What is Micro-Cheating?

Infidelity is heartbreaking. It results in a lot of pain and very chaotic thoughts. To many, cheating involves having sexual relations with other people and betraying your partner's trust. But, there's more to cheating than sex. There's also emotional cheating and micro-cheating.

Micro-Cheating Definition

The term micro-cheating seems to carry less validity. Nonetheless, it's still as harmful as every other category of infidelity. Micro cheating is a lot like the deliberate inhalation of the puffed cigarette smoke without getting to smoke the cigarette directly. It's a relatively minor romance induced act deliberately directed towards a person of interest. This automatically diminishes the value of an existing romantic relationship and one's significant other. This kind of infidelity is relatively minor as there's no sexual intercourse or physical act involved. To get a clearer picture of what micro-cheating is, let's consider a few examples.

Examples of Micro-Cheating

Staying Active on Online Dating Sites

Perhaps, before you met your partner, you were engaged in several online dating sites. That's no problem, but keeping such profiles active while in a relationship not just because you forgot about them, but because you still feel emotionally attached to "old acquaintances" on the platform can be regarded as micro-cheating. Still using dating sites or apps to communicate with other users without your partner's knowledge can count as micro-cheating.

Hidden agenda

Being in love with your partner doesn't necessarily mean that you can't feel attracted to another person. Everyone gets that feeling once in a while. However, acting on such feelings, like having dates with a person you're attracted to or chatting for long hours with them, can count as micro-cheating.

Read Next: 6 Ways How to Stop Cheating

Contacting your Ex-Partner

It can be tempting to contact past loves, especially when your present relationship is having challenges. Spending time communicating with your ex and reminiscing old times also counts as micro-cheating.

Sexual Thoughts

Humans are sexual beings. And, sometimes we cannot help but feel sexually attracted to people who are not our partners. This is especially true in long-distance relationships where our loved one is not readily around to love us and satisfy our needs. Nevertheless, having regular sexual thoughts about another person is a form of micro-cheating.

Watching Porn

Nearly everyone has watched porn videos before but doing so while you are in a relationship could hurt your partner. In the following article, we discuss if it's okay to satisfy your desires by watching other people having sex: Defining Cheating - Is Watching Porn or Kissing Cheating?

Flirting

Many people think flirting is something natural and healthy but others would be very upset and hurt when they find out their partner is flirting with someone else. But where do you draw the line? What kind of flirting is okay and when do you risk losing your loved one? We got into that question: When does flirting become cheating?

Now that you have a clearer picture of what micro-cheating involves and you can quickly identify the red flags indicating an imminent micro-cheating. Be careful so that you do not hurt your partner. Remember that trust takes a lot of time to build, and something as small as micro-cheating can put a dent in the trust. When you start hiding details from your current partner and no longer enjoy quality time with your partner, then you need to watch out.

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