Emotional affairs can be hard to identify because there is often a fine line between friendship and deeper feelings. How can you be sure when you are going outside of the boundaries of your relationship? In today’s episode, Kelly and Megan dive into these complexities. We hear about the importance of communication and expressing your needs. When you and your partner are compatible, you have a friendship, and there is a safe space for you to express yourself. If not, you will turn elsewhere. This is why it’s important to actually look at why you want to turn outside of your relationship for support. We find out some of the signs to look out for if you think you might be having an emotional affair. Of course, it’s ok to have good friends, but you have to have boundaries and respect your partner. Our conversation also touches on how you know when you’re having an emotional affair, why you should work on your insecurities, and the power of a deeper, long-term commitment. Tune in to hear it all!

Key Points From This Episode:

• It's much easier to know when you are in a physical affair than it is to know when you’re in an emotional one. 
• Questioning when it’s ok to have a best friend of the opposite sex. 
• When you and your partner are genuinely friends, you get a lot of your needs met. 
• Megan’s experience of having an affair and how she and her now-husband moved past it. 
• Emotional affairs are incredibly complex and tied to many things. 
• When you meet "a person of interest", they only see one aspect of you. 
• Think about the pain that you are causing your partner by having an emotional affair. 
• Many of us fear having difficult conversations with our partners. 
• Kelly’s experience of her first marriage and how she knew she had to leave. 
• You cannot make your partner jump through hoops for nothing. 
• Some of the signs that you are having an emotional affair. 
• The importance of working on your insecurities rather than taking them out on your partner. 
• You can find other people attractive, but that doesn’t mean you have to act on it. 
• A major red flag is if you are taking care of yourself to get someone else’s attention. 
• As you get older, there is a real level of commitment that is present. 
• The importance of knowing that your actions have a ripple effect. 
• It's easy to idealize relationships that are confined to a certain space and not part of real life. 
• What to do if you find yourself in this kind of situation. 
• There are so many resources you can use if you think you might be having an emotional affair. 
• You have to give your partner a chance to improve.

Tweetables:

“It comes down to communication. If you have really good communication with your partner, and you guys have that trust bond, and a genuine friend type feeling for each other, where you can share all of your most intimate thoughts and concerns and fears and all of that, it doesn't leave a lot of space for someone else to come in and be that for you.” — Kelly Castillo [0:05:59]

“A lot of times, we go to other sources to meet our needs, because we don't want to face or confront the fact that our relationship isn't working. We don't want to actually have to deal with the fact that we are with a partner who isn't a good match for us.” — Kelly Castillo [0:17:19]

“Here's the thing. The most important relationship we all have is one with ourselves.” — Megan Block [0:56:09]

“You can't outrun yourself. You can't hide from yourself. It all comes out in the end.” — Kelly Castillo [0:58:40]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Kelly Castillo