1. You are withdrawing from your spouse.
2. You are preoccupied and daydream about your friend more and more.
3. You are not interested in being intimate with your spouse, either emotionally or sexually.
4. The amount of time you and your spouse spend together is less.
5. When confronted about the apparent emotional affair, you respond, "We're just friends."
6. You find yourself anticipating when you can communicate or be with your friend again. Alone time together is important to you.
7. You are sharing your thoughts, feelings, and problems with your friend instead of your spouse.
8. Your friend seems to understand you better than your spouse does.
9. You are keeping your friendship a secret from your spouse.
Once you're drawn into an emotional affair, it can feel so good that you don't want to stop. In fact, not having sex may make the connection seem all the more powerful. It feels genuine, romantic even, and isn't easy to let go of because it's so "safe" — or so it appears. But inevitably, you start unfairly comparing your mate to this other person, which compounds the damage. You don't have the stresses of everyday life together, so the new person can be very humorous, very cute, and very giving. You go back to your mate and you're comparing them to this "friend" in pieces: He'll never be as handsome as this guy or as funny as this guy or as giving as this guy.
The two individuals involved in the emotional affair may have been casual friends or co-workers to start with. Or they may have met online in a chat room. At some point, they started confiding feelings and personal details about themselves, their partners, and their relationships that their mate would have seen as a violation of trust. And that was the first danger signal that indicated trouble ahead.
The second danger indicator was when they started sharing more with the “friend” than with their mate and depending on the “friend” for their primary emotional support. At some point, they began to feel that the “friend” understood them better than their own mate did and was easier to communicate with. They felt a sense of companionship with the “friend” that was lacking with their mate.
The third red flag indicating danger ahead was when they began keeping their conversations and the frequency of contact secret from their mate. This is a definite danger sign. Both individuals knew that their mates would be upset if they knew the extent of the contact, the depth of the emotional connection, and the intimate subjects being routinely discussed.
The bottom line to this is that deception is deception. A lie is a lie. If this person is a friend, then why is their identity or existance hidden from your mate? A relationship with friends that the other person doesn't know about is already in danger. Add to this danger sexual tension, and inappropriate conversations, and you are ASKING for a disaster. So how do you deal with it?
The first thing to remember, just like physical infidelity, is that it has NOTHING to do with YOU as a person. It isn't personal. There is probably nothing that you can do differently or change about yourself that will make your mate stop what they are doing.
The lines of communication in yoru relationship have to be opened back up. As I have stated before, both in blogs and on the show, your mate has to be your best friend. You should be able to talk to your mate about anything, and they should be able to listen without being judgemental.
The person guilty of the emotional affair must be willing to end it. If they are not willing or able to put the time and energy that they have put into their "friend" back into their relationship, then there is no reason to even try to continue the relationship. There are probably deeper issues that need to be dealt with.
Emotional affairs hurt just as much, if not more, than physical affairs. They destroy the levels of trust just like a physical affair does. Sometimes, these emotional affairs are harder to deal with and get over than a real sexual affair. The biggest thing that I want everyone to remember is that they are real, and they are damaging, and if you are having one, you are hurting the person that you love.

Let me start this out by saying that I love my family. Ok, that’s my disclaimer.
The people that share my DNA and the few people that are married to them are the most stuck up and bourgeois (that’s ‘boo-gee’ for those of you that don’t know) people that I have ever encountered in my life. I have always know this … it’s like they all made it somewhere and totally and completely forgotten where they came from. But that is off the subject. I just had a conversation with a member of my family that reminded me that there are certain things that I can’t talk to them about.
We were discussing her stepson, my cousin, and the fact that “all he wants to do is sit around and get high all the time” (which I don’t believe is true, but anyway…) So in the conversation my aunt says that my cousin’s mother is just tired of him and he needs to get his sh*t together. Somewhere in there I made the observation that we are, and have to be, as parents, harder on our sons than we are on our daughters because it is harder out there for men. What did I say that for????? She said that she believes that if you go out there and show that you are about your business and you really want to get a job, its not hard out there. This was the point where I had to tell her exactly what it is that I believe.
I truly believe that in the world, in society (not just in the work world) it is hard for a Black man. Now please do not think that I am about to go off on this whole “holding the Black man down” crap (which she thought I was saying) because I am not. What I am saying is this … even the highest paid business professionals (unless they are walking around in a suit 24-7-365) have to work hard to prove themselves, to fight the preconceived notions that society has about Black men, and to fight the stereotypes.
Do you know that this woman ripped me a new one?! Like she really went off on me and told me that my belief was crap and that she believed that I was just a product of my environment. WHOA! SO at this point I asked her what was wrong with my environment, and she goes on to tell me that I am so smart that there is no reason why I am not somewhere in corporate America with 99+ people working under me. Actually, there is exactly 1 reason why I’m not … because that is NOT the life that I want for myself. Corporate America is not for everyone … everyone does not have those suit and tie dreams, and please know that I have never, ever, ever aspired to do that whole suit and tie, Corporate America, 9-5 nonsense.
I stand firmly on what I believe, especially as a mother with a son. The way that things stand right now, people really only expect our Black young men to grow up to be either a sports icon or a statistic. I don’t want my son to be a statistic. But no matter what he chooses to do, he will get the looks and the stares and the mistreatment. He could have a million dollars in the bank, but if he walks into Jared’s or Tiffany & Co. dressed in some “trendy” “hip hop” clothes, he would get a funny look or 2. I watched my own mother pass judgment on someone in a somewhat similar situation a few years ago.
We were driving down the street and driving in an SUV beside us was a young Black man. He was wearing a baseball cap, had on some sunglasses, had his music playing loud, and was cruising. She goes off on this whole tangent about him being a thug and everything else under the sun. My response was “for all you know, that man could be the VP of Operations at IBM”. How can you make such assumptions? And how can someone else be so blind about the fact that this happens to people?
My children’s father had neat, well kept, shoulder length locs when we met, and up until 2 years ago. He is intelligent, well spoken, well versed, talented, has been in his career for 13 years, and knows his sh*t. He doesn’t dress like a thug, a hood, a rapper, a basketball player or anyone else that you see in the mainstream- he’s a jeans and tshirt, or jeans and polo kind of guy. I have witnessed with my own eyes the way people looked at him before he opened his mouth and disproved what opinions people had already formed about him based on his appearance. So I even posed this scenario to my aunt and asked her what that was. She didn’t answer me, instead saying that we should just agree to disagree.
BLAH!!
And so I ask you … especially the men out there. How do you feel? Is it harder out there for you because you are fighting the stereotypes? PLEASE tell me if I am wrong because I don’t want to instill something wrong in my son.
"Feels so good, when you’re doing all the things that you want to do
Get the best out of life, treat yourself to something new
Keep your head up high
In yourself, believe in you, believe in me
Having a really good time, I’m not complaining
And I’m a still wear a smile if it raining
I got to enjoy myself regardless
I appreciate life, I’m so glad I got mine
So I like what I see when I’m looking at me
When I’m walking past the mirror
Aint worried about you and what you gonna do
I’m a lady so I must stay classy
Got to keep it hot, keep it together
If I want to get better
You see I wouldn't’t change my life, my life’s just….. fine"
Yes, Mary! Sing it girl!!
This song has become my new theme song ... "I won't change my life, my life's just fine!"
This post is about 2 very important things that I have learned in my life. They are 1) LOVE and ACCEPT yourself, and 2) LOVE and ACCEPT the life that you are living, and Mary hit it on the head both times with this one!!
The first time I heard this song, the part that stuck out to me the most was "I like what I see when I'm looking at me when I'm walking past the mirror". And after many, many years of having self esteem and self image problems, I can finally say that, yes, I like me. No, I LOVE what I see looking back at me in the mirror! When she smiles at me and I smile back at her, the light that radiates in the room is overwhelming! Do you really feel what I'm saying? Now, don't get me wrong, because I am far from conceited. I am just a woman that is (finally) comfortable in her own skin.
For so, so, so many years I looked at what society considered attractive and tried to make myself conform to it. I tried every diet imaginable, and even made up some of my own. I had weave, I wore wigs, I colored my hair, cut my hair, applied makeup, wore acrylic nails, colored contacts... yes, I tried everything that I could and nothing made me happy with the person that I saw in the mirror. It took me forever to realize that I would never be happy with that person because that person WAS NOT ME! Whew! So I started, little bit by little bit, accepting what I saw. Ok, so I am not a size 4. SO WHAT?! The average woman is a size 14, so guess what ... I am normal! (Sorry skinny girls but yall are so out of style! *smile*) I had to realize that "perfect" was not "beautiful" and that "perfect" did not exist. I started learning that my personality spoke volumes and that my intelligence was way more important than my size.
Self esteem is something that I am so big on when it comes to teenage girls. I think that it is so important for them to know that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Do you know when I actually dissected that saying and got a full understanding of it? A month ago on my birthday. Something just came to me and said "it doesn't matter what THEY think ... if you see your beauty, then you ARE beautiful!"
The second thing that caught me about this song was "I won't change my life, my life's just fine". It is in human nature to complain when things aren't going the way we want them to about how much life sucks. But guess what, I bet that no matter what horrible situation you find yourself in, there's someone out there that would kill to be in your situation instead of theirs.
I have been through some SHIT in my life, I am here to tell you. I have been wronged, I have been hurt, I have been abandoned, I have wronged people, I have hurt people. And in all of this, I have learned very valuable lessons. But you know what, and I have said this so many times in my life, I would not change not one single thing that I have been through because it makes me the person that I am ... and I have to say, I am one hell of a person!!
I'm just saying, as long as I have breath in my body, no matter how bad it may seem, I won't change a thing, because I have come through the fire and weathered the storm, and I am STILL here! What hasn't killed me has only made me stronger, and I am all the better for it! I love my life! Even at its most horrible times, I won't change my life ... my life's just fine!
See, Mary's right. It feels great when you are doing the things that you want to do! Once you stop living your life for everyone else around you and start living it for you and only you, the level of satisfaction that you reach is beyond description. Do you understand where you have to be in life to be able to truly believe the lyrics of this song for yourself? I do, and I beg of you, don't make the same mistake that I did. Don't let the best parts of your life pass you by before you get there.
So, babies, take this one with you today as a little motivation. Play the video again. Start your day with this song. Listen to the words. Type them up and put them on the wall of your office. Put them on your bathroom mirror. Commit them to memory. But most importantly, LIVE THEM!
I'm out!
*Hey Roosevelt ... I did you one better than a picture! I gave you a video!!! Much love! Muah!*