Family Law

Are Emotional Affairs Grounds For Divorce?

By Erin Kelley

By: Gerri L Elder

Is it considered cheating if you never have actual physical contact with someone you desire? Perhaps not in the past; however, lines have been blurred by the advance of technology and the answer is now yes. Your spouse can and most likely will divorce you if evidence of an emotional affair is uncovered.

Don’t go there

An emotional affair can be just as damaging to a marriage as a physical affair. There has always been such a thing as an emotional affair, but the Internet has made them more readily available in recent years. Chat rooms, dating sites, message boards and other places where people gather and get to know each other breed emotional infidelity.

What is an emotional affair?

While a physical affair can be readily defined by the first touch, it’s not that simple to isolate the moment an emotional affair begins.

Having romantic or sexual feelings and thoughts about someone other than your spouse can be a red flag in a relationship. Acting on these feelings, through private correspondence, secret cell phone calls or arranging to meet an Internet friend in person can constitute an emotional affair.

Many people who engage in emotional affairs don’t consider themselves to be cheating because of the lack of physical contact; however, when an intimate relationship is exposed, whether physical or not, it may make little difference. The effect on the marriage can be devastating and lead to divorce.

Full post as published by The Divorce Blog on April 10, 2009 (boomark / email).