Yes, emotional takes time, energy and focus from the current physical relationship.

The mind is a very powerful thing, when a person spends their time cheating emotionally, over time as the mere thoughts no longer have the desired effects there is a chance that the dreamer can start to resent their partner for 'in their eyes' stopping them from doing what they really desire to do! This can create a nasty atmosphere and the innocent partner will have no clue as to what have done to deserve the treatment they are receiving. If its cheating pyhsically the guilty party will nine out of ten times do their best to make their partner feel that everything is going well to cover up their wrong doings, this could go on for the entire duration of the relationship with the innocent partner being blissfully unaware of any relationship issues.

It usually doesn't hit you as hard, but it's definitely more damaging to the relationship. Physical cheating is just that...physical. But emotional is something deeper, something more personal. People are more likely to forgive it, but it usually signals a large problem that might not resolve itself.

They're both pretty bad. However, I wonder if the problem is actually in the person doing the cheating. Perhaps his/her needs aren't being met physically and/or emotionally, so he/she wants to find a way to 'fill the void' without hurting his/her s/o by just confronting the issue. This could mean the person is just unhappy with himself/herself in general. If he/she depends on another person for his/her happiness, this makes a lot of sense. Sure, it hurts to be betrayed, but the reality is, he/she is probably insecure if he/she is cheating in the first place. Too insecure, in fact, to just go to his/her s/o and admit what he/she is unhappy about in the relationship. He/she may decide to just have someone on the side to go to and not tell his/her s/o about it so he/she can 'have the best of both worlds', while disregarding or turning his/her conscience off in the process and giving himself/herself a false belief that he/she won't have to deal with the consequences later. The guilt will (most likely) eventually catch up to the person, though. It's best to just cut ties with the person and only speak to him/her when absolutely necessary if you know you might be tempted to cheat. The biggest problem in this? The person decided to trust someone else more than his/her s/o about how his/her s/o feels. To me, that is a much bigger problem than the cheating itself. This could be where the attitude "It's not okay for other people to cheat, but when I cheat, I have my reasons!" comes from. I understand this attitude. The person who cheated on me and the person who helped him cheat haven't put it that way, but I still understand that attitude and reasoning. Okay. I could argue that he cheated on me physically AND emotionally...because he trusted her over me...and did physical things with her. However, I could also argue that she cheated on her boyfriend physically and emotionally by doing physical things with him and by trusting him more than she trusted her own boyfriend. I know that he felt he was missing something in our relationship and I know that she felt she was missing something in hers. Therefore, I was already aware she was the wrong person to go to. I tried to break them apart (to protect them) so they wouldn't do something they'd regret, but I ended up looking like the bitch. I believe they know now that I wasn't being a bitch. However, she has reasons to believe I am a bitch now. I haven't exactly said the nicest things to her or been the nicest person. Anyway, emotional cheating can lead to physical cheating, and that in itself is pretty bad. Physical cheating is not very nice, either, because it's pretty much saying "Well, let's use each other to fuck." However, when an s/o knows it was just physical, it can make him/her feel a bit better. If a person actually falls for the other person and cheats, that hurts...tons. My boyfriend says he doesn't love this girl and he didn't ever like her like that and it was just physical, and that in itself helps me feel better about it, but yeah. I don't believe that it was just a physical thing to her. She seemed to really have a thing going on for him and she was preoccupied with trying to make me look bad because I 'hurt' her best friend. Therefore, it seems like she wanted to 'hurt' me by fucking my boyfriend and doing everything in her power to 'hurt' me that she knew would hurt me, including taking his virginity and all of that, so I couldn't have it. This girl bases her opinions on her emotions a lot, so it's pretty understandable (if you truly know her) why she wouldn't think of the consequences of what she did until later, when it's too late to do anything about it. My boyfriend is also simple-minded, easy-going, good-spirited, and fun-loving and he's also the kind of person who needs to make his mistakes before he discovers just how bad it is, even if he knew prior to that how bad it could be. In the end? I think they both did plan it (whether intentionally or unintentionally), but they both intended for our relationship to work out, then they ended up falling into temptation when it got too far. As if I'm admitting this. Perhaps that's the real reason she's trying to force a present on me and perhaps the real reason she's worked extra hard to tell me that he loves me and he wants to show me he loves me through sex and so on and so on. Whenever I talk about him, she says things like "Aw.." She even reassures me that he loves me, which is unusual. This has been the hardest thing that I have ever dealt with. I want everything to be the way it was before. I miss when we hung out ... including when it was her boyfriend, my boyfriend, her, and me. I miss when she was this bubbly, chatty girl who had a lot of spirit about her. I miss who she was. I miss the way our friendship was before. I miss the way he was before. I miss the way her boyfriend was before. I miss the way we all were before. Them cheating with each other has changed that a lot. Now, she's this stone cold girl who just sits there and doesn't talk much or she reads and tries to contribute to the conversation, only to get either listened to or pushed aside. Now he's different, too. He's himself when she's not there, but this perfect gentlemanly guy when she's there. My boyfriend doesn't come around very much anymore because of everything that happened. I want the way things were before. I think that deep down, they want things back the way they were before as well... but it's extremely hard to move past this. I believe that we were all good friends before, but the cheating ruined that. Never risk a friendship for cheating....ever.... it's not worth it AT ALL. It can destroy a group of friends who have had a lot of fun and good memories together. If you need to work on problems in your relationship, don't force a mutual friend to be in the middle. It's not fair...or right... Don't go to a person about your problems who is your 'BEST FRIEND' of the sex you are attracted to. It's just not the greatest idea. They are both pretty bad and they both affect the people around them. When they are together, that's even worse.

emotions are fragile and weak than practical life.

I would say emotional cheating is worse than physical because its one thing to have sex BUT its another thing to share your most intimate feelings. I would have to say that people cheat emotionally before the relationship gets physical. I would consider them BOTH to be equally destructive.