by Paul Ruth

Created on: January 31, 2009

The most important idea to remember about emotions is that only the person who is having them can truely know what they are. A person cannot say that another is not feeling something. How could they know? The idea of emotional cheating relies on the individual who is having these feelings. If they feel wrong, then shouldn't that mean you should stop doing it? Do you excessvily break the speed limit even though you know that it is wrong? (Well, maybe sometimes)

This, though, does bring up other issues. If a person is honestly having emotion for another, then how does it make it wrong? It could be viewed that holding onto a relationship you have no interest in is wrong. Many times cheating comes as a result from something that is not coming from the current relationship. Other times it is just a person who cannot control themselves. When considering the aspect of control, the emotions for another person becomes hard to clarify. Is a person cheating because they truly love another, or are they cheating because they have weak self control? Again, with emotions these are question that a person has to answer for them-self. When the current relation is truly depressed and one or more of the counterparts are unhappy, then is it still cheating? Well, yes and no. If the relationship is dead, or just one of the living dead, then it might be the common belief that it is proper to break off the current (what I call now) situation before pursuing something else. This, of course, is done so that no one gets hurt, emotionally that is. Physical pain I cannot guarantee.

The whole idea seems to puzzle the dedicated mind. It seems that some people always are looking for soemthing new. We often state our favorite color, or ice cream, or even our favoriter childhood cereal. Why is it so hard for some people to pick their favoriter person? Cheating could be a result of someone making a previuous mistake. Maybe the person that they are with really was not a good fit for them. A sesne of caution would be advsed for those individuals who cheat a lot. Slow down a bit and smell the single life some. In an overriding rule, emotional cheating is cheating and it does exist. A person could have emotional desires beyond what is even rational. Some wives complain about how husbands are always with their friends at the bar. Friends hold an emotional value, but it can take away from the deeper value of love.

What a person feels in a relationship comes down to an age old question. Can you choose who you love? This may seem flaky to some, but think about it and you may be surprised. Maybe a person cannot really help but have feeling for another. It could be who they love. The again, we could always learn to love someone, right? How many people are committed to a relationship for a long time to come and still think, "I could have done better." In a way that is worse than having emotions for another because you would be saying that you could at least do better than this. You might not know what, but something, right?

Either way relationships are full of doubt, look at our relationship with God for emperical evidence. In the end, one could look up their feelings, but it is not cheating as long as you are honest. Painfull to somone? Yes, but if you don't know, it is better to leave it blank than to pick C.

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