What Constitutes Cheating?

[bettyboop401]

Hi All!

 

This is just a topic that's been going through my head recently. I was just wondering what cheating is to you...whether it's emotional, physical, or a combination of both. And if it's physical...how 'friendly' is too friendly?

 

Thanks!

Betty!

[RayKay]

Anything that you would not do in front of your partner and you know your partner would not approve of. Not what YOU think, but what your partner constitutes as cheating. These boundaries can range from porn to full blown intercourse. It's generally good to discuss these things ahead of time.

 

I personally include emotional and physical cheating in the same realm. I am fine with porn, and having female friends, but going into emotional or physical intimacy with others is a line for me. For physical, too close to me is anything beyond a friendly hug and a cheek greeting-kiss. For emotional, it's when you confide more in them than your partner, when you start sharing dreams with them, sharing emotions deeper then friendship, discussing leaving your partner, starting a new life with them. When your emotional loyalty is to them, not to your partner. Basically for me, it is anytime you are doing something destructive to your relationship, this can mean even confiding private matters that your partner told you in confidence to others in my own opinion.

[kellbell]

I totally agree with RayKay. Doing things that you know that your partner will not approve of and events you keep secret and lie about. All of it is cheating.

 

Actually Shes2Smart has a very short and succinct checklist of what defines cheating. Maybe I can find it.

 

It is very important to talk with your partner and lay down the boundries of what you feel is cheating, so there is no misunderstandings or assumptions. Some people feel going to a strip club and getting a lap dance is cheating, some do not. In any case, it is important to share with your partner very early on what you are and are not comfortable with and what each person will not tolerate.

[shes2smart]

Actually Shes2Smart has a very short and succinct checklist of what defines cheating. Maybe I can find it.

 

 

Here 'tis...

 

Cheating, IMO, isn't necessarily about specific acts, but rather "knowledge" and "consent"

 

If your partner knows about what you're doing/planning and consents to it, then it's not cheating.

 

If your partner knows about what you're doing/planning and does not consent to it, and you do it anyway...then, it's cheating

 

If your partner doesn't know about what you're doing/planning, then they cannot consent, then it's cheating.

[kellbell]

Hey thanks Shes2Smart! That's it. Perfectly written...short and sweet.

[bettyboop401]

Gee thanks. I don't have a partner so I haven't cheated so to speak, but I did go out with some guys who I'd heard had girlfriends. Basically we drunk a lot, and got VERY friendly - but there was no kissing. The night ended pretty early and I know that if it hadn't, more would've gone on. I've just been worried about whether or not I was helping them to cheat. I know we didn't kiss but it was very sexually orientated flirting, which I tend to do when I get drunk - no excuse I know.

 

But thanks heaps for your responses!

[bobster]

Well Betty,

its the same age old thing isn't it? Flirting!! Not cheating, its a natural course of actions between two people who like each other....................IMO.

[Majoraslayer]

This is what really drives me crazy about society's definition of "cheating". If you tell someone the person you love cheated on you, they automatically assume that the person had sex with someone. Thats not necessarily true; real cheating runs a LOT deeper than that. My g/f "fell in love" with someone else and left me to be with him. Supposedly she just realized she had feelings for him and went along her merry little way, talking to him behind my back and flirting around. She tried to make me look like as much of an * * * * * * * as possible to her friends so that they would egg her on and support her in her infidelity, whereas I have never done anything but try my hardest to make her happy. If it hadn't been for the advice of her friends, she would never have broken up with me through it all. Not all of the ones she talked to knew she actually already had someone waiting; the same damn guy she left me for last year. I caught her talking to him at McDonald's on the fourth of July when I went to pick her up after work. She said she was just trying to make sure he didn't try to start trouble with me, but I knew she was full of * * * * at that moment. Guess who she's with?

 

Goddam human nature. Anyone who believes there is EVER a good reason to cheat on someone doesn't deserve to ever find love. I'm a firm believer that a cheater is the only person in the world who doesn't deserve love, and God help anyone unfortunate enough to date someone who can justify a situation in which they would. I'll never date anyone again who has ever had a cheating history, as its probably the most painful thing in the world. It tore my parents apart, my own relationship apart, and now my life is a living hell.

 

Its nearly impossible to find someone with the integrity to never get a "crush" on someone else while they're in a relationship. Thats why I'm so bitter, and if I can ever find it within myself to be 100% happy on my own then I'll never fall in love again. Investing that much emotion in love for a human being is like spending every penny you've got on Enron stocks; human nature dictates as much that attraction to others will draw your partner away if the opportunity is given.

[kevinhater]

I just wanted to commend you on how well you worded that. I feel the same way you do.

[MissDashwood]

I agree on the emotional and physical cheating being both equally important. Physical means that the partner is no longer attracted to what was originally offered, that they want better elsewhere. Just the matter of seeking a physical interaction from someone else is terrible. But if you add in an emotional connection, actual preference for someone new in all aspects, that is terrible too. But I think love instead of lust is a more worrisome factor in cheating.

 

Imagine your husband is caught cheating with a prettier, younger girl. He's obviously attracted to something he wasn't getting anymore and acted on it. She had something you don't. But, what if this girl is intelligent, successful, fun, an all-around great gal who just happened to fall into the relationship? What if the husband loves this girl, would rather be with her because he thinks she's a better mate? That's where a woman would feel an even deeper hurt. That's complete rejection on all levels. That the husband is interested in someone better and you simply can't live up to her? Wow.

[cranbers]

Well to me cheating is anything not physical. A women rubbing a mans back who is engaged married or has a bf, unless it is professional as in a paid massager would be cheating. Now cybersex, no I would consider that cheating. Watching porn? No, pleasuring one self, no. Talking to a girl on the phone and having phone sex, yeah. Kissing, hugging, playing with body parts, yeah. Kissing, oh yeah. having sex, um yeah that's a big one.

 

As for anything else, I wouldn't really care in fact if my wife seen someone else, and came home happy i would say thank god and keep doing what your doing. it is working. i don't know if that is wrong or not for me to say. I mean my wife really needs to be happy, if she can be happy and we stay together then fine. Cheat all you want, I certainly couldn't live with myself though cheating. I would have to be divorced or separated.

 

Now I must admit I did cheat on my wife essentially, my ex gf from hs emailed me a few years ago. We started talking on the phone and through email and instant messaging. It was amazing talking to her again, we started to feel love for each other again. now granted she lives a thousand miles away so a physical affair was not possible.

 

We never had cyber sex both ways anyway although i did tell her some dirty stories i would do to her, she never said anything to me. she took some pic of herself, naked. Also we chatted over web cam a few times, nothing sexual at least on her end.

 

Anyway did i feel that was cheating, i guess it was. however I never felt guilty because i never had physical contact, it was all sort of a fun game. I remember one night i forgot to take the web cam down from my computer and my wife seen it. She asked me what i was doing, i was sleeping downstairs on the couch due to my snoring that she couldn't stand, my computer was there so my time with her was 10-2am and one night i left the cam up. I didn 't leave it up so it was very obvious. I just told her i was playing with it taking pictures of myself. she never figured it out, then another day i left my computer on with the messenger running and she had imd me. Her screen name had her first name in it and being my wife she knew who my one true love was when i was younger, her name anyway so aske dme oh yeah that's appropriate. I said i have other girls i know on there besides her with that name. She bought it, eventually this girl just stopped talking to me one day, i never heard from her again.

 

so I am not sure if her hubby found out or if she just didn't want to torture herself with me. we had a pretty complicated history, we were a very serious couple in our 11th and 12th grade hs years. So it was tough but it was nice to see and talk to her again, it's amazing how some people never outgrow who they were when they were in hs. she was still the same game playing girl.

[Majoraslayer]

Wow. Just....wow.

 

I can't think of anything nice to say about that. Just wow.

[uncomfortably numb]

Yep,that be me story.My ex "fell in love" with a convict in prison.How do you think that made ME feel?

I was'nt good enough.But someone whom she can't even touch is.Someone whom has no home to offer,no security to offer,no nothing!

I say a one night stand is bad.But I could probably work through it.When you have actual feelings for the person.When you're hung up emotionaly.THAT's THE worst of infidelities.

IMHO ofcourse.

[Grinz]

I recently found out that my long term boyfriend has been thinking of other women whom he knows while masturbating. I am not sure what to think of this. I do know that this has hurt me a lot. He has told me that all men think of other women. I agree with what someone said that "Cheating is any act that the person would not do infront of me". This was something he kept from me and lied to me about until now. Does that make it cheating?

[JadedStar]

If this were truly how all men felt about cheating, every woman on this forum would be screwed royally.

 

We never had cyber sex both ways anyway although i did tell her some dirty stories i would do to her, she never said anything to me. she took some pic of herself, naked. Also we chatted over web cam a few times, nothing sexual at least on her end

 

Nothing sexual on her end? UMM naked pics are not sexual?

 

Like I said, if this is the stance of most men, we women are screwed. Dude, this was cheating pure and simple.

[Solarist]

I actually have been exploring this whole question myself to try to determine my boundaries before I express them to my wife. While initially the "Cheating is any act that the person would not do in front of me" line seemed to be a good guideline, there are some flaws in it I think. For example, if the person has a different set of boundaries, perhaps they would be comfortable doing things in front of you that you are not comfortable with them doing. In my situation, my wife felt perfectly comfortable talking to this OM for 10 hours in front of me. Was I comfortable? Heck no. I felt betrayed and neglected. So thus I thought perhaps "Cheating is any act that the person, if done in front of me, would cause me to be upset or uncomfortable". Of course this has flaws also. For example, my wife goes hot tubbing naked with some of her female friends. Would I be comfortable being there? Heck no - most of her friends I find rather , well, unattractive and I would not be personally comfortable with my own nakedness - however I don't think that my comfortablenesses should necessarily bar her from doing this. There is also situations with conversations where the other party says something personal that they would not necessarily want the spouse to hear, which is fair enough (assuming the reason is they just don't know/trust the spouse at the same level). Would this make it "cheating"? I would think not.

The main task I have to figure out is the different between a "Close Friend that you can have some emotional openness with" vs. "Someone your having an emotional affair with".... Defining these boundaries is proving to be difficult...

[JadedStar]

I do not think that it is as easy as saying that cheating is anything your partner does that he or she knows you will not approve of. That is a mite too broad and wide open. If I know my husband does not like me talking on the phone to my g/f for hours at a time, and he is gone for the day and I do it anyway, have i cheated? Of course not. So you can't just say anything that you do that your partner does not feel comfortable doing in front of you. Wouldn't you have to narrow this down to SEXUAL things that they know you wont approve of? And even then, SEXUAL might need to be defined. Would telling a close female friend a nasty joke be wrong? Or only if he has a serious sexual conversation? People make too many assumptions in relationships.

 

It is hard to call an act cheating that is not physical unless you have had conversations with your partner about what cheating means to YOU. What i consider cheating and what someone else consider cheating might be totally different. I took it upon myself to engage my partner in these conversations early on to make sure we had similar enough thoughts on this to be compatible. Many couples DONT have these discussions and later end up hurt when they find out something occurred that they felt was betrayal.

 

An example would be you have a partner who had been chatting with a friend rather often of the opposite sex. The converstaions were heavily flirtatious and on occasion sexual messages were exchanged. The two of you NEVER discussed that this sort of thing to you is cheating. They were unaware of that stance and it was innocent to your partner - might be something he has done wtih this friend for years and former g/f's didn't mind so he ASSUMED you wouldn't either. You both set yourselves up for heartache because no discussions about what cheating meant to the both of you were established. Or a guy out on guy night goes to a stripclub. He has also always done this even in the past with former g/f's and they didnt really mind. Maybe they also went to the male strip clubs on girls night out. He assumed it was no big deal as many men don't really think this is cheating and feel it is just raunch play with the guys on guys night out. Thus far this sort of thing had never come up in convo with the two of you He comes home and tells you he went and you flip out. Did he cheat? Not really because boundaries were never set.

 

Had you engaged these convos tho, and it was done behind you back, your partner KNOWS they cheated.

 

Couples who make assumptions about this sort of stuff always end up hurt. Don't leave things like this to chance or wait for it to happen to you before you express your feelings about it. When we do that we end up getting so engrained in the relationship that leaving due to incompatibility is much harder because more is at stake. I dont mean to discuss this on the first or second date, but after you have been exclusive a couple of months these convos should be initiated and boundaries set and agreed upon. Compromise is always critical, because you may not agree 100% on things but that is when you compromise. Meet each other halfway.

[Solarist]

I completely agree Jadedstar - I think people tend to assume too much and that is often how things go astray. I have had some of these - I am not comfortable with strip clubs however she doesn't have an issue. Pretty much whenever the situation comes up, she asks if I would okay if she went. Typically, my answer is "No, not really." and she respects that. But it is other, less "classic" boundaries that I think cause more issues. I had one yesterday where we were talking about "intimate relationships" - and I indicated that I would never end up in an "intimate relationship" with anyone but her since I would consider it cheating. Unfortunately, this was muttered on the way to a birthday party, so we didn't end up getting to talk about it for a while, and both of us had horrible feelings running through us throughout the party. As it turns out, our definitions of "intimate relationships" were not in synch and this caused the pain and confusion. I still am having difficulty trying to determine where that line between "Close Friend" and "Emotional Affair" lies - I am not even sure how to vocalize this since, well, it is rather subjective to a particular situation.

[puppeteer]

anything that you can't tell your spouse or partner about is cheating.

 

if you have to lie or omit (which is also lying) then you are cheating.

 

any rationalization of anything else is purely delusional on your part.

 

there are no shades of grey...you either cheat or you don't.

[Cimmie]

My ex cheated on me for over a year with a girl of 21. He was her professor. I was away working. He phoned me every day to tell me how much he loved me, he allowed me to make plans, he allowed me to finish my contract, which I could have extended, in anticipation of moving back to the house we had shared for 5 years.

Then he sent me an email and told me he'd been banging his student all year and that it was, basically, my fault.

I took an overdose.

I'm still here, but I don't think I will ever get over having been cheated on. My heart is smashed to sharp little shards. There isn't a day that I don't think of it. I will never be able to trust anyone again.

I don't ever want to have another relationship again.

Cheating is the rape of someone else's soul, that's what it is.

I wish I was the kind of person who could have sex without the need for emotional involvement, but unfortunately I'm not.

I considered this person to be my best friend. I never lied to him once, I confided everything to him. But he was leading a double life, and he ENJOYED deceiving me. I saw him enjoy the power it gave him.

Maybe I am too naive. I blame myself constantly.

 

So cheating? For me, it's screwing someone else and lying about it. All else is fixable. That is not.

[JadedStar]

anything that you can't tell your spouse or partner about is cheating.

 

if you have to lie or omit (which is also lying) then you are cheating.

 

any rationalization of anything else is purely delusional on your part.

 

there are no shades of grey...you either cheat or you don't.

 

this might be your opinion, but again, you say there are no shades of gray yet your entire post is gray. If you spent too much money at the clothing store and don't tell him as you and he talked about saving money, you are embarrassed to let him know of the slip up, did you cheat on him? I'd say not that is ridiculous. LIed maybe, cheated no.

 

Sorry, this definition you have may work for you but not everybody.

 

Lying and cheating are also not the same thing. In the scenario above if I found out my husband spent extra money on a golf game when we discussed he wouldn't, I would not be mad that he cheated. I don't even know if I'd call that lying. He may have not meant to spend it and when he did was afraid to tell me. I find that forgivable providing it doesn't happen often.

 

So your definition is way too gray for most people.

 

Let me go a step further. A couple has been dating let's say six months. Strip club conversations just have never come up, neither were avoiding it, just never becamse a topic of discussion. he goes out wtih the guys one night and goes to one of these places. He comes home and mentions it to his g/f. She becomes furious and he is confused as his last two g/f's didn't mind him going.

 

He didn't lie. He didn't hide it. However, the g/f feels that the lapdance he got was cheating. Did he cheat? According to YOUR simplistic definition if he didn't hide it or lie about it he didn't cheat. Yet many people would feel HE DID cheat by getting that lapdance. There are as many women here who DONT mind their b/f doing this as there are those who do.

 

Yeah, your definition is far too gray and not specific. Your definition does not factor in the fact that some men and women lie to their partner because their partner is so dramatic and flips out over everything that they omit things to keep the peace. Let's say a girl does not like a guy's best friend who is female. The guy KNOWS in his heart this friendship is innocent, and he has known this girl a long time. He talks to her on the phone and doesn't tell his g/f as he does not want a spanish inquistion. Did he cheat? According to your definition he did because he didn't tell her. But IMO he didn't cheat. He is weak maybe because he does not want to face her wrath, but I dont think that would be cheating. People who set unrealistic parameters on people also set themselves up for deceit. There are people on this forum even who are so paranoid and terrified their partner will cheat that they end up with partners afraid to share even innocent things for fear of a huge fight. Doesn't mean they cheated, it means they don't want to deal with a fight or hurt feelings.

 

Cheating is not black and white. It means something different to almost everybody. And if you think these topics don't need to be discussed in detail early in relationships you might be the one delusional.

[JadedStar]

Oh honey. Your pain comes out thru this post. I know how hard this must be for you. Are you in counseling? Just remember not everyone does this and DO NOT blame yourself. Cheating is RARELY about the person being cheated on. It is aobut inadequacies deeprooted inside of the cheater.

 

Make the choice to stop blaming yourself TODAY. Think of it like this, there is NO ONE he can blame because he is A PROFESSOR! He breached teacher/student trust. It is not only a horrific thing to do to your wife but UNETHICAL as a professional in the teaching community! If he blamed you what a cheap low way to justify his acts. Even if he were a single man I think sleeping wtih a student is a sign of one's character. Certain positions in life are those that instill trust and it is just an unspoken truth to know you don't violate it... like a doctor with a patient.

 

And I cannot even begin to understand your pain fully but I do disagree that sleeping wtih someone is the only thing not fixable. Emotional infidelity is a huge thing for me and I couldn't take it. My husband and I started out in our relationship with cyber and I KNOW how powerful it is. If he did that with another woman he might as well have had intercourse. I do not think it would be "fixable".

[Sweet Buttabean Jellayroll]

someone wanting to have anything intimate with somene else while their with me is a good enought reason for me to call you a cheater and for me to leave yu

[JadedStar]

This is a forum for opinions. Don't ever tell me what I can do or say here until you become a moderator. Thank you.

 

How dare you make such a bold declaration. My post was exchanging a difference of opinion. Yours was downright rude and uncalled for. I am not sure why you think that your last post which was very vague on what cheating is or is not was supposed to be the law. I posted about what I FELT it was and I had every right to disagree with you. I did not disparage you or talk down to you like you have done to me.

 

we all come here to voice our thoughts and opinions....

 

 

YOU DARN STRAIGHT so perhaps remember that before you talk to someone like dirt just because I dared challenge your definition of cheating. I had every right to post my thoughts as you did yours. YOu are obviously angry that your wife cheated on you, BUT DO NOT take it out on me.

[JadedStar]

Deleted post as I am not going to allow this person to make me angry.

 

And don't forget it was you who said anyone who thinks "other" than you was delusional. Umm, not so much. I guess you missed this part of my post where i said "So your definition is way too gray for most people". I am allowed to feel the way I do.