subject: Marriage Counseling - The Threat Of Emotional Infidelity [print this page] There are some things that now appear normal which sadly is having a very dangerous impact on our marriages. We unfortunately take a lot of these lightly. Left unchecked, they simply eat away at the fabric of our marriages. Our intention here is to examine one such problem so we can guard against it.
It is a normal thing in all marriages that they are faced with problems every now and again. What everybody may not know is that many times, we invite these problems upon ourselves. One such problem is emotional infidelity. Many of us might wonder why this is serious. Some may desire to know really what emotional infidelity is and we would attempt to explain.
When you're emotionally intimate with a person other than your spouse without having physical intimacy, you are guilty of emotional infidelity. Words are mostly the medium through which emotional infidelity is established. That is why you can be guilty of this without having a physical intimacy with the individual. This leads us to a serious matter I need for us to examine.
We would be approaching this issue from a different point majorly because hardly any of us would accept being guilty of this. I would ask certain questions. Truthfully providing answers to these questions would help you determine if you truly are guilty or not.
Are you registered on Facebook? If you're not on Facebook, are you on some other social network? You now have the first batch of questions. Your response to the above is likely in the positive. This takes us to the followup question.
Do you spend substantial time on these networks?
It is really interesting to know that Facebook users spend a total of about 700 billion minutes on the network monthly. This is reason enough to worry. These minutes we're made to realize come from time spent before on face to face relationships and interactions. Put this in context and you would see why it is worrisome. Let us move on to the next question.
Just think about it and make us know who you spend most of your time on the social network with?
You surely cannot suggest that you spend all that time with your spouse. That can only be possible if your partner is in a different city from you. However, the more common thing is that we have other folks we spend time with online.
As if the matter of staying for so long chatting online is not enough, we now add to it video chat which actually increases the chances of emotional infidelity. Folks now have video chat and strip for themselves. If you as a married person engages in this with a person other than your partner, are you not guilty of infidelity? Since it is not physical, we name it emotional infidelity.
It is critical that something is done quickly. Sadly you may have to embark on this alone. If you don't wish to wait for your partner but desire to go ahead and discover how to save your marriage alone, begin the following:
- make time for your spouse
- Curtail the length of time spent on social media sites
- Carefully monitor the content of your communication on social media networks
- Find a way of catching your spouse's attention so much that they don't find time for social media
- Your spouse needs to know you are always there for them
This is more like a fight and you need to be ready to fight for your marriage.
