Donna was engaged to get married in 2 weeks. She was sitting at her fiance’s computer, looking to find addresses to send early thank you notes when it happened. Donna “accidentally opened” the e-mail that changed everything instantly.
“Tina, thank you for sending me those pics last night. They were even sexier than the ones you sent before. I’m certain I’ll be thinking about you and those pictures tonight as I drift off to sleep with a grin on my face… I’ll contact you tomorrow just after work on my drive home.”
Stunned, sickened and panicked, Donna confronted Todd over the telephone while he was at work. He was home in 15 minutes and in a marathon fight that last until midnight, Todd denied being unfaithful. He said he’d met Tina online in a chat forum and had never actually met her in person.
He wasn’t even positive Tina was her real name. Todd explained the anxiety that was associated with the upcoming wedding was killing him and he was just mindlessly browsing the web when he stumbled into this chat with his new internet “friend”.
At first they talked about day to day stuff, even the wedding plans. But following a couple of weeks it turned flirtatious, and following a couple more, sexual. He urged Donna to see the emails so she would believe him.
As unpleasant as it was to read the sexually charged communication, Donna read far enough to believe they’d never met. However, even though they decided not to call off the wedding, Donna moved into the spare room.
Too embarrassed to face it, she told no one! 15 days later she walked down the aisle, all in white, all smiles. Fast forward nine months to right now. Todd and Donna are in couples counseling. The outlook is unstable at best.
This leads us towards the question that’s facing more of today’s couples than can possibly be estimated. Is online fling or flirting cheating? My answer is easy, that answer is totally up to you.
In the event you find out your man has been heating up the web with another woman and it bothers you, which I’m fairly positive it is going to, then yes, without a doubt, that’s cheating.
The concept of “finding out” itself, shows that there was hiding of the truth involved in the very first place. If your man knew you would not dig it, so he decided to hide it in the first place, then perhaps he knew it was cheating, regardless of what he says about how innocent it was.
If you are one of the very small minority of women out there that would not be bothered by this behavior, who would shrug it off because “boys with a keyboard will be boys”, then you would not be asking this question in the first place.
Cheating used to be very black and white. However these days a lot of men would like to believe the internet has produced a million shades of gray. I beg to differ. I believe cheating is still black and white. I think it’s fairly easy to define as a behavior that can cause feelings of emotional or sexual betrayal.
I think men know when they’re cheating, almost always established by their hiding the behavior in question. Now, I know, ladies do bad things too. Nevertheless, statistically men are much more likely to participate in “internet affairs”.
Not to mention many real-world physical affairs start on the web and men who engage in questionable internet behavior are vastly more prone to have a “real” affair.
So, in the end, only really know the answer. Is it cheating? Ask yourself one thing, “Does it feel okay to me?” If the reply to that question is no, then your answer is, yes, he’s cheating.
Don’t cut him any slack on interpretation of the rules. Trust me; in his heart of hearts, he knows it is cheating too. And, if you’re in confusion as to what to do when attempting spot a player, get more advice by looking up information on howo to spot a player or how to spot a cheater.