Is Online Affair Considered Cheating?

There have never been so many ways to get caught up in an affair as there are today. Gone are the days when you needed to hang out in a bar to meet someone. Now, you don’t even need to leave your home to meet people and begin an intimate relationship. You can go onto Facebook and have 3,000 friends and not do anything wrong. Having online friends and people you can bounce ideas around with, carry on conversations or share jokes with is not a problem. True, they can steal valuable time, but there is nothing wrong in these types of online relationships.

So where do we draw the line between online casual acquaintances and relationships that can be considered an affair? First you can ask yourself if you would be embarrassed if your partner saw what you were doing. Is this a relationship that you prefer to keep a secret? How would your spouse react if he/she knew how you were speaking to your online friend?

What starts out as a casual chat with someone with like interests can quickly develop into a strong emotional attachment. This can seriously impact your marital status or your relationship with someone you are dating. You can be with your loved one but find yourself fantasizing about your online friend. Being intimately involved with one or more online people can begin to take precedence over spending quality time with your partner.

Even worse, that online affair can end up with a physical meeting. While chatting online or even sexting, you don’t know who that person really is. But once the intimate online friendship leaves the boundaries of the Internet it is an affair without a doubt.

In the meantime, if it feels like cheating, then it probably is!