by Anna Hofman

Created on: June 17, 2010

Many women have admitted that they would prefer their man to have a one night stand with a woman, than actually have feelings for her. This is understandable for many reasons: firstly, if a man has sex with another woman, he will often come back to his partner and beg for forgiveness and, although the betrayal here is higher physically, the woman he is with will often comfort herself with the fact that "the one night stand meant nothing to him", she is his partner and that is the more important factor. There is less chance of being dumped, and therefore more emotional security. A small portion of women actually say they enjoy their man crawling back to them after a one night stand as it is an ego boost: "I am clearly better than her and he doesn't want to lose me".

However, when a man actually admits to his partner (or vice versa), that he/she actually has feelings for someone else the emotional betrayal is much, much worse. For the person being betrayed, they may feel that they aren't good enough for their partner anymore and may spend weeks or even months reflecting on whether they're sexy enough, good enough in bed, physically appealing, young enough, too big, too small... Everything comes crashing in around them and they lose self-confidence and security. It seems to be a natural response to go into a mode where we try and self-improve if we get dumped, and emotional betrayal puts us into this as well. In fact, usually it is considered worse to have a partner announce his/her feelings for another person than actually be dumped. Some women will agree that it almost feels the same as being dumped as when you are put in this situation, it seems inevitable that you will end up being left for this other person, or you will be driven apart from your relationship because of the situation.

To many people, it is the thought of THEIR partner romancing and laughing and being happy with someone who was once you. It feels like you have been replaced and this not only makes you feel inadequate, but also used, betrayed and possibly like you'll never be able to trust someone of the opposite sex again. Emotional infidelity is terrible for so many reasons, and going through it is one of the most difficult things to do. Unfortunately, it is quite common, and this is because humans are such sociable creatures: meeting attractive people of the opposite sex is unavoidable whether you're with a partner or not and with this comes feelings - however small. Sometimes these

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