Me have an affair? Never!

It is possible to have an affair without having sex. Infidelity is any intimacy- be it emotional or physical- that violates trust. Sometimes the greatest betrayals happen without touching.

Shirley Glass who devoted her life to infidelity research, used an analogy of walls and windows in explaining how affairs develop.

After decades of working with couples she concluded that affairs are less about love and more about sliding across boundaries. You can have intimacy in your marriage only when you are honest and open about the significant things in your life.

When you withhold information and keep secrets, you create walls that act as barriers to the free flow of thoughts and feelings that invigorate your relationship. When you open up to each other you create a window that allows you to know each other in unfiltered, intimate ways.

When an affair occurs, the unfaithful partner builds a wall to shut out the marriage partner and opens a window to let in the affair partner.

Simply being a loving partner does not necessarily insure your marriage against affairs. You also have to exercise awareness of the appropriate boundaries at work and in your friendships. Wise spouses understand how thin the line is between friends and lovers.

Men and women’s distinctive view of friendship is a contributing factor in boundary crossing. Men view friendship as doing things together side by side.

Women develop close friendships through emotional intimacy, being vulnerable, self-disclosing and providing emotional support to their closest friends. When women treat male friends like their female friends, the emotional intimacy that is natural for a woman can send her male friend a signal she didn’t intend.

Because men tend to save their emotional intimacy for their wives, when they let themselves become open and vulnerable to another woman it puts their marriage at risk.

Three warning signs that your friendship is in danger of crossing the boundary are:

Secrecy:
attempting to hide from your spouse feelings for or interactions with the other person; friendships should always be an open book.

Emotional intimacy:
more companionship, intellectual sharing and understanding in the friendship than in the marriage.

Sexual chemistry:
sometimes this occurs involuntarily but beware that it is only enflamed by admissions to the person that an attraction exists- even for the purpose of reassuring the person you won’t act on it.

Internet infidelity is becoming the number one threat to marriages because it provides an easily accessible avenue for all three of these criteria.

If your marriage is experiencing difficulties and you need a confidant, find one who is a friend of your marriage- someone who will reinforce the value of your marriage and provide you with a problem solving approach to continuing commitment. Avoid those who are potential competitors to your relationship. These are people who are in unhappy relationships themselves or who are single and looking for a partner.

To be healthy, every marriage needs this safety code: the appropriate placement of walls and windows, this nurtures your marriage and protects it from outside elements and interference. Identifying the position of walls and windows can help you discover whether a dangerous alliance has replaced a relationship that began as “just friends.” Good friendships and a loving marriage: This is what is possible when you value and preserve the differences between them.

- Linda