Is Online Flirting a Form of Infidelity?
Do you consider yourself a gregarious person? Do you flirt with people a lot with no real purpose? Or is this what your partner is like? Are they the gregarious, flirty kind, even with friends? Not everyone who flirts, in person or online, does so as a form of infidelity, but it’s not uncommon for flirting to lead there.
One could argue that online flirting specifically is not a form of infidelity. After all, it’s not someone we know in person, someone we’ll meet up with, so it shouldn’t count, right? The truth is, online flirting can be a form of infidelity. It all depends on a few factors.
Have You Been Dating for Long?
If you and your partner have only been on a couple of dates, then it might not count as infidelity, especially if they, too, are flirting with other people online. But the lines start to blur if you’ve been dating for longer, especially if you’ve outright decided you’re in a committed and exclusive relationship.
If you don’t know whether you and your partner have transitioned into exclusive territory, then it might be a good idea to talk to them and figure out where you stand.
Do You Feel the Need to Hide It?
If you feel the need to hide the fact that you’re flirting online, then it’s a form of infidelity. Think about why you’re hiding this to begin with. Do you suspect they’ll react badly? Do you think they’ll get angry, or that they’ll feel like the trust between you has been broken? If so, then flirting with others online is a form of infidelity.
If you find yourself lying to your partner about the flirting, then it counts as infidelity. If your partner were okay with you flirting online, you wouldn’t feel the need to hide your flirting, let alone lie about it.
Does the Flirting Lead to Anything?
It’s easy to think of flirting as harmless fun until it evolves into something else. Maybe, after a long time spent flirting, you agree to meet up somewhere. One thing leads to another, and the next thing you know, you’re cheating on your partner.
Or maybe you don’t meet up at all. Instead, you end up developing feelings for this person you’re flirting with. This is very much a type of infidelity. Harmless flirting exists, but you have to be careful not to cross the line.
Have You Stopped Caring About Your Partner?
It’s possible that, as a result of your online flirtation, you and your partner are no longer close. You might lose the feelings you had for your partner altogether. You talk to someone else online, flirt with them, open up to them in a way you don’t with your partner.
Your relationship with your partner starts deteriorating. Instead, you develop a connection with the person you’ve been flirting with online. Whether that connection is romantic or not, this still counts as emotional infidelity.
What to Do Next?
When you engage in online flirting while in a relationship, it’s possible it can turn into a form of infidelity. If you’ve been dating your partner for a while, if you feel like you need to hide your flirtations from your partner and lie about them, if the flirtation leads to feelings on your end, if you stop confiding in your partner, stop feeling anything for them at all, then it’s a form of infidelity.
If any of this resonated with you, if you’re in a rocky relationship due to your own flirting with someone online, or if it’s your partner who’s doing the flirting, then you might want to seek professional help. Whether you’d like individual therapy sessions or couples therapy in order to get past your issues, feel free to reach out and make an appointment. We’ll do our best to help you with whatever you need.
