Coach Ziana

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What Is Considered Cheating?

Photo Credit: Cottonbro Studios.

Let's Define Cheating.

Following my blog about Social Media Netiquette, regarding ongoing online texting with people who are married or have life partners, I was asked the question, "What is considered cheating?"

Great question! Times have changed, and so have the parameters. I did my research, as I usually do, and then finally decided to go with the AI Overview because it encapsulates what mostly everyone in the field of relationship counselling (and divorce lawyers!) believes to apply. 

So for those who want to know, here is the rundown:

Cheating in a relationship is a betrayal of trust, involving a partner engaging in emotional, sexual, or romantic intimacy with someone else outside the agreed-upon boundaries of their committed relationship, often through secrecy, breaking promises, or violating established rules, whether in monogamous or non-monogamous structures. It's about breaking exclusivity, and its definition depends on the couple, but generally includes actions like physical affairs, emotional investment elsewhere, or even intense online interactions (cyber cheating).

Key Aspects of Cheating

• Breach of Trust: At its core, cheating is a violation of the loyalty and faith expected in a partnership.

• Violation of Boundaries: It's breaking the specific rules or agreements (spoken or unspoken) about exclusivity that the couple has made.

• Secrecy & Betrayal: Actions are often hidden, creating deception and emotional harm.

Common Types of Infidelity

• Sexual Cheating:

  Physical intimacy (kissing, intercourse, sexual touching) with someone else.

• Emotional Cheating:

  Developing deep emotional bonds, sharing intimacy, or feeling more emotionally invested in someone outside the relationship.

• Cyber Cheating:

  Flirtatious or intimate online interactions, sexting, or excessive digital communication with others.

• Micro Cheating:

  Small, secretive actions like

  • deleting texts,

  • hiding social media use,

  • or being overly secretive with phones, which erode trust.

In Non-Monogamous Relationships

• Cheating isn't about being with others, but rather violating the agreed-upon rules and consent for engaging with other partners, such as not disclosing dates or crossing established boundaries.

Defining "Cheating" for Your Relationship

• Since definitions vary, many experts suggest asking: "Is this something I would be comfortable with my partner knowing?" or "Does this action violate our agreed-upon rules for loyalty and exclusivity?"

  
  

  On a topic that seems as if it would have a huge grey area, it's really pretty cut and dried. So to repeat what I said in the last blog: If you wouldn't feel comfortable inviting your life partner or spouse to join the conversation for a three-way chat, you shouldn't be doing it.  If you're doing it behind your partner's back, that's cheating. It's the secrecy that kills more than anything else. When it comes to relationships, hiding and sneaking around to engage in connections with someone else is just shady behaviour. It's really that simple.

My personal thoughts on this:

• The ramifications of being caught in a mess like this can be mind-numbing. If one can't be trusted in something so intrinsically and universally understood as partnership loyalty, what can that person be trusted with? 

  The dark shadow cast upon one who cheats can hang over one's head for years to come. Homes are broken up, families destroyed, respect among friends and co-workers would be lost, the physical home the couple has built together would have to be divided up. Any children involved would be traumatized. The whole world could blow up like a bomb struck, leaving only broken people in its wake.

  And for what? A few cheap, stolen thrills.

  Given the choice between the two paths, integrity or debauchery, I sincerely hope and pray that the choice would be integrity. I hope that it will be investing in the one at home who loves you, so that you may reap the long-term benefits of an honest life, instead of jumping on the instant-gratification bandwagon of cheating, as so many are tempted to do in this social-media world.

• Some think they will never get caught, but those who have been caught can set you straight:  It always comes out. Always. Because nothing you ever release into cyber land ever disappears. Whether we know it or not, we leave fingerprints everywhere we go online. Anyone skilled at following those footprints can do so without too much of a challenge. Why? Because there are even courses online that teach you how to do that.

  Until next time.

  Love your sweetheart the way he/she deserves.
  Coach Zee.

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Photo courtesy of Lisa Folios

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