What counts as cheating now?

People have always cheated (just take a look at the Bible). But throw in e-mail, text messaging and Facebook, and these days you have a lot more opportunities to cheat, plus even more confusion about what cheating actually is. I've decided to take the mystery out showing some stories about betrayal. But first let's take a look at some definitions.

In a very broad sense, cheating involves betraying a partner’s expectations about the type of contact they have with others.

When a husband or wife, boyfriend or girlfriend, violates one’s expectations about what is appropriate, people feel betrayed. Keep in mind that relationships are not based on logic, but they are influenced by our emotions.

Accordingly, cheating is difficult to define because people differ in the type of contact they feel it is appropriate for a partner to have with someone else.

For example, some people believe that it is unacceptable for a partner to:

• Flirt with others
• Engage in sexual talk with someone else
• Exchange personal e-mails or text messages
• Deny being married or in a relationship
• Spend time with specific individuals
• Engage in specific types of contact – sleeping in the same bed with another person
• Purchase intimate gifts and presents for others
• Chat online with someone else (online affairs)
• Have sexual contact with someone else (physical infidelity)
• Become emotionally involved with someone else (emotional infidelity)
• Develop a crush or feelings for another individual
• Share their most private thoughts and feelings with someone else
• Become best friends with someone of the opposite sex
• And the list could go on and on….

Now take a look at these two stories:      

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1)“My boyfriend and I have a great, honest and, in my humble opinion, sexually satisfying relationship. Recently when he went to a bachelor party, I joked about him getting lap dances, and he said he wouldn’t. It wasn’t like I forbade him—he said he just wasn’t into that stuff. When he got home, I made a crack about the lap dance and could tell by the look on his face that he’d had one. I was pretty devastated. He didn’t understand why I was so angry, since it was ‘normal’ bachelor-party behavior. It wasn’t that he got the lap dance (though it’s not an image I’ve enjoyed having in my head); it’s that he said he wouldn’t—and did it anyway.” —JENNY, 34, Portland, Ore.

2)“When I was in college, I dated a guy for two years who said he wasn’t comfortable with the ‘boyfriend’ label. Among friends, I called him my ‘significant other,’ but when I was with him, I just went with the flow and assumed we were exclusive. He was the first guy I slept with, the first I brought home to my parents, the one I spent every holiday and birthday with. Then he started fooling around with my best friend’s roommate, and a month later they were a couple. I confronted him, and he said he didn’t think we were officially ‘together,’ so it wasn’t cheating. He also felt justified because she and I weren’t close friends! Everybody knew but me—that’s what hurt the most.”
—NICOLE,* 22, New York City

 Now guys I want your opinion. Considering the stories

above:

a) Is getting a private dance at a strip club cheating?

b) Is it cheating if the relationship isn't official?

c) If the first story happened with you, would you

forgive?

d) Have you ever forgotten a betrayal?

You can choose any of these questions to answer, or all them!

See you!!

Lucy Holanda