Who Is Your Spouse Talking To on the Internet?
Copyright © 2007 Heaven Ministries

There is a lot of talk about unfaithfulness in marriage. I’ve written my fair share about cheating spouses and infidelity in marriage. This article will focus on a different kind of unfaithfulness, emotional infidelity. What is emotional infidelity? Emotional infidelity is interacting with others, besides the person you are married to, on an intimate and emotional level. 

Emotional infidelity is not a new issue, it has been going on for years, but since the advent of computers it has become a more prevalent practice among men and women, many of whom are married. It is so easy to just get online and meet people in chat rooms, dating sites, forums, and email that relationships can be sparked without even getting up from your computer desk. It starts out harmless, but eventually leads up to something other than just innocent chat. 

Emotional unfaithfulness happens when one or both spouses are emotionally disconnected from one another. In other words, when they feel they are not getting the validation and support they need from each other, they seek out someone who will give it to them. The Internet is a convenient and easy way to meet other people that will help you feel better about yourself. The strangers on the other end of the conversation will feed the empty spaces of your heart, giving you reason to continue the relationship. But is this a wise thing to be doing if you are married? 

Do not lust in your heart after her beauty or let her captivate you with her eyes, for the prostitute reduces you to a loaf of bread, and the adulteress preys upon your very life. (Proverbs 6:25 NIV

Internet relationships can be dangerous. You never really know who you are divulging your private and personal information to. Whoever it is you are interacting with, they too have a need to reveal themselves for the thrill of emotional intimacy, and then sometimes not revealing who they really are. I’ve heard of a case where a woman thought she was talking to a man for over six months, and together they shared secrets, intimate and romantic about each other through email. Come to find out, it was another woman she was getting steamy with all along. 

Internet predators, of all kinds, stalk the Internet, looking for innocent, vulnerable and naïve victims to captivate and do what they want with. If they want to meet with you somewhere on a physical level, I’d be VERY leery of that. Even though these relationships are not sexual in the physical sense, it can still become sexual in every other sense of the word. This is why it is called emotional unfaithfulness because it is just as unfaithful as the sexual act, if not worse. 

Lust is sin. It is impossible to fall in love with someone you have never met. Feelings tell you that something feels good and you may automatically think it is love. Just because something feels good, doesn’t make it right. The feelings you are feeling are lustfulness mixed with hopefulness, mixed with a little bit of euphoria. 

I believe that with the proper communication between husbands and wives there wouldn’t even be the temptation to involve themselves with the opposite sex. And of course, as innocent as it may seem at first, it is still wrong to become intimate with someone other than who you are married to. So where does God fit into all of this? Where does He fit in?

For EVERYTHING in the world – the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does – comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever. 
(1 John 2:16-17 NIV)