Asked by Woman, 33
It was not sex. It was a secret other intimacy. He says that means it 'does not count.'
If it had to be hidden, it counted. Emotional cheating is a channel you built around your partner. Recovery is possible when the channel is actually closed — not paused, not 'we are just friends who vent at 1 a.m.' — and when you stop minimizing. Minimizing is a second injury.
It counts because your nervous system counted it. You do not need a legal definition of sex to know you were replaced in the private rooms of his attention. Stay only if the secrecy ends and he can hear the harm without a debate about vocabulary.
Define what contact is allowed. If he cannot live with that definition, you are negotiating the affair, not the repair.
After both answers