Is It Really Cheating?
Back in the "good" old days, infidelity used to be a pretty easy-to-define beast: if your significant other gets all makey outy with someone else, from just kissing to all-out bedroom romps, it's cheating. Then we came to the self-aware part of relationship history, where couples starting paying more attention to where they were placing their emotions.
As a result, it also came to be that engaging in a strong emotional or romantic exchange with someone outside of your relationship also constituted cheating. Okay, that's a little less black and white but we can still work with that. It's easy enough to understand.
It was easier too, way back when, to determine if a partner was unfaithful. Clues like staying late at work, failing to call when promised, sneaking away to make a phone call and getting caught lying. It wasn't too difficult to spot a straying spouse and deliver a good, old fashioned, slap in the face!
Now, with technological advances like text messaging, social networks, internet dating sites and email, it's harder than it used to be to determine with whom, and how, your partner may be "talking" to someone else.
Checking cell phone logs and sneaking peaks athis or her inbox is always an option, but it's not exactly indicative of trust now is it? It's hard not to speculate though what with all the new ways of communicating not to mention engaging in cyber relationships.
Furthermore, if your snooping does turn up evidence of flirty emails and text messages, where do you draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable? It's such a gray area that you could confront your partner and have him or her argue that they're not doing anything wrong.
Talk it through
Get used to it; Facebook and MySpace exist, so do other social networks. And that cell phone in your sweethearts purse is not going anywhere. The methods by which people ccommunicate may have changed, but one relationship basic hasn't and that is trust.
If that trust gets tested or you start having worries about the kind of communication the other person is having, I hate to admit it but you're going to have to have a somewhat stressful talk: what is cheating?
The answer will be different for every couple. My opinion on this doesn't matter because it will change from relationship to relationship. The only thing you need to remember while you're having this talk is to stay true to what makes you uncomfortable. Don't compromise your own feelings for the sake of the relationship.
Once you've come to a decision you can both live with, spend more energy on making the relationship work and less on what could go wrong. By keeping each other interested there will be much less chance of straying.
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