Facebook and other social media is a great way to get to know and keep up with people but it isn’t without its own set of perils. More and more married people are finding themselves entangled in what has come to be termed as an emotional affair.
These relationships are not necessarily physical – especially not at first. Often they start out very innocently. You come across a comment by an old friend from high school or a coworker from the job you held the summer after your junior year in college. Maybe you accept a friend request from a coworker or the spouse of a friend.
After a while the comments that you leave on each other’s statuses become friendlier until all of a sudden you find that you are private messaging and discussing problems you are having at work or at home. The conversations become more intimate and one day you realize that you have become emotionally attached to someone who is not your spouse.
Here is where opinions differ. Some people believe that there is nothing wrong with this type of relationship since “nothing happens” and it isn’t real. Other people maintain that it is as much an affair as if you were meeting the person at a seedy hotel.
Generally, if the relationship is not nipped in the bud the conversations eventually become more intimate and sexting becomes a part of it.
There is certainly nothing wrong with talking to members of the opposite sex, but set up some secure boundaries. Allow your spouse access to your passwords, refuse to private message except with same sex friends, and don’t talk about the intimate details of your life or your problems with others. After all, that is what your spouse is for.
Do you have ways of protecting yourself and your relationship from emotional entanglements online?
photo credit: Jerry Bunkers
