What is infidelity?
Infidelity, or cheating, is essentially a breach of trust, or a violation of established relationship boundaries. It happens when one person within a relationship carries on a relationship–whether emotional, sexual or romantic–secretly outside of the established boundaries of their relationship, without their existing partner’s knowledge or consent.
It’s important to note that there’s a clear distinction between cheating and ethical non-monogamy. Within ENM or polyamory, there’s consent, communication and cooperation, and requires a foundation of trust and clear negotiation of boundaries–whereas infidelity is defined by a lack of consent and communication and is based on violation of those boundaries and trust.
That’s not to say that there can’t be infidelity within ethically non-monogamous relationships. Since infidelity is characterized as a violation of established relationship boundaries–not just sex with other people–it’s possible to be in an ethically non-monogamous relationship and experience (or engage in) infidelity. When you violate the agreed upon boundaries of your relationship, whether that relationship is monogamous or non-monogamous, that qualifies as infidelity. (And we’ll dive into how infidelity shows up in various relationship structures in Part Two of this series, so stay tuned!)
There’s more than one type of infidelity.
Sexual infidelity:
This is the type of infidelity you probably think of when you think of infidelity. Sexual infidelity is when someone within a relationship carries on a sexual relationship (either in a one time instance or an ongoing sexual relationship) with someone outside of their relationship.
This is the “easiest” type of infidelity to classify because it is the type that most obviously violates the understood boundaries of an established relationship, but it is not the only type of infidelity that exists.
Cyber-cheating:
Cyber-cheating isa subset of both emotional and sexual infidelity. A cyber affair can be both or either or. A “cyber affair” involves carrying on an intimate relationship with someone else exclusively online–whether that’s emotional intimacy or sexual intimacy (via sexting, sending nudes, phone/video sex, etc) can vary.
Emotional infidelity:
While this type of infidelity doesn’t include sexual intimacy, it involves developing–usually in secret–the type of emotional intimacy you typically have in your romantic relationships. Things like sharing secrets, flirting, confiding in this person about your problems rather than your partner, etc.
While some of these things can also be found in platonic relationships, the key element is that they’re done in secret, and that elements of the relationship are hidden. The definition for emotional infidelity is a bit trickier than sexual infidelity, so the clearest way to identify it is to ask: is this relationship being kept a secret from my partner(s)? Are boundaries established within my existing relationship(s) being violated by this relationship?
Romantic affair:
Sometimes there is a subset of emotional infidelity called romantic infidelity, where elements of dating and romance exist, even if sex doesn’t. In this type of infidelity, it’s almost similar to courtship, where gifts are exchanged, partners go on dates secretly, or other dating rituals are engaged in, often without sex, but also in secret.
Financial Infidelity:
Financial infidelity is when a partner is making secret financial decisions: hiding large purchases, lying about financial decisions, making significant financial decisions without or against the input of another partner, etc. To be clear: having separate accounts is not what characterizes financial infidelity, and is a healthy thing to do. Infidelity comes in when decisions are made in secret, when financial matters are lied about, or when choices are made against the explicit wishes of one of the contributing partners.
What is micro-cheating?
“Micro cheating” is a little harder to define, but essentially it falls under emotional or romantic infidelity. It refers to small, subtle behaviors that may seem innocuous on their own, but when looked at collectively can start to erode trust within a relationship; things like the occasional flirty text, keeping conversations secret, hidden social media connections, etc. These things may not even be outside of the spoken agreements of a relationship, but often only because the boundaries have never been explicitly discussed.
Establishing boundaries within your relationship:
There is no cut and dry definition of infidelity, so deciding what crosses a boundary is up to you and your partner(s).
For example, some folks don’t feel comfortable flirting with anyone but their partner, and find flirting outside of their relationship to be a violation of their established trust. Other people might be totally fine with themselves or their partner(s) flirting outside of their relationship–neither them or their partner(s) feel icky about it, so it doesn’t violate their trust or their established relational boundaries and it’s just something they like to do, so while it may be considered a violation in one person’s relationship it may be absolutely fine in another.
It’s up to you to define the boundaries of your relationship–not based on how you think a relationship “should” look, but based on what actually feels good and right for you and your partner(s). For more on this idea, you can check out our article on What Polyamory Can Teach Us About Relationships.
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