Most people have strong ideas about what constitutes ‘cheating’ in a relationship. Couples who follow conventional monogamy generally think any sexual contact with a third party is a betrayal, while many couples with more open relationships often have clear rules about what does and doesn’t count as physical infidelity.
But while physical infidelity might be easy to define, emotional infidelity can be something of a minefield. Although the phrase is well known, people tend to have different ideas of what it means to be emotionally unfaithful. Is it a drink with a colleague to whom you might be attracted? How about exchanging frequent messages with someone your partner perceives to be a threat? Or what about leaving mildly flirty comments on a stranger’s social media post?
Grappling with different definitions of emotional infidelity can be a challenge for couples, and a mismatch in expectations could threaten a relationship. But it hasn’t always been this way. The concept of emotional fidelity is relatively new – the product of social changes that have shaped what people expect from relationships, beyond basic needs. Today, people generally expect the partnership to mean a shared emotional intimacy exclusive to the relationship. And as the digital age creates more ways for us to communicate, understanding which interactions outside the relationship cross the line into the dangerous territory has become more difficult than ever.
A modern concept
Broadly, emotional infidelity describes a situation in which an individual in a relationship develops an important emotional connection with someone other than their partner, in a way that crosses a line without necessarily becoming physical. This is based on the idea that certain types of intimacy should only be shared with a significant other, and that by investing emotionally in a third party, a person can undermine their relationship and the exclusive emotional connection within it.
But the idea that emotional infidelity might be the death knell for some relationships is fairly new. According to Michelle Janning, a professor of sociology at Whitman College, Washington, US, who specializes in social roles, family, and relationships, the belief that one can be emotionally unfaithful is a relatively modern concept.
Janning believes that today’s framing of long-term partnership – as “a lifetime of monogamous companionship between two people with emotional connectedness as the super glue that holds them together” – is the product of recent shifts. Historically, she points out, a spouse wasn’t expected to meet their partner’s emotional needs. Marriage was often based on economic security, geography, family ties, and reproductive goals; in marriages that were not founded on love, it was understood that people might find emotional fulfillment elsewhere.
But throughout the past 200 years, our understanding of relationships has changed. In developed nations, love matches have become the norm, and within the last century, the rise of individualism has meant that people have started to prioritize self-care and self-fulfillment.
Today, people want their partner to meet their emotional needs – meaning that fulfilling a third party’s emotional needs could, for the first time, be seen as a betrayal. Being physically faithful may no longer be enough; now, many couples believe that turning to a third party for some aspects of happiness and emotional well-being can be a kind of betrayal.
Before technology became embedded in our lives, emotional infidelity might have meant striking up an inappropriately close friendship with a colleague, sharing feelings or thoughts that a partner might assume only they were privy to. It might also have meant meeting up with an ex behind a partner’s back, hiding aspects of life from a partner who expected their loved one to be an open book.
But the digital revolution has offered up many more ways for people to connect, blurring the lines between what is and isn’t a meeting or interaction, as well as offering a more anonymized way of communicating via screens that can enable people to feel that no rules are being broken.
“Social media in general has changed the way we meet and interact with others,” says Amira Johnson, a mental- and behavioral-health expert at Berman Psychotherapy, Atlanta, US. With smartphones and social media platforms, she says, it’s easy to engage in behavior that might lead to emotional infidelities – such as liking or commenting on another person’s picture, contacting old friends, or engaging strangers in debate.
Of course, people will have different views on what is and isn’t allowed. While some might consider liking a particular person’s social media post to be infidelity, others might think this is nothing to worry about. In some relationships, there is a general understanding that deeply personal conversations should stay between partners, while for others, emotionally vulnerable friendships are something that everyone should enjoy. Flirting with someone over text messages could be harmless to some couples, while for others it would be relationship-ending.
“Each partner has their own specific view of what constitutes cheating, which can range from creating connections with others to spending time with another individual that the partner may perceive to be a threat, even if that relationship is completely platonic,” says Marisa Cohen, a relationship scientist at dating app Highly.
