“It’s about breaking any of the romantic, emotional, or intellectual agreements you have with someone you’re in a committed romantic and/or sexual relationship with.” Indeed, romantic cheating, emotional cheating, intellectual cheating, and even cyber-cheating are all types of infidelity. “But infidelity isn’t just about how many people you’re having sex with,” Wright notes. Obviously, infidelity can often be physical: If you have an agreement to be sexually monogamous with someone, then it would be cheating to have a sexual experience with someone else, she says.
But while it’s common for people to think infidelity implies sexual infidelity, there are other, non-sexual forms of cheating, too.Īt its most distilled, infidelity is any breach in a pre-established relationship’s agreement (read: boundaries) of an interpersonal dynamic, says psychotherapist and sex and relationship expert Rachel Wright, LMFT, host of the podcast The Wright Conversations: A Podcast About Sex, Relationships, and Mental Health. Hear “infidelity” and odds are, you think of some wanker putting their willy in someone other than their wife or snapping their snatch behind their S.O.’s back.
