Emotional Affair
Research-Informed
An intimate emotional connection with someone outside the relationship that crosses the boundary of what both partners would define as appropriate.
An intimate emotional connection with someone outside the relationship that crosses the boundary of what both partners would define as appropriate. Often no physical contact involved, but the secrecy and emotional investment are the key markers.
Evidence
Research-Informed
Emotional affair, a deep and often secret emotional bond with someone outside the relationship without sexual contact, earns Research-Informed. The distinction between emotional and sexual involvement is well studied in the infidelity literature (Glass and Wright, 1985; Glass, Not Just Friends, 2003), which finds that many people who report affairs describe strong emotional involvement without intercourse, more commonly women, and that emotional infidelity can damage a relationship as much as a sexual one. The rating holds below peer-reviewed because definitions of what counts as an emotional affair vary across studies and much of the data is retrospective self-report.