Is there such a thing?

LegacyUser

Is there such a thing as emotional cheating or is it just a physical thing?

puglover

Yes there is. Personally I think it is much more of a betrayal than any one physical act.

Is this an issue for you?

Wibbs

People usually just think of cheating when sex or physical intimacy is involved. That's the transgression that really gets them riled anyway. I somewhat disagree. Sex is sex. Yes of course there can be feelings involved, but I’ve had sex where there wasn’t(especially one off sex). Emotional cheating IMHO can be is worse. It picks at and can rob the very core of the relationship.

Now this is me personally, but if I was in a couple where my partner sexually cheated on me on a one nighter one off thing, I would be hurt. Of course I would and there would be boundaries established bloody quickly. There would also be some soul searching to figure the reasons why that happened. It could survive though as the emotional connection may still be there.

If I was part of a couple where me or the woman was sharing emotional intimacy with another, emotional intimacy that should be between us? it would be a harder thing for me to stomach. It really would. I would be hurt far more as my very being and the relationship would be in question and I would be harder pressed to put in the effort to make it survive.

As I say that's just me, but I would certainly put it on an equal footing, depending on the level of it.

LegacyUser

I've very recently broken up with my boyfriend. He never used to talk to me about day to day stuff, saying he didn't have the need to. But he was emailing this girl his friend, all about his stuff, work, life etc.
I broke up with him because of it, but now that I know what is going on, maybe I could take him back. I just miss him so much, and I just want him back in my life.

VaioCruiser

OP.

This comes back to the whole topic of what you expect in a relationship. There are people in the world, like some of those who have contributed above, who believe that when couple date, they owe every emotional thought and every physical move to their partner. No emotion can be shared with a third party unless it is shared with them. It is a kind of extreme dependancy.

These kinds of demanding relationships almost always fail. It is unnatural and unreasonable to expect this kind of excessive devotion and exclusive emotional and physical commitment from another person for a huge chunk of their lives.

If you are mature enough to realise that we all need space and freedom to breathe. Freedom to form many different kind of mature relationships in a complex society, as a growing human being - then you have a far better chance of finding and keeping a long term relationship.

Emotional cheating is in the eye of the beholder therefore and a purely subjective concept depending on how obsessive and dependent the beholder is in their demands of their partner.

All the best

Wibbs

Well duh, obviously it's the degree of it and the reasons behind it. You're being naively black and white. No one is suggesting only ever emotionally engaging with your partner and no one is suggesting extreme dependency. That would be daft. We all have friends and family that we share emotional intimate times with, but they are distinct from such intimacies we share with our partner. That's healthy.

But if one partner is consistently emotionally sharing more with a member of the opposite sex(or same if you're a gay chappy or chappess) than they are with their partner there's something seriously adrift. Otherwise why be in that relationship? If it's just for sex, then it's a glorified FB situation. Most would draw the line at sharing physical intimacy, so why say emotional intimacy is that different?

Indeed I have known quite a few couples who swing and have made that work. They have little issue with sex outside the relationship and actually glean mutual pleasure from it. It's not for me and it's not for many, if not most, but it works for them and seems to have kept the core relationship alive and vital, but issues would and do arise if emotional connections came about on the back of that. They're very clear about that.

In the hippie communes of the 60's and 70's where free love was a mantra, sex per se was rarely the issue, it was the emotional minefield that came out of that caused the problems. I would even go as far as to say that sexual cheating causes the most pain from both the feeling of rejection and the suspicion that there exists an emotional connection with the "other man/woman". That's the biggest betrayal.

You can see this all over the place. A man/woman will more easily forgive a one off sex act with a randomer, or even a series of one off sex acts with randomers, than a one off sex act with someone the cheater knows. Why? Because the suspicion and worry is that they have bonded with the other man/woman emotionally.