Emotional Affairs? [View All]

I'm a huge fan of Boston Legal and I was catching up on the past couple of weeks' episodes last night. A character used the term "emotional affair" to describe his relationship with another character. I had never heard of such a thing before, so I Googled it like a good little internet geek and came across several articles about non-consummated friendships that have underlying sexual tension and deep emotional connections. My immediate reaction was one of "oh gosh, this is totally the situation I'm in right now with a friend of mine," but that's beside the point ... My secondary reaction was noticing that a good portion of the sites seemed to be fundamentalist-Christian infidelity sites--run by people who undoubtedly believe that even thinking a certain thing is a sin. I don't believe in punishing people for their thoughts and feelings; but I can see how such a relationship could be the start of a physical relationship. What do you think? Is an emotional affair cheating? Do such "affairs" even exist?

http://www.relationship-institute.com/freearticles_detail.cfm?article_ID=156

http://marriages.typepad.com/marriages/2004/09/how_emotional_a.html