What is cheating?

Cheating is an action or path one does or takes in order to gain an unfair advantage or to find an easy way out of certain situations. Cheating comes in various forms be it during test or exams, games even relationships. If you actually notice, age is literally just a number when it comes to cheating.

We begin cheating at a tender age during school test or exams ESPECIALLY if we didn't study enough (I've done it before) but still wanna achieve a reasonable grade. When it comes to games or sports, our competitiveness wouldn't allow us to go down in defeat and get squashed to ground although the odds clearly aren't in our favour. On the contrary, we tend to put the odds in our own hands and change it with dishonest means. For instance, in board games such as monopoly, one can steal money from the bank when everyone's distracted (I've done this too). With reference to sports, one can play dirty in order to gain unsporting superiority over opponents (probably been there, done that).

Source

Finally, we have come to the point in cheating where I haven't done but yet have been a victim of but let's not go into detail. However, I would like to elaborate more about this form of cheating. As mentioned, age is just a number. Cheating in relationships can happen at ANY age. Whether at 20, 30, 40, 50 or even pass 60, we may still be vulnerable to cheating; be it as it may you being the cheater, the cheated or even the cheatee. All in all, we know it's cheating wrong, our guts rescind our actions towards it, even our hearts don’t condone to such behaviour yet somehow, WE STILL DO IT.

What counts as cheating?

When the word 'cheating' is mentioned, people often make all kinds of assumptions about how and why people have affairs. Little do they know the true fact about it. Cheating, in a very broad sense, involves when one partner is betraying the other's trust by performing something deemed disloyal or untrustworthy toward them. However, cheating is still difficult to define as different people have different views on it as relationships are not based on logic but are driven and influenced by our emotions. Some people may feel that a certain kind of contact may be appropriate for their partner to have with someone else while others may see that the same kind of contact as betrayal.

Actions that may be deemed inappropriate and unacceptable for a partner to do includes:-

• flirting with others
• hiding texts
• having secret meetings (lunches, dinners, drinks)
• deny being married or in a relationship / admit being single
• buying intimate gifts for others
• sleeping on the same bed
• become best friends with someone of the opposite sex
• spend a lot of time with a specific individual
• sexual encounters (sexting, sex)
• developing feelings and becoming emotionally involved with someone else

Source

The main point is that different individuals have different perceptions on cheating and what they consider to be an acceptable form of contact with other people. What counts as cheating to one may not to another. Some even go down the extreme path and claim that it is acceptable to have sex and fall in love with someone else but from my personal point of view, doing something as little as secretly texting behind your partner's back already makes you a cheater.

Why do we cheat?

Cheating, as mentioned, varies from different individuals and the reasons of why one does it will be along the same lines. Every cheater has their own personal reason of why they did it. Some might call it a lame excuse but what's done is done. There are two main forms of cheating, emotional and physical.

Physical Cheating

Physical cheating is when one performs something physical that constitutes cheating in your relationship. From serious issues such as being naked with someone other than your partner, allowing them to one in sexual ways and doing sexual things and having sex to less serious ones such as kissing, making out or even cuddling are all forms of physical cheating. To be frank, physical cheaters only do it for the fun of getting laid with someone hot and are horny as hell (most of the time). Other times, some use this form of cheating because their sex live with their current partner is dying or is already dead.

Source

Emotional Cheating

Emotional cheating is bonding emotionally which includes trusting someone more than your partner and going to someone other than your partner for emotional needs such as the need to talk about how a bad day went. One who cheats emotionally also tends to always be overly concerned of their cheatee and will also take their side by valuing their opinion over others. One will also obsess over compliments from them and hold on to messages from way way back. Reasons why one carries out this form of cheating is usually when a relationship has been of sometime and a spark of it has died off. Therefore, one goes back out to the market "illegally" in search of someone else who can make them feel butterflies in their stomachs all over again - just like the first time they met their current partners. Us guys call it the 'chase', while I think the ladies call it the 'cute phase'.

HOWEVER, none of this gives one the reason or excuse to cheat! In every cheating scenario be it emotional or physical, when someone violates a partner’s expectations, the emotional outcome is the same—their partner feels betrayed, rejected and devastated. Therefore, a simple advice to avoid this would be to always be open in a relationship and always talk things out. Talk about what you need, about what you want and about what the relationship lacks but if all else fails, then LEAVE NOT CHEAT. That relationship probably wasn't for you and he/she wasn't the one for you.

Have you ever been a cheater, a cheatee or been cheated on? What were the reasons? What are your opinions on it and what counts as cheating?