Q&A: What to do when you find emotional infidelity

What needs handling is not only the betrayal. It is the powerless wish to control someone else's loyalty. Emotional infidelity speaks to a lack and an avoidance in the other person; it is not a verdict on your worth. Much of the pain comes from trying to repair a problem that is not yours to fix.

Instead of spending yourself on the question of why, look at the structure of the relationship as it now is. A line has been crossed. Your task is to decide whether you will live inside this rewritten boundary — not to carry the cost of someone else's choice.