Cheating
The Phenomenon of Emotional Cheating
Many relationships fall victim to cheating.
Aside from the usual example of having physical relations with someone who isn’t your partner, other types of cheating have emerged, such as micro-cheating and emotional cheating.
The latter, in particular, is what I want to explore — what it truly means, why people engage in it, and how it stands apart from other forms of cheating.
How Do You Define Emotional Cheating?
Emotional cheating is having a romantic, non-physical relationship with someone other than your partner. It involves a deep emotional connection that far exceeds friendship.
While people can develop strong feelings outside of their romantic relationship, when those feelings are nurtured to be exclusively intimate, that’s when it can turn into emotional cheating.
Some people even believe that this is more severe compared to physical cheating or micro-cheating.
Physical cheating involves being physically intimate with someone other than your partner, and micro-cheating manifests as small actions that eventually lead to actual cheating. They’re still forms of betrayal, don’t get me wrong, but some think these types of cheating are easier to deal with.
This is because emotional cheating can cut deeper.
The romantic feelings that were supposed to be reserved only for you and your partner end up being shared with someone else. Slowly becoming emotionally withdrawn from your partner because you’re investing time and feelings in someone else is also arguably a more painful thing to inflict upon your relationship.
To prevent this from happening to you, it’s important to recognize the early signs of emotional cheating:
Emotional Cheating Signs
- Excessive Communication
Excessive communication with someone other than your partner, especially at the expense of the time you should’ve been spending together, is a sign that you may be heading toward emotional cheating.
You need to avoid communicating with someone so much that it becomes a problem for your relationship. If you and your partner are more comfortable talking to other people than each other, then you may need to reevaluate your relationship.
- Defensiveness
If you or your partner becomes highly defensive over a relationship either of you has with a third party, then that could be a sign of emotional cheating as well.
If that ever happens, it would be best to end whatever connection there is with the other person so that your relationship doesn’t get taken for granted or compromised.
- Oversharing
Oversharing, especially details on problems that you should only talk about with your partner, can also lead you to emotionally cheat.
You may be unknowingly letting someone other than your partner know you on a more intimate level, which can be dangerous for your existing relationship.
According to psychologist Mark Travers, it affects the foundation of your relationship whenever you overshare about private matters, including matters about your relationship. It’s important to know what to share and what not to share so that no boundaries are crossed.
- Emotional Distance
While not always the case, it can be a sign of emotional cheating if you and your partner are emotionally distant. It could be caused by other things, or it could also mean there is something or someone that either of you is more emotionally invested in.
If you start to notice this behavior in yourself or your partner, you should discuss these concerns with one another so that it doesn’t grow into something as harmful as cheating.
Conclusion
Cheating is wrong, regardless of the method. It will always hurt because of the betrayal from someone who’s supposed to love you.
Whether it’s considered more or less painful, you must recognize what emotional cheating is and what you should do to make sure neither you nor your partner succumb to it.
You should never find a reason to cheat on someone, and nobody should ever cheat on you.
References
Travers, Mark. 2023. “3 Ways to Know If Your Partner Is Emotionally Cheating.” Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/social-instincts/202211/3-ways-know-if-your-partner-is-emotionally-cheating.
