You text each other a lot. Is it an emotional affair?

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Kelly McMasters didn’t expect a response when she messaged her college boyfriend late one night. They hadn’t talked in years.

But he wrote back within minutes. Soon the two were exchanging multiple emails a day, sharing the minutiae of their lives. “How did the salmon turn out?" he once asked.

There’s one detail that McMasters did not disclose: The fact that she was married. And she didn’t tell her husband, or anyone else, that she was corresponding with her ex. The relationship never became sexual.

But she had stronger feelings for him than she wanted to admit. “I knew, on some level, that we were not above board," says McMasters, 48, a professor and writer in Port Washington, N.Y. Are you texting and emailing with a friend, or is it a kind of an affair? It can be a slippery slope.

You likely have close confidants. But when you find yourself sharing more with someone than you do with your partner, developing romantic feelings for that person, and keeping this intimacy a secret, you may be having an emotional affair. The experience can be revealing, therapists say.

Emotional infidelity may tell you that your marriage has broken down. Or it could also show you what you need to work on in your relationship, such as connection or attention. Researchers say anyone could be susceptible to an emotional affair, especially in our online age.

Social media has both expanded our opportunities for connection and made it easier to hide them from others. An emotional affair doesn’t necessarily mean sexual attraction, therapists say. Seven percent of Americans who have ever been married say they’ve had an emotional affair at some point, while 10% say they’ve had one that is both emotional and sexual,