What is Cheating?

sofivaldez

Is writing an erotic story and posting it on the net considered cheating on your spouse and why. On the same note, why is it so easy for us to cheat? I don't mean by posting on the internet, I mean answering that steamy private message, meeting for coffee, having lunch with that person that turns you on... That kind of thing.

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peppercorn

I don't think writing an erotic story and not telling your partner is cheating, any more than looking at porn or masturbating would be cheating. If you do an activity that doesn't hurt your relationship, but can even enhance it, that is not cheating the way I see it. Cheating is acting on impulses that pull you away from your relationship. This means physically meeting with or physically interacting with another in some kind of relationship. If you talk with a co-worker, that is not cheating. If you flirt with a co-worker, that is borderline, as that could lead to a relationship of some sort, past the working relationship. Anything more, of course defiles the original relationship. Online activities are not real in that sense, and unless you act on them to make them real, they remain in the realm of fantasy. If you change how you feel about your real partner and then act on that, that would be cheating. If your feelings do NOT change about your real partner, or are enhanced, I don't feel there is any reason to call any virtual activity cheating. The reasons people cheat are many and varied, and differ from person to person.

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sofivaldez

That's a great answer!

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SlowHand

Great answer peppercorn. Love those fantasy lovers...that's why I write erotica and enjoy Fairy Fales. I think when a person quits loving fantasy and the mysterious about the living creatures around them there real meaningful relationships begin to crumble and in that crumbling is what cheating is. If you don't feed your inner self and delight in fantasy you in fact cheat your significant other of part of you. They are cheated in other words out of the personality they love and adore.

It's on that level that real world cheating has it roots and peppercorn explained it well. One of life's challenges is to be present in your own life and you can't do that with out your inner self. This may seam a long ways from what we all recognize as cheating but the physical act of being unfaithful to another is rooted in being unfaithful to yourself.

The eathrol philosophy of SlowHand.

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peppercorn

So very well put, and so perceptive!

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