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