when you just don't stop to
Speaker 1: think about it.
Speaker 2: I buy that.
Speaker 1: I totally buy that too, because it almost takes a
Speaker 1: minute longer. If you're speaking in gut terms, it almost
Speaker 1: takes a minute longer to process, like, wait, you have
Speaker 1: deep feelings for someone, versus like, oh, you were naked together.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like that took no time at all, whereas yeah,
Speaker 4: this emotional relationship you would imagine as like a slow build. Well,
Speaker 4: in speaking of feelings, this jives with the results of
Speaker 4: a study from two thousand and four in Personality and
Speaker 4: Social Psychology Bulletin, which found that sexual infidelity is more
Speaker 4: associated with anger and blame, whereas emotional infidelity tends to
Speaker 4: spark hurt feelings.
Speaker 2: So if we have these like sharper.
Speaker 4: Reactions to sexual infidelity, it makes sense that when the
Speaker 4: keys are being shaken in front of our faces, where like,
Speaker 4: don't sleep with other people, know that amygdala is like yeah,
Speaker 4: how dare you, Whereas like creating that intimate relationship with
Speaker 4: someone else that might not be physical can be devastating
Speaker 4: because the other person might be sitting there saying, I've
Speaker 4: been wanting you to talk to me about those things.
Speaker 1: I'm here right, and I mean, either one can shake
Speaker 1: the foundation of your own identity, like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I have formed this identity as your partner and as
Speaker 1: someone who loves you, and here you are telling me
Speaker 1: that I'm somehow not good enough, whether it's good enough
Speaker 1: sexually or good enough emotionally, Like that can really obviously
Speaker 1: do a number on you. And there was a twenty
Speaker 1: fourteen study in the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy
Speaker 1: that looked at not only gender identity but also sexual orientation,
Speaker 1: and they found that across all of these factors, again,
Speaker 1: sexual infidelity elicited more distress than emotional infidelity. But women
Speaker 1: and great people on the whole had stronger emotions about
Speaker 1: both sexual and emotional infidelity than men and lesbian and
Speaker 1: gay people in the survey. It's very interesting, so everybody's
Speaker 1: real upset about infidelity, but women and straight people are
Speaker 1: apparently more upset on the whole.
Speaker 4: Well, and there was a more recent study that came
Speaker 4: out in January twenty sixteen in the Archives of Sexual Behavior,
Speaker 4: which found that while more straight men were upset over
Speaker 4: sexual infidelity than emotional infidelity and straight women were more
Speaker 4: upset over emotional infidelity, bisexual men and women didn't really differ.
Speaker 4: I mean, like across the board, and ditto for lesbians
Speaker 4: and gay men.
Speaker 2: It's like, regardless.
Speaker 4: Of who they might have been with, they just weren't
Speaker 4: down with any kind of cheating.
Speaker 2: Is that kind of what what they were finding.
Speaker 4: Whereas there's something about straight people where we are more.
Speaker 1: Maybe we're moraged. It could be that we're more threatened
Speaker 1: by alternative arrangements. I'm wondering, you know, And I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that like oh, you're bisexual, so you're tolerant of cheating,
Speaker 1: or like oh you're a gay man, so you're like
Speaker 1: cool with your partner having multiple partners, like your alternative lifestyle. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm totally That's not what I'm insinuating. But what I
Speaker 1: am saying is that perhaps if you are part of
Speaker 1: that like super heteronormative mainstream, you've been force fed these
Speaker 1: ideas about what marriage and relationships are supposed to be,
Speaker 1: and they are supposed to be your true love, your soulmate.
Speaker 1: They are supposed to be everything to you, your best friend,
Speaker 1: your accountant, and your lawnmower, all of these things wrapped
Speaker 1: up in one and perhaps LGBTQ people have had to
Speaker 1: imagine up until you know, we're finally seeing marriage equality,
Speaker 1: have had to envision alternate possibilities for their relationships.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's a theory, and.
Speaker 4: I would think attached to that as well are the
Speaker 4: normative gender roles that are hitched to our heteronormative straight
Speaker 4: relationship scripts, where it's you know, you have the men
Speaker 4: who are supposed to be the accounts of the lawnmowers.
Speaker 4: You know, like guys are supposed to provide one thing
Speaker 4: and women are supposed to provide another. You know, men
Speaker 4: are supposed to be the bread winners.
Speaker 2: Women cook the bread. They toast the bread.
Speaker 1: I don't know, are the bread they do all the
Speaker 1: bread things. And there's also the idea too that masculinity
Speaker 1: equals more aggressive, angers, more acceptable.
Speaker 2: And they want sex all the time.
Speaker 1: Right, So there is a lot of like you said,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of gender norm stuff, baggage and reactions
Speaker 1: wrapped up in the survey results.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it sounds like a lot of straight folks in
Speaker 4: these studies are operating out of stereotypical assumptions.
Speaker 1: And maybe not really communicating well with each other.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I think that this also gets into
Speaker 4: the need for not just communicating about relationship, be things
Speaker 4: with your partner, but being able to communicate obviously about
Speaker 4: sexualeting and expectations.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and boundaries.
Speaker 4: Yeah you know, so what kind of real talk do
Speaker 4: you need to have if emotional infidelity is happening, how.
Speaker 1: Do you fix it? Well, so a lot of this
Speaker 1: is advice coming from Gail Salt again, but the first
Speaker 1: thing you want to do is take responsibility. Don't try
Speaker 1: to live in denial land. We were like, no, we're
Speaker 1: just friends. Stop it, and don't blame any infidelity or
Speaker 1: like emotional cheating or anything on your partner. Don't turn
Speaker 1: around and be like, well, if you would just mowe
Speaker 1: the lawn more, or if you had just brought me
Speaker 1: chicken home from the grocery store, I would not have
Speaker 1: done this. No, be an adult, be a grown up,
Speaker 1: and take responsibility for your actions and also end it. Hello, No,
Speaker 1: you cannot stay friends and keep the person in your
Speaker 1: life or on your Facebook account if you have committed
Speaker 1: emotional and fidelity with them and you want to keep
Speaker 1: your significant other. It's different if you guys are breaking
Speaker 1: up and the kind.
Speaker 4: Of brutal honesty that a lot of therapists recommend these
Speaker 4: situations where I mean, you have to come out, you know,
Speaker 4: and ask the questions you need to ask, be straightforward
Speaker 4: about what's going on, which can which.
Speaker 2: Can hurt, for sure. But that's also where.
Speaker 4: We can look to people who are insuccessful open relationships
Speaker 4: or polyamorous relationships and learn some lessons because these people
Speaker 4: have emotional and physical relationships with people outside of a
Speaker 4: primary unit, and they operate right within an environment of
Speaker 4: radical honesty and even compersion, which is a feeling of
Speaker 4: happiness when your partner finds someone that they like and
Speaker 4: maybe want to have sex with.
Speaker 1: I didn't. I don't think I knew there was a
Speaker 1: word for that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there is.
Speaker 4: That's more within like the polyamory lexicon. And while I'm
Speaker 4: not saying that the answer is for everyone to open
Speaker 4: up their relationships, but I'm saying, like those kinds of
Speaker 4: it's not about the sex, I guess is what I'm
Speaker 4: trying to say is that there can be perfectly healthy
Speaker 4: and happy, satisfying long term relationships that don't that don't
Speaker 4: require monogamy because what we require ultimately is honest communication.
Speaker 1: Right exactly. And so when your partner has had an
Speaker 1: emotional affair and your relationships not open, and that's not
Speaker 1: gonna fly, and hopefully you guys have already communicated about
Speaker 1: your wants, needs and expectations around monogamy or not. You know,
Speaker 1: like Kristen said, there are some tough questions and and
Speaker 1: you know, it's best to stay away from the gritty
Speaker 1: nitty gritty details, as you know, and that's especially if
Speaker 1: there's been sexual infidelity. But you know, asking your partner,
Speaker 1: what are you getting from this interaction? You know, have
Speaker 1: I done something? Is there something that you've wanted to
Speaker 1: talk to me about? Is there something you're not getting
Speaker 1: from our relationship? You know, is your self esteem or
Speaker 1: your sense of self suffering?
Speaker 4: And take heart that it doesn't have to be the
Speaker 4: end of your relationship unless you want it to.
Speaker 1: Be right, and you can right you can rebuild it
Speaker 1: obviously takes a lot of time. Openness and accountability there
Speaker 1: will be to yours and possibly some panic attacks. But
Speaker 1: if you guys are dedicated to working through those difficult patches,
Speaker 1: then I think a better, more open communication relationship is
Speaker 1: on the other side of that.
Speaker 4: Also, thank you for giving me the name of my memoir,
Speaker 4: which will be there will be tears.
Speaker 2: And panic attacks. Keep an eye out for that in
Speaker 2: your local bookstore. Friends. Well, is it time I think
Speaker 2: to talk to listeners. Yes, we want to hear from.
Speaker 4: You about this issue because I think it's super common
Speaker 4: and I think it's super common for people to hide
Speaker 4: it away, and it's something that we need to be
Speaker 4: more aware of and be more comfortable talking about. Because
Speaker 4: the thing is humans are fallible. People are attracted to
Speaker 4: more than one person a lot of times, and rough
Speaker 4: patches happen. Stress can you know, be devastating to a relationship.
Speaker 4: So we just we just need to be communicating more.
Speaker 4: We just need to be honest, stop trying to be
Speaker 4: so perfect. Yeah right, and and block those shady x's
Speaker 4: on Facebook seriously.
Speaker 2: You know who you are.
Speaker 4: So with that to send us your letters, mom, Stuff
Speaker 4: at HowStuffWorks dot com is where you can send them.
Speaker 4: We will as always respect your anonymity. If you would
Speaker 4: prefer that for a more sensitive topic like this, or
Speaker 4: if you just want to shout it out to the world,
Speaker 4: you can tweet us at mom Stuff Podcasts or message
Speaker 4: us on Facebook and we've got a couple of messages
Speaker 4: to share with you right now.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, speaking of relationships, I have a letter
Speaker 1: here from Amy in response to our lesbian bed death episode.
Speaker 1: She says, I h blah blah blah. She says, as
Speaker 1: a queer siswoman, my friends and I have often joked
Speaker 1: about the bed death thing, and one of my favorite
Speaker 1: images when it's mentioned comes from Rick and Steve. This
Speaker 1: amazing short lived cartoon that was on Logo for a
Speaker 1: while where Kirsten and Dana, the perfect lesbian couple. One
Speaker 1: is butch one is fim, they want a baby, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera, attend the funeral for the bed of their
Speaker 1: friends Ebony and Ivory. Seriously hilarious, but in all seriousness,
Speaker 1: my spouse and I have chatted about this a lot,
Speaker 1: because having now been together for five years, married for
Speaker 1: nearly two, and trying to make a baby least sexy
Speaker 1: process ever for queer folks, and so incredibly invasive, that's
Speaker 1: an episode for you, and trying out new medications. Our
Speaker 1: sex life has dwindled substantially. We ask ourselves whether we mind,
Speaker 1: and the answer most of the time is no. I
Speaker 1: think being raised female and being allowed to access our
Speaker 1: emotions more readily than many sifth straight men are quote allowed,
Speaker 1: we are able to find intimacy in ways other than
Speaker 1: through sex. We talk, we kiss, we cuddle it, we flirt.
Speaker 1: We are touching like all of the time, and it
Speaker 1: satisfies a big part of that intimate urge and need
Speaker 1: that having been in a quote straight relationship previously, I
Speaker 1: would have only felt that I had to have sex
Speaker 1: to satisfy. Many of my friends express similar feelings about
Speaker 1: the lack of what we typically consider sex in our relationships.
Speaker 1: Intimacy and closeness are achieved in so many other ways
Speaker 1: just by being in touch with our connections to our
Speaker 1: partners that just because we don't necessarily orgasm while engaging
Speaker 1: in intimacy doesn't mean we're missing out on some essential
Speaker 1: part of our relationships. Sex is great, but what is
Speaker 1: the goal in the end? If it is closeness and
Speaker 1: eroticism and intimacy, then I get it. All night long.
Speaker 2: Folks.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you Amy, and good luck and congrats on
Speaker 1: the baby making.
Speaker 4: Well, I got a let her hear from Alia, who writes,
Speaker 4: I'm a pan sexual person that came out from a
Speaker 4: previous relationship with a man for ten years.
Speaker 2: My fiance is the first woman I've.
Speaker 4: Been with, and while I got into it not knowing
Speaker 4: a thing about real female same sex physical relationships, I
Speaker 4: have to say this.
Speaker 2: Is the best sex I've ever had.
Speaker 4: We just passed year three and things are every bit
Speaker 4: as spicy as before. Yes, we do it much much less,
Speaker 4: but if anything, we are enjoying each other more as
Speaker 4: we explore and create a safe space to try all
Speaker 4: sorts of things. Entering here four, I feel confident it
Speaker 4: will stay strong.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm so happy to.
Speaker 4: Hear that, Ilia and everybody else we want to hear
Speaker 4: from you, too, Mom. Stuff at HowStuffWorks dot com is
Speaker 4: our email address and for links to all of our
Speaker 4: social media as well as all of our blogs, videos
Speaker 4: and podcasts with our sources. So you can learn more
Speaker 4: about emotional cheating, head on over to stuff Mom Never
Speaker 4: Told You dot com.
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics.
Speaker 4: Visit HowStuffWorks dot com