What Counts as Cheating?

This is one of those questions that most people have an answer to for themselves, whether or not they've ever thought about it much. One of my favorite answers to this question was a single, blunt, word: swallowing. Most people will reference either a sexual activity or an intention, others consider desire to be cheating (as in, "if they want someone more than they want me, they might as well be having sex with that other person").

One of my great frustrations is that most of us don't talk to other people about what we consider to be cheating, and thanks to the deeply entrenched concept of compulsory monogamy we often don't even talk to our partners about it. As a result many people think this is a question with an obvious answer, when in truth it's a question with almost infinite answers which vary from relationship to relationship.

The one constant we might find in all answers is that you're cheating when you've broken the rules. And when we're talking about cheating on a partner, we're usually talking about rules in the context of a romantic/sexual committed relationship.

Which means that if you want to know what counts as cheating, the only people who can answer that are the ones in the relationship. In rare relationships people are up front with each other and discuss the rules before someone has a chance to break them. Most of the time people don't do this. And sometimes they may think they are talking about relationship rules, but later discover that there wasn't a mutual understanding about what was being talked about.

So instead of adding to the already overwhelming (and often inane) chatter on the Internet about spotting and dealing with cheaters, I thought I would share some of the questions that you could be asking yourself and your partners that may help you come to an answer that reflects your own values, beliefs, and desires for your relationship.

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