Preventing Emotional Infidelity

We often think of being unfaithful as just physical unfaithfulness. We rarely think about how we could be emotionally cheating on our spouse. I am a single woman, and so I don’t have much experience with emotional cheating; however, I do have experience with preventing my married friends from growing too emotionally attached to me.

Two of my best friends are a married couple. The husband is one of my best friends in the world. The two of us have so much in common. He’s basically me in male form. But because we are so close, I have to make sure that I am careful in my actions so that his strongest attachment is with his wife.

For one thing, I try to keep myself from texting him too often. If I can, I usually try texting them both in a group text and only send him direct messages on occasion.

Another thing I do is I make sure we are never hanging out alone. If it is just the two of us hanging out we always have to be in a public place or that another person comes along.

A final thing I do is I make sure that my relationship with his wife is strong. I know that if I harbor a love and respect for her then I could never bear the thought of hurting her.

These aren’t perfect, foolproof ways but they are lines I have drawn to prevent strong emotional attachments that shouldn’t be there. As the single friend, I should be doing everything I can to support and sustain their marriage. Marriage needs a lot of support in order to survive, and as the single friends we should be the ones helping to build it up. Because we love our friends, we are happy for them, and we want them to succeed. And if none of this is convincing you to draw clear lines, then do it to avoid the confusion and drama. Emotionally connecting with someone who is married gets very complicated very quickly, and chances are you are the one who will end up getting hurt. So if nothing else, draw lines of protection to save yourself a little heartbreak.