Emotional Infidelity: a BIGGER sin?

It happens with most people at some point of time; when emotions betray their morals and principals.

Emotional deceit (Getty Images) Every relationship abides by an unsaid rule about keeping your love and emotions together, of sharing everything, right from your daily concerns and problems to your emotional dilemmas with the person that you're in love. But what if your soul finds comfort in the sanctuary of someone you can neither call your lover and neither just your friend? When you find someone special with whom you share a deep emotional connect, are you betraying your loved one and indulging in emotional infidelity? We explore...

An emotional connect Emotional adultery is when you embark on an emotional relationship with someone other than your partner. "Emotional infidelity is when a partner shares intimate feelings with another person, other than his/her partner, and is perhaps preoccupied with thoughts of that person and even craves for spending more quality time with him/her. It is any situation that creates or causes some degree of emotional unavailability, along with affecting the quality of one's existing relationship as a whole," explains Dr. Sanjay Chugh, a psychiatrist.

"It all started with the 'we're just friends' thing. But the connection became very obvious by the long hours we spent talking intimately on phone and the vibes that were being set off by both of us. We gelled so beautifully with each other that sharing personal matters took us just one week," shares Arpana Sanjogi (name changed), an HR manager about her friend of two years. "I didn't know what to call our relationship initially... but now I know my friend means nothing less to me than my man!" she adds further. Though Aparna asserts that it is only her husband that she loves, she dreads the day he could find out about her emotional straying.

"I was going through a low phase in my relationship just months before I broke off with my live in girlfriend. It was precisely at this time that I met this incredible woman in office with whom I started sharing a great emotional bond. Being on par professionally helped us bond regarding our career, and having similar traits drew me towards her on a more human level. It was an unspoken bond and though we never confessed our feelings we were deeply bonded. Even if I didn't see her for a single day I felt restless- missing her more than words could ever express," confesses 31-year-old media professional Dushyant Rajyavardhan who eventually broke off his affair, moved by the strength of his new found emotional anchor.

Emotional deceit: A bigger sin? Is emotional attachment to someone else other than your partner a more blatant betrayal than a physical adulterous affair? "If my husband has a one night stand, it would hurt. But if I catch him having an emotional affair, it will certainly knock the wind out of me. An emotional involvement is definitely harder to accept because it means mentally he belongs to someone else," says Sulekha Prakash, a bank employee. While Sulekha finds emotional infidelity to be a bigger offence, Suhail Sinha, a travel website manager, disagrees. "One can't tag sharing your feelings with someone as a betrayal! As long as one's spouse/partner is coming back to the same bed to sleep at night, they can't be blamed for cheating," he retaliates.

Muhammad Mahtab Bashir

Islamabad

mahtabbashir@gmail.com

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