WHAT CONSTITUTES CHEATING
Each one of us searches the world over until we find the one person we feel we can spend the rest of our lives with. We spend a period of time in courtship then move forward into marriage. Everything is wonderful and our love abounds until! One of the partners is lured into the fateful web of cheating.
Rather than paint a series of situations then try to define whether each one constitutes cheating or not, I think we should just establish a meaning for cheating that can be used in all situations. If we use the word cheating what do we mean?
Cheating is not a good word. It carries with it very negative connotations. When one hears the word in conjunction with the word wife or husband or spouse, any sort of illicit image can be dredged up. The fact is, cheating is not a good thing no matter what you say the definition is.
Cheating can be present in many different scenarios; husband / wife relationships, classroom, wall street, application of rules; cheating is simply wide spread and prevalent throughout our lives. One simple sentence can define what cheating really means then we can apply that sentence to whatever situation we are experiencing and determine if cheating is present or not. The simplest definition of cheating has to go something like;
Negatively deceiving someone in any activity for personal benefit.
Cheating involves deception. It doesn't matter in what way or in what sense. If the action involves deceiving someone, that action is undeniably cheating. Cheating also results in a benefit to the individual doing the cheating. People won't waste their time if there is nothing in it for them. Their benefit is only immediate and it is fleeting. Once found out, the tables rapidly turn against the cheater.
One of the most common instances of cheating, one that comes to mind upon hearing the word, is when one partner in a committed relationship spends intimate time with someone outside of the relationship, without sharing that moment with their true partner. I intentionally avoided specifying sexual time because cheating does not have to be restricted to sexual exploits. In addition, i purposely used "intimate time" because there is much that is intimate that many would have us believe is innocent interaction.
There are far more ways to cheat on your partner than simply have sex with someone else. I was watching a movie with my wife the other night and there was a scene where a couple was at a party and one of the husband's ex-girlfriends was there as well. The scene showed her feeding him a slice of cake; forkful by forkful. Every other bite would have her slowly licking the crumbs off the fork. Then the scene would go back to him as she slid another forkful into his waiting and parted lips.
Of course, he tried to defend the innocence of the entire thing, but his wife was not buying into that. Something as simple as having a piece of cake can be treacherous to a strong relationship, let alone one that may already be floundering.
Free time of either partner in a committed relationship belongs to both of the partners. You have come together for one primary reason, to be together. What's yours is his, what's his is yours. This includes time and space. If the husband works outside of the home and has every evening off from work, but tells you he is working late then spends that time with his buddies, or at the bar, or at his Mom's, alone, without his wife, he is cheating. In all senses of the word he is cheating. He is stealing time that belongs to you and spending it however he wants, for his own benefit.
There is no need to paint every scenario where cheating could be present. Simply put, cheating is when one member of a committed relationship takes something that belongs to you, or to both of you, under false pretenses, and uses it to his benefit. Of course, we know the boldest of these possibilities is when one of the partners has physical sex with someone outside of the partnership.
Don't let the definition of cheating be so narrow as to include only physical sex; there is so much more that can be stolen from one partner and shared with someone else: time, intimacy, emotions, laughing, cuddling, touching, it is all cheating. All of those things belong to you and you alone.
Cheating is bad. Cheating is the rude abuse of your trusted emotions and sentiments. Cheating is stealing from you and giving to someone else, anyone. Cheating is deception in its rawest form.