It can begin so innocently. An ex or a former colleague you once had good wibes with finds you on social media. You start messaging. You feel a little rush in your veins. At home, one day is just like the next, full of logistics and children. A little spice in everyday life can't hurt, can it?
- If you get excited by this "spice" and invite more contact with the spice supplier, then the flavor experience becomes far too intense for your relationship, says Ole André Solbakken, professor at the Department of Psychology at the University of Oslo and a specialist in human emotions and relationships.
He does not doubt that the relationship you enter into when you establish contact with a new or old flame will threaten your actual partner.
The psychology professor's clear advice is to refrain from investing in this new contact before it accelerates any further. Otherwise, you are playing a high stakes game with your steady partner.
If you become preinfatuated, run away
Sissel Gran is a psychologist, author and often referred to as Norway's couple's therapist. She emphasizes that close, intimate contact with someone who makes your heart race and is not your partner is playing with fire - especially if you are in a somewhat vulnerable state.
- If things in your committed relationship are a bit difficult and, on top of that, you feel low on vitality and longing to feel a bit more alive - then you are particularly exposed. If you start to feel a bit tender and pre infatuated, I usually give one piece of advice, and that is: "Run away", says Gran.
She stresses that the same level of risk is not present if you are generally happy with your life and your relationship. In that case, you might be able to allow yourself a bit of back and forth with an admirer and then park it in time, before it spirals out of control.
Ole André Solbakken agrees.
- When you suddenly become preoccupied with someone other than your steady partner, it all depends on what you do with that. A feeling is something that happens to us. We cannot choose or prevent our feelings. But we have a great deal of freedom when it comes to how we handle them, he emphasizes.
In this episode of Universitetspodden, the University of Oslo's podcast, psychology professor Ole André Solbakken and psychologist, author and couple's therapist Sissel Gran discuss emotional infidelity as well as physical infidelity. What triggers emotional infidelity, what does it give the individual, and how do you get out of it? They also talk about jealousy, and about how the digital world makes it much easier for potential old and new flames to
