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Yes, chatting with someone online can definitely be considered cheating. Cheating isn't merely having intimate or sexual relations with someone while you are in a relationship with someone else. Cheating is also investing emotional energy into someone outside of your relationship.

Anything you do that takes emotional energy away from the person you are in a romantic relationship with, or gives emotional energy to someone besides your spouse or partner is cheating. This may be something as small as confiding a fantasy, desire or dream to someone online.

It may seem easier to talk to someone online who is a stranger and seems like a good, empathetic listener. They listen to whatever you have to say and dont seem to outwardly judge you. But if you voice complaints or problems to someone online without telling them to your partner, you are setting your relationship up for trouble.

When you share something with someone online, and have a secret chatting or e-mailing relationship with them, you are less likely to voice these same things to your significant other as well. Your online confidant won't argue with you about your problem, but rather they will most likely commiserate with you as they only know what you have told them. They don't know the whole story.

This could start with something as small as it bothering you that your spouse throws their clothes on the floor at the end of the day. You tell your online friend about it but neglect to say anything to your spouse. Day after day, the clothes continues to be thrown on the floor; and everyday you mention how much it bothers you to your online friend. They commiserate with you and maybe even say what a slob your spouse is. You may even decide that your spouse would never do this if they really truly loved you.

Finally, you blow up at your spouse for throwing the clothes on the floor. They may have been doing this for months or years but don't understand why you are suddenly so upset about it because you never told them it bothered you. The issue had become so compounded in your mind because you had been voicing your complaint to someone outside the relationship instead of the person it should have been addressed to.

Now you can see why even a minor online relationship can lead to the break-up of a real life relationship.

The other problem with meeting and chatting with people online is that a lot of people keep it a secret from their partner when they meet someone online. It may start out as a completely platonic relationship; its just someone that shares a same interest as you that you enjoy talking to. But when you neglect to tell your significant other, the online relationship begins to become taboo. You quickly get offline when you realize your spouse is home; something like this can give you an addicting rush of adrenaline that you associate with the new person. You feel like they give you a freedom you don't have with your partner.

This adrenaline rush that comes from keeping something a secret is mistakenly contributed to the new person. It is a major factor in people saying the people they are having an affair with make them feel young again.

Soon you become addicted to the feeling of secrecy and mistake it for an obsession with this other person. The longer you keep it a secret, the more likely the chance that you let it become a full-fledged affair.

These are two good reasons why chatting online can definitely be considered cheating. If you do meet someone online that you would like to remain friends with, be sure to introduce them to your significant other. And don't confide personal or intimate information with someone you have met online. It can ruin your current relationship.

Learn more about this author, Tirzah Hawkins.
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