What exactly is cheating? A breakup story...

[Texaz41]

What is actually cheating?

My ex and I have been broken up for about 10 months. It just didn't work out. There were trust issues for sure. I wasn't feeling appreciated and for a small amount of time I was flirting with girls online on dating sites. It lasted about a month before I got caught. I had no intentions of meeting anyone and made sure the people I talked to lived in different cities and no where close to be able to travel and meet up. Yes, I was caught and it wasn't good. I had been considering ending the relationship and getting caught almost ended it, but she wanted to work on it.

 

It was hard for her to trust me after that but I really made effort to earn back her trust by giving her accesss to all my emails, phone, social media, etc. and I really wanted to make it work. So much so that after over a year after that happened I felt ready to propose, which I did. She said she was t ready yet and we moved on just dating. After a month, she said it wasn't going to work out. I was devastated.

 

Fast forward 3 months, she's moved out of town and was back to visit. She wanted to meet for drinks so I said sure. This is where I find out she wants to get back together. I was taken aback. She moved 7 hours away and left me. I had moved on. I wasn't ready to get back to her as I was still hurt by everything. She tried for months to get me back but I just couldn't do it.

 

Present day. She moved back to town and wanted to meet up. She wanted to make sure things wouldn't be weird because our town is small and we'd be running into each other in public. We talked, discussed our lives. Discussed maybe trying it again. I still wasn't sure. She said she needed to move on then. And then, she tells me that there's something very important that she left out.

 

She had an affair. Right before I proposed. She felt I wasn't giving her the attention she needed, and also felt that it would help her get over her trust issues with me. I never met/went out with/slept with anyone while with her. Just stupid flirtations online. She actually had sex with someone else, yet, she thinks that it's the same as what I did.

 

My question is, is it? Are these levels of "cheating" the same?

[milkyway]

yes it is the same level of cheating. Don't think you haven't done actual moves means you can be spared. You hurt her as much as she hurt you, or even more, as she did what she did, because of what you have done. if you have never cheated, she wouldn't walked to that position she was at.

[kbbcoop77]

You both cheated, you emotionally her physically. There's a difference yes, but you both crossed boundaries that you don't do when in a committed relationship.

[reinventmyself]

She lost trust in you.

You've lost trust in her.

 

Creating levels and trying to measure it doesn't change the fact that the trust is broken.

 

Add in you both felt neglected in the relationship and you are both trying to justify cheating by it.

There isn't enough of a healthy foundation to work with here.

 

Time to call it. .

Move along.

[Tanzi]

You both cheated ... just in different forms. You emotionally cheated on her, she physically cheated on you. Regardless of whether one is worse than the other, you both deceived the other, you both disrespected the other and you both disregarded the fact that you were in an exclusive relationship. I don't think there is any point in trying to score points over whose cheating was worse at this point.

[ParisPaulette]

Blue68 nailed it. To be cheating has always been that you claim to be in a committed monogamous relationship, and then you go out looking and engaging other people in behaviors and needs you should be getting satisfied only from your partner that are of a sexual/relationship intimacy manner.

 

That pretty much covers everything from emotional to the physical and no, one is not worse than the other. Well, I take that back, you can't get an STD from emotional, but emotional affairs pretty much lead to the physical sooner or later unless there's so much distance there's no possibility of that.

 

You give another something you promised to give only your partner, that's what cheating is. And yes, that's different than when you both agree you can each see other people and are fine with that. It's the saying one thing, promising it, then doing something else that is the issue. And no, your relationship sounds like neither of you was getting what you needed fully from the other and you both handled it the wrong way.