Entangled: A Woman’s Guide to Recognizing Your Emotional Affair and Restoring Your Marriage – Book Review

Quick Summary: In Entangled:  A Woman’s Guide to Recognizing Your Emotional Affair and Restoring Your Marriage, author Amy J. Bennett shares her story of falling into an emotional affair with a co-worker.  She gives a thorough analysis of how her emotional affair happened, how it progressed and the points of vulnerability from her life and marriage that made her a risk for an emotional affair.

I’m curious how emotional affairs begin. I take cautions in my personal and professional life to prevent relationships from going places, but where’s the line? And do I have any blind spots that could cause me to get in trouble?

This book is a woman’s guide. It says so in the subtitle of the book. Guys will get a lot from the book, but ladies, this book is written to you. You will feel a connection to Amy. You will see parallels to your own life. And this book might keep your relationships from going places that will damage your marriage and family.

The author did not have a physical affair. She and a coworker developed a deep personal relationship and stepped over many boundaries. God helped Amy and her husband pull the plug before it turned physical.

Emotional affairs happen when a relationship is pushed past the “just a friend” stage and a strong bond develops. Strong bonding is good for the marriage, but deadly for relationships outside of marriage. The author helps us see that things don’t have to get physical to get way out of hand.

A Thorough Inventory

I’m impressed that the author took a serious inventory of what happened and wrote it down for our benefit. She doesn’t want you and me to make the same mistakes she made. The strongest parts of the book are when she breaks down:

• How Do You Know You’re Getting Close to an Emotional Affair?
• The 4 Stages of an Emotional Affair
• Ways We Justify an Emotional Affair

The book is easy to read and a page turner. We know the emotional affair is going to develop, but we don’t quite know how it will develop. At times, I felt like I was watching a TV program where they show the last 5 minutes first, then go back and show you how the scenario developed. We knew the author was developing an emotional affair. We know it’s going to get bad. But we don’t know how it evolves.

Help with Recovery and a Rare Chapter

The third and fourth sections are about recovery and building a healthy marriage. There are thoughts on breaking the lies we’ve believed, turning to God for our deepest needs, and renewing our commitment to our marriage.

I was shocked when I came to the chapter on “Pride.” It is a simple, potent reminder of a sinful state that prevents us from repenting and finding healing. Many recovery books gloss past pride. It was obvious to me the author has learned some major lessons on pride.

One Wish and One Thing I’m Curious About

The author does a great job sharing Scripture (she even has a long list of all the Scriptures used in the Appendix). She also quotes Beth Moore (a great women’s bible teacher) several times. I would have liked to have seen some other authors quoted. Quotes from counselors and training in emotional affair recovery would make this strong book even stronger.

I’m also curious about the men who get in emotional affairs. I know that many of them are the initiators. Some of them are manipulators. I wonder about the man’s side, the parallels and the differences that we would learn. Reading Entangled made me want to look for more information about men and emotional affairs.

A Good Book to Help You Avoid Marital Pitfalls

• Are you curious how an emotional affair starts?
• Are you wondering how you can step over boundaries in your relationships and barely realize it?
• Do you want to hear from a godly woman who has been through it and survived?

This book give us some good wisdom and training.

Available at EntangledBook.com or on Amazon.com.