Welcome to Love and Abuse, the show about helping you identify poisonous communication and toxic behavior.

You deserve to be treated with respect and kindness.

That's why it's important that you learn to pinpoint manipulative and controlling behavior

so that you keep your power and your sanity.

I'm your host, Paul Koliani.

Thank you. power and your sanity. I'm your host, Paul Koliani. Welcome to love and abuse.

All the information on the show is meant for educational purposes only.

Always seek a professional for your mental health and well-being.

And always pick your battles wisely.

I have a question from someone that I'll just call Mary.

Mary asks, do you have any thoughts about the victim of emotional or verbal abuse having an emotional affair.

That was the extent of her question. In fact, I had to add a little bit to that question because

really, she just wants to know what my thoughts are on emotional affairs when it comes to being

in an emotionally or verbally abusive relationship.

And I am assuming that she's asking this because when you can't get love and connection from the person that you're with,

you probably want to find that elsewhere. Or you might be compelled, or maybe you're considering finding that connection elsewhere.

And so, yes, I do have some thoughts on this.

The very first thing I'm going to say about this is that any relationship outside the relationship

that contains components of what a romantic relationship

should be about creates a very complex and sometimes dangerous but especially difficult

situation. I'm not necessarily going to say that you shouldn't do this,

but I am going to say that if you do do this,

...