What counts as cheating in a relationship?

It’s not easy to define infidelity. What might be considered as cheating for some couples may not be the same for others. Abhinav and Snigdha faced the biggest challenge in their married life when Snigdha stumbled upon a few flirty messages sent by one of Abhinav’s female colleagues. She was heartbroken when she discovered Abhinav too had responded to the messages in an over-friendly way. The couple, who had been married for three years, had a hard time coming to a conclusion when Abhinav grew defensive and his wife kept accusing him of cheating on her. The husband’s reason was simple—he was just being friendly and for him only getting into a physical relationship counted as cheating. However, the wife continued with her accusation of ‘emotional cheating’. So, who was right?

According to relationship experts, it’s not easy to label cheating in a relationship. A person’s perspective on cheating may change when he judges it as a third person and totally removed from the situation. But when it happens in one’s own life, he may have a different opinion. “A lot of couples today struggle with infidelity and the first question they ask while seeking help from an expert is: What counts as cheating in a relationship? This is very difficult to explain because what can constitute as cheating for one couple may not be the same for others. So, most of the time the right way to define infidelity is what both the partners or spouses agree upon and considers as cheating. Problems arise when both the partners have different standards for infidelity,” explained Shweta Singh, a Senior Consultant Psychologist.

There are some universally agreed behaviours that are counted as cheating. For example, kissing or a physical relationship with a third person is clearly counted as cheating. But how do you define behaviours such as seeking emotional support from someone else other than a partner or sending flirty text messages to a colleague? “This is the reason why there should be some mutually-agreed boundaries in a relationship. Also, let’s not forget that situations and the present time also matter a lot. What might have been considered impossible, such as online dating apps for extramarital affairs, earlier has become a reality today. Open marriages might not have been as commonly prevalent few decades back as it is now. So, people’s perception of relationship expectations and boundaries also change and so do their definition of infidelity,” shared Vivek Kumar, a relationship counsellor and advocate.

Infidelity definitely is a disturbing topic. Therefore, couples should work to make their relationship stronger, communication better and keep the romance flowing because it is a lot easier to end a relationship than build one.