What Counts as Cheating?
By: Timothy Cole
In a very broad sense, cheating is betraying a partner’s expectations about the type of contact that is acceptable with another person.
When a spouse violates one’s expectations about what is appropriate, people feel betrayed. As such, cheating is difficult to define because individuals differ in what they consider acceptable forms of contact.
For example, some people believe that it is unacceptable for a spouse or partner to:
Flirt with others
Engage in sexual talk with someone else
Deny being married or in a relationship
Spend time with specific individuals
Specific types of contact – sleeping in the same bed with another person
Buy someone intimate gifts and presents
Chat online with someone else (online affairs)
Have sexual contact with someone else (sexual infidelity)
Become emotionally involved with someone else (emotional infidelity)
Fantasize about sex with other people
Develop a crush or feelings for another individual
View pornography
Share their most private thoughts and feelings with someone else
Become best friends with someone of the opposite sex
And the list could go on and on…
Cheating is complex because the definition varies so wildly. However, when a spouse violates one’s expectations, the feeling is the same – feeling betrayed and rejected.
Cheating is also problematic because couples rarely discuss exactly what their expectations are. So in any given relationship, what one person considers to be acceptable may differ from what a partner thinks is appropriate. Many problems arise because people do not see eye-to-eye on this issue.
And to make matters worse, many individuals do not like to define what counts as cheating. Many people prefer not to be explicit about what counts as cheating because by keeping the rules vague and ambiguous, it makes it easier to cheat. If you don’t know what the rules are, you really can’t break them – or so people like to think. It is much easier to deceive a partner (and one’s self) when the rules about cheating are not spelled out.
Timothy Cole, PhD. For more information on cheating, infidelity, lying, deception, love and romance please visit http://www.truthaboutdeception.com.