Relationship Advice: Emotional Affair Warning Sign #5 - But I Just Feel So Understood By
By: Jeff Herring
Emotional affairs take time to build. Each step builds on the ones before.
For example, once you have shared intimate emotions and then intimate problems in your relationship with someone else, it is only natural that you will begin to feel understood by this person.
If things were just great in your primary relationship, you would not be in this situation in the first place.
You believe that this person understands you much more than your spouse
Living with another person is just plain messy. The illusion that gets built with this new person is fed in part by the fact that you do not have to live with this person. You don’t have to put up with annoying little habits, you might even think these habits are cute.
It’s easy to feel understood by a sympathetic other when there are problems at home. It is also much easier to understand and sympathize with another person when you are not undertaking the messy task of living with each other.
The trap
The trap here is equating feeling understood with love. I’ve had many people caught in this trap believe this relationship was meant to be based solely on feeling understood.
Now do not get me wrong or mishear me here. Feeling understood by another person is a wonderful feeling. It is part of an intimate relationship. Feeling understood by someone else can make us feel alive, supported, accepted, and well, normal.
This is part of the seduction of an emotional affair. The new person has not experienced the side of you that has contributed to the problems in your primary relationship.
One of the reasons that I encourage my “four seasons approach” in new relationships is that if you give a new relationship a year (four seasons) before deciding that this is the one, you each have a long enough chance to see each other in the light of the messy reality of living with and seeing a person each day.
I’ve seen way too many people make life changing decisions based on the illusion of feeling understood.
I recommend that you do not tear apart your current life based on the illusions of an emotional affair.
Visit www.YourEmotionalAffiar.com for brand new information on how to avoid and/or recover from an emotional affair, from relationship coach and expert Jeff Herring.