Digital Infidelity Just as Damaging as the Real Thing

A new study has shown that cheating online is just as devastating to relationships as real-world infidelity. With the rise of the Internet has come an increase in using online tools and sites to satisfy sexual and emotional urges. Some people use pornography, others flirt in chat rooms, and some even connect online with old flames or new friends via social media and develop emotional bonds. Whatever forms the online cheating takes, research shows that if it is kept hidden from a partner, it can destroy the relationship.

What Couples Say About Online Cheating

The purpose of the study in question was to find out how the offended partners in relationships in which one spouse engaged in online sexual or emotional infidelity felt about it and how the relationship suffered. The researchers surveyed several people online, asking them questions about their spouses’ infidelity, activities online, how it impacted them and what effect it had on their relationships. The results show that although the cheater often doesn’t consider online activities true infidelity, the other partner certainly does.

Eighty seven percent of the survey respondents said that their partners’ cheating had a negative effect on their relationships. Forty one percent of the participants described the negative effect as significant, while 35 percent claimed that it caused their relationships to end. The respondents also described the negative effects of their partners’ online cheating. The responses included lowered self-esteem, anxiety and stress about secret-keeping and trying to uncover evidence of cheating, loss of trust and damage to the sexual aspect of their relationships.

Online vs. Real-World Cheating

The results from the survey study make it clear that digital infidelity is damaging to relationships. The study authors go so far as to say that the damage is equivalent to that which occurs when a partner has a physical, sexual affair in the real world. Both types of cheating cause the offended partner to lose self-esteem and to lose trust in the cheating partner. Both cause stress and anxiety and a loss of sexual intimacy in the relationship. Both types of cheating often cause the demise of a relationship because of these negative effects.

With new information about how online cheating impacts relationships, it is important to create an all-encompassing definition of infidelity. Cheating can no longer be viewed as simply physical sex in the real world. It has to include the online components. Furthermore, a definition for cheating has to include the fact that different couples may agree on different boundaries. An inclusive definition of infidelity might say that it is any sexual or emotional activity that is kept a secret from the other partner and breaks that partner’s trust.

With this broad definition, we can now include all kinds of online activities as infidelity. Also important is the fact that we consider the keeping of secrets and breaking of trust as the defining aspects of cheating. To have a healthy and satisfying relationship, two people must be open to discussing which activities are acceptable and which are not. Anything that falls on the unacceptable list and is done in secret would then be considered cheating.

For example, you and your partner might decide that using pornography online is acceptable, but flirting in chat rooms is not. Your partner using porn without telling you would not be considered cheating, but meeting up with someone in a chat room in secret would be a break of your trust and an incidence of infidelity. Cheating, in whatever form it takes, is devastating to relationships. To be happy in yours, you have to talk to your partner about what is in and out of bounds and be honest.