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" How do you catch a cheater when he remains physically faithful, but drifts away mentally and emotionally? Simply put: It&amp;#039;s tough, and there are lots of shades of gray (no, not that kind). &amp;quot;An emotional affair is crushing because it betrays the vulnerability that we gave our partner,&amp;quot; says Jamie Turndorf, Ph.D. author of Kiss Your Fights Goodbye. &amp;quot;At the end of the day, a sexual infidelity, especially one that doesn&amp;#039;t involve an emotional attachment, may actually feel like less of a betrayal.&amp;quot; Sometimes the signs of an emotional affair are subtle and seemingly minor, and other times they&amp;#039;re glaringly obvious\u2014yet can still be shockingly easy to ignore or deny. So if you&amp;#039;re always feeling paranoid, or like you keep making excuses for your husband&amp;#039;s behavior, read on. You may just be able to intervene before things progress even further. You&amp;#039;re starting to wonder if you&amp;#039;ve lost it. It&amp;#039;s been said before, and we&amp;#039;ll say it again: Your gut doesn&amp;#039;t lie. Let&amp;#039;s say your husband has had an old college friend in his life for years, and up until last month, you felt totally fine about it. But now there&amp;#039;s something about his tone when he mentions her that puts a knot in your stomach. Don&amp;#039;t ignore that. &amp;quot;It doesn&amp;#039;t matter what your partner says, or how he labels the attachment,&amp;quot; says Turndorf. &amp;quot;What matters is how you feel about it. When a supposedly innocent, platonic friendship has your red flags flapping, then something isn&amp;#039;t kosher.&amp;quot; You&amp;#039;ve been in this relationship long enough to know what it feels like when your love is thriving. If he insists that this woman is only texting him more often because she&amp;#039;s having a hard time at work, don&amp;#039;t assume that means there&amp;#039;s nothing deeper going on between them\u2014he may not even be aware of the fact that this relationship is crossing inappropriate boundaries. The best you can do is make your feelings known, and keep your comments grounded in hard facts with specific examples, which men tend to respond better to. &amp;quot;When you answer Laura&amp;#039;s texts when we&amp;#039;re making dinner, I feel like you&amp;#039;re not prioritizing our quality time together&amp;quot; could be your conversation starter, and then keep an eye out for other red-flag behaviors.  You sense he&amp;#039;s not totally himself around you. Since emotional affairs are filling a psychological void, rather than just a physical or sexual outlet, it&amp;#039;s important to recognize what he might be getting emotionally from this other person instead of you. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;ve made everything about sex, but just because something isn&amp;#039;t physical doesn&amp;#039;t mean it isn&amp;#039;t something important,&amp;quot; says Tracy Thomas, Ph.D. Maybe your husband has fallen so deeply into his role of provider or protector within your marriage\u2014taking care of things like bills, home maintenance, and supporting you emotionally after a bad day at work\u2014that he doesn&amp;#039;t feel comfortable showing a more vulnerable side of himself. Do you notice that he acts more childlike and playful around this other person? Or has his dreamer side gone into hiding? &amp;quot;With your wife, you can be one part of yourself, and with a coworker or buddy, you can be someone else,&amp;quot; says Thomas. &amp;quot;Ultimately you get to be all of you, even though you&amp;#039;re not sharing your full self with any one person.&amp;quot; To some degree, that&amp;#039;s okay\u2014after all, you probably act differently with your man than with your girlfriends\u2014but if your husband is regularly shutting down a major part of himself with you, and turning to another woman to be that guy, trouble is brewing. The solution? Rethink areas of life you&amp;#039;ve categorically turned your nose up at. Did he used to talk about a big dream of buying land and building on it? Maybe it&amp;#039;s time to re-explore that idea. That&amp;#039;ll help break down old boundaries, and allow you to reconnect on a more intimate, no-holds-barred level. You&amp;#039;re not the first one to hear about his day. When your husband stops chatting you up about the stuff you normally can&amp;#039;t shut him up about\u2014anecdotes about his awkward coworker, stress over work deadlines and goals, even his favorite basketball team\u2014that&amp;#039;s something to pay attention to. It likely means he&amp;#039;s still talking about all that, but to someone else. And sharing personal details of his life with this other person who affirms and encourages him only deepens their bond, says Carrie Cole, a master certified Gottman therapist by the Gottman Institute. So if you found out about his bad performance review two weeks after the fact, but you suspect that his coworker Christy got the play-by-play over lunch that same day, ask him to tell you more now. Showing him that you want to know because you care\u2014not just that you&amp;#039;re annoyed he didn&amp;#039;t tell you sooner\u2014will be more effective at strengthening your bond than acting self-righteous. &amp;quot;Marriages can bounce back from emotional affairs, but this is a process that takes time,&amp;quot; says Cole. &amp;quot;You may have lost touch and feel like you don&amp;#039;t know each other very well, so you have to work on reconnecting with each other, rebuilding trust, and developing a culture of openness on both parts.&amp;quot; Sex feels detached. Even though emotional affairs are by definition psychological, not physical, the two are still closely related. &amp;quot;As the intensity of the emotional connection with this other person builds, it detracts from the emotional connection in the marriage,&amp;quot; says Diane Gehart, professor of marriage and family therapy at California state University, Northridge. And that change in dynamic can&amp;#039;t help but cool things down in between the sheets. For a woman, that might mean no sex at all with her husband because she feels more connected with someone else. But for men, sex doesn&amp;#039;t necessarily stop. Research shows that guys don&amp;#039;t get as big of a rush of oxytocin (a hormone that promotes bonding, empathy, and trust) as women do during sex, leading some to theorize that men may be naturally wired to be less emotional about sex. So even if your husband is still sleeping with you, you may pick up on subtle signs that he&amp;#039;s not fully present: A lack of eye contact, feeling rushed to get it over with, and no intimacy afterward.  But before you start freaking out that your husband&amp;#039;s Tuesday night happy hour is about to turn into a hotel rendezvous, remember that emotional attraction is at the root of the problem\u2014and you can address that (and hopefully stop a physical affair in its tracks) by showing your vulnerability, telling him that you miss how close you used to feel, both mentally and physically. &amp;quot;As you break the vicious cycle of hurt and blame by properly communicating your needs, you can protect your relationship against future emotional\u2014and physical\u2014infidelities,&amp;quot; says Turndorf. You&amp;#039;re being compared to other women.  This is the telltale sign that something has gone awry in your relationship, says Cole. If he starts saying seemingly small things like &amp;quot;Rachel can keep up with me on the pool table,&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;Shethinks my imitations are hilarious,&amp;quot; it means he could be envisioning what life would be like with that person instead, or wielding it as a passive-aggressive tool. Whatever you do, don&amp;#039;t ignore it. &amp;quot;The lack of acknowledgment is the most threatening piece,&amp;quot; says Thomas. &amp;quot;Many people don&amp;#039;t want to know the truth of what is happening.&amp;quot; Talking about what you&amp;#039;re experiencing\u2014even if it&amp;#039;s just saying that you sense something&amp;#039;s off or that the comment bugs you\u2014can be the catalyst to a bigger talk about what&amp;#039;s really going on for each of you, deep down. Related:  When Is It the Right Time to Walk Away From A Marriage? What Every Couple Should Talk About to Fall in Love Even More 12 Secret Ways He Shows You He Loves You "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/love-sex/relationships/advice/a21442/signs-of-an-emotional-affair/>