What's cheating for you?

[Petals]

My SO has a very close female friend who is his PA. Initially, I felt just a bit jealous because she has very intimate knowledge of his affairs and he trusts her. Now, I don't feel jealousy as I have grown to like her. Very early in our communication, my SO introduced us and we have even worked together via Skype and through emails. We also talk occasionally via whatsapp.

When I move to be with my SO she will be displaced because I will have her job...she will still work with us though at a lower level. I feel a little bad for her since she has worked for my SO for years, but I'm not the one pushing her out of the position - it's all my SO's idea and I'm all too happy to take over lol.

[Miasmata]

Cheating is anything personal with a different person my partner would feel legitimately uncomfortable about, end of story.

This is one of the many reasons why it's so, SO important to be open and communicative with your partner, and to put down honest guidelines for your relationship - Knowing each other's limits and making them work is so vitally important for healthy companionship. It doesn't matter what anyone else's standards for cheatings are - Only the people in the relationship matter, and THEY gotta respect each other and make their relationship work on their terms.

I'm in an open relationship, and there are no intimate acts we enjoy that are offlimits with other people, and even then it's extremely important to be communicative with each other. Just because the rule of thumb between us is "you can do as you please" doesn't mean we should stop talking about it. If my partner didn't feel comfortable about me being with a specific person or doing these things at a specific point, that trumps anything intimate I want with someone else, simple as that. And knowing who the other is going to be with and that everything will be clean and safe is important, too.

Nobody else's standards but ours matter, but those standards need to be taken 100% seriously. Excuses for cheating make me furious, because when people willingly do something with someone else that's against their partner's wishes, they have no excuses.

[whatruckus]

My SO has a very close female friend who is his PA. Initially, I felt just a bit jealous because she has very intimate knowledge of his affairs and he trusts her. Now, I don't feel jealousy as I have grown to like her. Very early in our communication, my SO introduced us and we have even worked together via Skype and through emails. We also talk occasionally via whatsapp.

When I move to be with my SO she will be displaced because I will have her job...she will still work with us though at a lower level. I feel a little bad for her since she has worked for my SO for years, but I'm not the one pushing her out of the position - it's all my SO's idea and I'm all too happy to take over lol.

My problem is that I haven't met her yet. We've been together for 2 years and I haven't met her. He's never mentioned her wanting to meet me, and I used to tell him that I wanted to meet her. She calls me "the girlfriend" and nothing more. Plus, they were "supposed to date" a long time ago (way before we met). So...yea. Lol.

[aniay]

In my book cheating is when you consciously do something that you don't want to tell your SO about. It doesn't matter if it's sex, kissing, online sex...
But it also would be giving yourself a chance to explor emotional connection that one might have with other person.
In Polish language we have a saying that 'Oportunity makes a thief' So meeting with someone knowing that something might happen is cheating in my book or at least big step in this direction.

[p_b82]

For me cheating is something that is being done that I would find I would get an emotional response if I overheard it, or had to watch it happen. It is also about being kept in the dark about something that might cause an emotional response if I knew about it.

It is obviously any breaking of the 'ground rules' we have set.

Unlike a lot on here, my GF goes out drinking with a number of male friends, she drinks way to much when she 'has a session' rather than just a quiet drink and a catch up, flirts (she doesn't do it on purpose but it is her sense of humour), and as a result a number of these friends eventually tell her that they have feelings for her. It has happened 3 times since we have been going out, and one was a guy she met randomly in the shops (he was Scottish and she just told him she liked his accent and they got chatting about a month or so ago). Another guy was in the picture before we got together, and while nothing intimate happened they had a very close emotional bond and nearly got together.... they only didn't because he could not handle the distance (only a couple of states apart).

prior to meeting me she signed up on plenty of fish, to use it not as a dating app in the traditional way, but to try to find people to hang out with with similar interests, it hasn't worked out the way she hoped it would, by the nature of the app, but it doesn't really bother me she uses it. I have seen her profile (it took me a while to get the name of the app itself as I just forgot about it), and having seen what is written and the settings she has selected, I still don't care. I had to think about this one a bit before I came to this conclusion, but once I did I could not see the harm in it. Ultimately the app, or method of communication is not suddenly going to make her be unfaithful so what harm is there in using it?

Many might ask why I am comfortable with this, and the simple answer is I trust my GF 100%. We have both been hurt by cheating, her ex husband left her for another woman he was seeing, and mine was lining up sexual encounters for the day after she broke it off with me - which she had been planning for about 3 months or so. We both have the same standpoint on what we expect from our partner, and therefore know that the other will stick the rules and not break them, if they are broken, either way round it would be the death of the relationship instantly as the trust would be broken.

I am envious of the time she spends with male friends, or the few female friends she has too, but I am not jealous. She is more jealous of the time I spend with my mostly female friends, but accepts if she puts a limitation on who I can see or talk to, I will put the same limitation on her. We mutually agreed the ground rules and made sure we were both happy with them, we both feel it is important to have a life outside of the LDR or we would both become terribly alone and the LDR can't survive that long term, it just happens that we seem to mostly have friends of the opposite sex.

She has told me I am the most easy going man she has ever been out with, and one with the most understanding with empathy/compassion for situations that could easily be misunderstood, I take this as a huge compliment, but made sure that it is not taken advantage of.

[snow]

In my book cheating is when you consciously do something that you don't want to tell your SO about. It doesn't matter if it's sex, kissing, online sex...
But it also would be giving yourself a chance to explor emotional connection that one might have with other person.
In Polish language we have a saying that 'Oportunity makes a thief' So meeting with someone knowing that something might happen is cheating in my book or at least big step in this direction.

That's dangerous terrain though, because what if your partner did something, like let's say online sex, and told you about it because it is not a big deal to him. A lot of people don't see cyber sex as cheating because it is not real sex. It happened to people on this forum and their SO told them straight out because it wasn't anything important to them.

[Miasmata]

That's dangerous terrain though, because what if your partner did something, like let's say online sex, and told you about it because it is not a big deal to him. A lot of people don't see cyber sex as cheating because it is not real sex. It happened to people on this forum and their SO told them straight out because it wasn't anything important to them.

Exactly, and it's just another reason why it's so crucial to discuss these things 100% openly and understand each other's limits. Everyone is different, and thus has made different experiences prior to the relationship, so the standards of what's acceptable and what's not need to be brought on the same page. Otherwise, stuff like "I thought it was no big deal" is all too likely to happen.

[Cristiana]

In my book cheating is when you consciously do something that you don't want to tell your SO about. It doesn't matter if it's sex, kissing, online sex...
But it also would be giving yourself a chance to explor emotional connection that one might have with other person.
In Polish language we have a saying that 'Oportunity makes a thief' So meeting with someone knowing that something might happen is cheating in my book or at least big step in this direction.

We have that saying too!

[aniay]

That's dangerous terrain though, because what if your partner did something, like let's say online sex, and told you about it because it is not a big deal to him. A lot of people don't see cyber sex as cheating because it is not real sex. It happened to people on this forum and their SO told them straight out because it wasn't anything important to them.

He knows what i consider cheating from the start an I know what he considers cheating. Easy as that. Been in relationship wher sleeping with person of same sex and online sex wasn't considered cheating but it was known from the start.

[snow]

He knows what i consider cheating from the start an I know what he considers cheating. Easy as that. Been in relationship wher sleeping with person of same sex and online sex wasn't considered cheating but it was known from the start.

Oh I am not saying in your relationship! I mean in general! There is a lot of things people wouldn't mind sharing with their SO, but the other person would consider cheating, so this is hard to say. I completely agree with miasmata and you, you should always talk to your so about what you two consider cheating.

[rufuz]

I would consider everything as cheating which my SO would hide from me on purpose concerning girls. I wouldn't consider dancing as cheating at all. I once told my SO jokingly that I just want him to dance with me and nobody else. He said he had danced with his female friends the day before because he was the only one who would dance Salsa so all the girls wanted to dance with him. I would just not be ok with it if it was more like sexual dancing and he would hide it from me. I think already meeting alone with a girl without telling me would disappoint me a lot because it would seem like he has sexual intentions. But in general I think it also depends on the situation. Everything more than kissing would definitely be cheating.

[MissingMyDutchLove]

Dancing=cheating? What kind of dancing are you all doing??!!

Just like to clarify, I'm talking grinding or anything like it. As a college kid, that's pretty much the only 'dancing' that's occurring at any social events. I don't see anything wrong with Salsa dancing or anything like that though. I mostly have a problem if it's "you're basically having sex on the dance floor" type of dancing.

[whatruckus]

Just like to clarify, I'm talking grinding or anything like it. As a college kid, that's pretty much the only 'dancing' that's occurring at any social events. I don't see anything wrong with Salsa dancing or anything like that though. I mostly have a problem if it's "you're basically having sex on the dance floor" type of dancing.

Same here. My SO never dances anyway, but I'd pretty damn pissed if I saw some girl grinding all over him and he let her do it.

[lovingthealien]

Same here. My SO never dances anyway, but I'd pretty damn pissed if I saw some girl grinding all over him and he let her do it.

About a month after my boyfriend and I became LDR, I went clubbing for the first time in my life and some guy started grinding me from behind. His grip on me was SO strong, and it was so crowded that I couldn't get away... so I kind of let him keep going until the song ended, and then I just ran away😂 I told my boyfriend and he just laughed! Neither one of us considered this to be cheating at all -- I think it was just funny to him because I'm the last person you'd expect to find at a club, and I can't dance for shit lolol. That being said, I haven't gone clubbing since, now that I know what happens when you do!

[whatruckus]

About a month after my boyfriend and I became LDR, I went clubbing for the first time in my life and some guy started grinding me from behind. His grip on me was SO strong, and it was so crowded that I couldn't get away... so I kind of let him keep going until the song ended, and then I just ran away�� I told my boyfriend and he just laughed! Neither one of us considered this to be cheating at all -- I think it was just funny to him because I'm the last person you'd expect to find at a club, and I can't dance for shit lolol. That being said, I haven't gone clubbing since, now that I know what happens when you do!

Mine would've walked right up to him and knocked him out. Ha. He's very protective when it comes to me and he doesn't like other guys talking about me in a bad way (once we were at Wawa and some guys were talking about Asian girls and how they wanted one, and saw me walk by and went, "Oh look, there's one!" and he got defensive and let them know that I was with him. I liked how he reacted, lol). Another time, some other guy was trying to hit on me, thinking he was being cute, and now my boyfriend doesn't like him, even though we see him at our favorite bar all the time. There's been other times too, but these are the ones I can remember off the top of my head.