Internet infidelity accounts for the growing number of relationship breakups. Partners engaged in online affairs go through several personality changes and often try to convince their partners an online affair is not really cheating. They believe it is harmless flirtation because it does not involve any physical touching. However the emotional pain and devastation to once a warm and loving relationship are just the same.

Finding out your partner has been cheating online is just as painful as finding out your partner is physically cheating. Can you imagine discovering your partner has changed their relationship status on Facebook, or never changed it when they did get into the committed relationship with you. It hurts big time and no one should be put through it from what is supposed to be a loving and respectful partner. Trust me I know.

I have been the subject of an internet adulterer and it hurt like hell! I discovered a former partner of mine who I thought was committed with me advertising himself as free and single online. He had a profile under a false name attached to several inbox messages full of obscene graphic content, the man I had opened my heart and home too made me feel worthless. When I discovered his unfaithfulness I also got to read through all the explicit emails and messages describing what he had, and wanted to do with them. I knew I could not stay in the relationship so I packed his bags and sent him packing.

What is Internet Infidelity?
Online infidelity goes by many names such as cyber affairs, cyber cheating, online affairs, internet affairs and internet infidelity. All of them mean the same thing-a romantic affair involving intimate or sexually explicit communication between two people, one of whom is either married or in a committed relationship, which is conducted over the internet.

Online affairs are top of the list when it comes to infidelity and extramarital affairs. The internet is now tied with the workplace as the leading place for cheaters of both sexes to find willing partners with whom to have an affair. A would be cheater no longer has to physically leave the home to seek out someone with whom to have an affair and risk running into family,friends, neighbours or inquisitive friends and workmates. The internet has removed the risk of being caught.

Are Online Affairs Cheating?
Some people say it’s not really cheating as there is no sex involved, but online affairs are actually a form of emotional infidelity. They may start out online but many progress to personal contact. Men and women also have different of opinions on online cheating, men don’t consider it an affair as women do. Emotional infidelity poses even more threats to a relationship because emotions are involved and they are just as serious.

Sexting and Cheating
Most people these days have a smart phone which can download apps for communication. Snapchat is a massive one which allows you to send photos and short videos. The app has a timer on it so that the person receiving it can only see the picture for 10 seconds. If that person is quick enough they could take a screenshot and use it elsewhere. There are also many other apps which allow for sexting such as viber, whatsapp and facebook. These apps not only make it easy for online affairs but it also makes it unsafe for children. Anyone exchanging messages privately involving explicit talk and photos is sexting.

How an Online Affair Affects Your Partner
The worst thing you can do is abuse your partner’s trust, you make them feel betrayed, hurt, jealous, angry and question their own existence in the relationship. Being neglected and ignored so the partner can go online and be emotionally connected to someone else is sole destroying.

If the adulterer is confronted by the innocent partner they are normally confronted with anger and defensiveness. The once loving and sensitive partner may become withdrawn well the other becomes quiet and tense. Ita not fair to submit someone to this behaviour.

Emotional-Infidelity: Signs of an Online Affair
There are just as many signs to watch out for with online affairs as their are physical affairs, that’s because they are both affairs. Here are a few signs.

• A change in your partner’s sleep pattern as they tend to stay up later than normal to be able to speak to the online person via social media applications or email.
• They demand more privacy when they begin an affair. When someone begins an affair, whether it be online or not they will go to great lengths to hide the truth. A bigger protection over their mobile devices and computer show signs of secrecy and signs you need to take note.
• Their habits change at home and they may show less interest within their domestic surroundings. If they are doing less tasks and outings as a couple it can show a lesser commitment to the relationship.
• Lying is a big sign that something is not right in the relationship. If your partner starts to hide or over explains himself, or trys to explain unknown sites on the credit card bill or bank statement you need to be concerned..
• They may make personal changes, maybe their moods and behaviours have changed. If they become withdrawn and sensitive, quiet or serious since their uptake in using the internet you need to investigate. If your partner starts blaming you and becomes rational they could be trying to shift the blame onto you and will eventually refuse to communicate.
• Loss of interest in sex is a obvious sign that something is not right between you. If they are having an online affair be aware that much sexting involves masturbation. When this happens they may seem less enthusiastic and responsive to lovemaking with you.

Tips for Preventing Online Infidelity
Maintain and open and honest relationship with your partner and put up boundaries to protect your relationship. Never send pictures of yourself over the internet as they can be used for anything, they can also affect your safety.
Recognise that long hours on the computer can lead to online conversations with strangers and many people are happy to have affairs, and yourself never start privately sexting someone if you are in a committed relationship, its betrayal.
If you feel you are missing out on intimacy at home start talking, do not look for it online. Also hold back from believing everything a poor soul may tell you online, it’s easy for them to lie just to get sex.
If you do start talking to old flames or acquaintances let them know you have a parter. If you value your relationship be open and honest about it.

A new study by psychology academics at The Open University is the first in the UK to explore the impact of internet infidelity among those with real experience of it and sees how it is directly affecting 21st century relationships. The research, based on an anonymous online survey among 20 to 73-year-olds, found that many participants think that the internet makes infidelity more likely.  It also provided evidence into what activity is taking place – at a time when there is rapid growth in the opportunities for online liaisons.

The research revealed grey areas among couples over how they define infidelity online, gender differences in perceptions of infidelity, with women seeing more internet activities as infidelity, and perceiving them as more distressing and evidence that online infidelity can be addictive. Unlike most prior research in the area, the study recruited people who had experienced internet infidelity – either having engaged in it themselves or having found out that their partner had indulged. The study, by psychology lecturers Dr Andreas Vossler and Dr Naomi Moller allowed participants to write in detail about their experiences with internet infidelity. Findings revealed that the Internet made covert contact with another person easy and had a dis-inhibiting effect, making it easier to engage in behaviour that might be avoided in real life. With long working hours an online relationship is like fast food, ready when we are, naughty, cheap, very often eaten alone without the exhaustion of social niceties Anon In one anonymous response, a participant wrote: “I tried to stop but neither ‘of us could, it would start again and since so easy, with all the technology we carry around it was an amazingly comforting and sexy thing to have.

“With long working hours an online relationship is like fast food, ready when we are, naughty, cheap, very often eaten alone without the exhaustion of social niceties.” Anon

And another woman at the receiving end of internet infidelity said: “I have a deep mistrust in the internet, and feel it massively facilitates infidelity. My ex-husband is inherently a very shy man, but online he is able to act much more confidently and attract the attention of other women. I strongly believe he would not have had so many affairs without the internet.” One participant wrote: “Probably – if we hadn’t have established & maintained any sort of contact online – the affair would not have started – as we very rarely bumped into each other.”

The study also found that the effects of internet infidelity can be as traumatic and wounding as face-to-face adultery, with many participants detailing their ongoing distress and describing the online infidelity as a relationship-ending event. The Social Sciences academics are both practitioners in the field of counselling and aimed to improve understanding and awareness for both the public and counsellors at a time when there are growing opportunities to participate in activity online which could lead to infidelity.

Speaking about the results Dr Vossler said: “What our research has revealed is that men and women do see internet infidelity differently. But it is not just a gender divide – what is experienced as infidelity online can vary from person to person. What might be seen as casual chatting by one partner, is hurtful and disloyal to the other for instance. “With the Internet and social media now being part of everyday life in the Western world, there are growing opportunities for partners to engage in online behaviours and activities that may be considered unfaithful in the context of a committed relationship (including e.g. cybersex, exchanging sexual self-images, online flirting and dating). This matters because infidelity commonly causes significant relationship distress and can have a negative and deteriorating effect on marriages and families.” Dr Moller said the evidence showed that couples in a committed relationship may, in order to prevent future misunderstandings, now have to think about sharing their attitude towards social media and keeping it a topic for ongoing discussion – just as a couple might negotiate an agreement on the desire for children or marriage.

Way back in the pre-Internet days, men and women were pretty much in agreement about what constituted infidelity and what did not. If you were being sexual or romantic with a person other than your spouse, thereby breaking your vow of monogamy, you were cheating. No confusion there. Occasionally, one partner (most often a wife) had to explain to the other partner (most often a husband) that things like tucking a buck at strip clubs and getting a sensual massage counted as being sexual and therefore as cheating. But other than that, defining and identifying infidelity was a relatively straightforward endeavor.

Then our world went digital, and since that time the line between cheating and being faithful has gotten really hazy. Moreover, husbands and wives sometimes seem to have very different opinions on the matter. For instance, men and women may have dissimilar thoughts on the following infidelity-related questions:

• If I look at porn for 15 or 20 minutes a few times per week, am I cheating?
• What if I’m looking at porn for two or three hours, and that’s happening every night?
• If I look at porn but don’t masturbate to it, does that count as cheating?
• What if I masturbate while I fantasize about someone I met online instead of you?
• Is flirting with my childhood sweetheart on Facebook a form of cheating?
• What if I’m just chatting with people online, with no flirting at all?
• What about flirting with strangers on Facebook or other social media venues?
• Does it matter if my chat partners live thousands of miles away and I’ll never meet them in real life?
• If I have a profile on Ashley Madison or a similar app, does that automatically mean I’ve cheated?
• If I chat with people on hookup apps and exchange the occasional sext, but we never actually hook up, is that cheating?

Needless to say, this list of “gray area questions” could continue ad infinitum. Furthermore, as stated above, different people can have different answers to each of the queries. In other words, in the digital age, diverse people may think about infidelity in dissimilar ways. So what you perceive as infidelity, your partner might view as a harmless, and vice versa.

Recognizing this fact, a recent study looked at differences in gender and interpersonal character traits and how these factors play into a person’s perception of infidelity. The research team surveyed 354 undergraduate psychology students, a mix of men and women ranging in age from 18 to 50. Participants answered questions about whether they would perceive specific sexual and romantic behaviors as cheating, plus questions focusing on three specific character traits—communion, fear of intimacy, and rejection sensitivity, defined as follows:

• Communion refers to a person’s desire to form and maintain supportive interpersonal relationships.
• Fear of intimacy refers to a person’s tendency to refrain from sharing personal thoughts and feelings, and to not fully commit to a partner.
• Rejection sensitivity refers to an anxious expectation of rejection by a partner regarding dating, love, and long-term commitment.

With interpersonal character traits, women typically scored higher in communion than men, indicating that women are, in a general way, more desirous of mutually supportive interpersonal connections. Scores on fear on intimacy and rejection sensitivity were not affected by gender.

Unsurprisingly, the people who scored high on communion (more likely to be women than men) were more likely to perceive various acts as infidelity. Meanwhile, the people who scored high on fear of intimacy (a trait shared equally across genders) were less likely to perceive infidelity. Rejection sensitivity (another trait shared equally across genders) did not register as significant in perceiving infidelity.

Overall, the study found that women are more likely to perceive infidelity than men, mostly linked to the higher value they place on communion. Thus, a man might think looking at porn for 15 or 20 minutes a few times per week is not a big deal, while his female partner could very easily feel otherwise. This is why female spouses are often painted as “reactive” and “unreasonable” about things like porn. Males typically don’t view this behavior as cheating, while women typically do.

So how can a person adequately and fully define infidelity, for all people all of the time, in our modern, increasingly digital, and increasingly confusing age?

Actually, it’s not that hard. In fact, the definition of infidelity I have used for several years is relatively simple: Infidelity is the breaking of trust that occurs when sexual and/or romantic secrets are deliberately kept from your primary romantic partner. I like this definition because it focuses less on specific acts and more on the loss of trust created by the secrets and lies that surround those acts. I also like this definition because it recognizes that it’s typically not any specific sexual or romantic behavior that does the most relationship damage. Rather, it’s the constant deception and the emotional distancing.

So… if you’re engaging in any romantic or sexual activity that you’re covering up with secrets and lies, you’re engaging in infidelity. Period.

Please notice, however, that this definition is flexible depending on the couple. Moreover, it encourages communication between the parties about what is and is not acceptable behavior within their unique relationship. Using this definition of infidelity, couples, if they are willing to talk freely and openly about sexual and romantic issues, can define their own version of fidelity. Thus, in some relationships certain behaviors would qualify as cheating, while other relationships would view the exact same actions as being just fine, thank you very much.

Therefore, depending on the couple, it might be OK to engage in certain forms of extracurricular sexual activity—as long as both partners have agreed, up front, that this behavior is acceptable within the bounds of their relationship. However, if one person is looking at porn (or whatever) and keeping this behavior secret, or if the partner knows about this behavior but doesn’t find it acceptable within the mutually agreed upon boundaries of the relationship, then infidelity has occurred. Relationship trust will be damaged, and the cheated on spouse will feel betrayed.

So, once again, cheating is less about sexual behavior and more about secrets, lies, and the resulting loss of relationship trust. Furthermore, as the research discussed above suggests, females and those who value communion in their relationships will generally want tighter boundaries than men and those who place less emphasis on communion. But this does not mean that there are any right or wrong universal answers. Each person is different, each relationship is different, so each couple’s mutually agreed upon definition of infidelity will also be different.

Cheating is cheating in the minds of most people: One person breaks the trust of his or her significant other by secretly engaging in sex outside the relationship and cheat. That’s all there is to it.  However, there are many ways to cheat, and some can be more damaging to a primary relationship than others.

Infidelity typically falls into one of three categories:

Sexploration
Booty calls
Full-blown romantic connections

If you’ve ever cheated, or been cheated on, you will likely recognize your or your partner’s behavior and thought patterns in one (or more) of these categories.

Sexploration
When asked what infidelity looks like, many people envision sexploration, meaning sexual activity with no emotional component or connection. Sexploration involves casual hook-ups, hitting strip clubs, looking at porn, playing the field, anonymous sex, etc. Sometimes people who engage in sexploration think that because the activity doesn’t mean anything to them on an emotional level, they’re not really cheating. In their mind, they’re indulging in nothing more than a fun and relaxing diversion from the stress and strain of everyday life, roughly equivalent to mountain climbing, a night at the casino, or a shopping spree.

Of course, their significant others tend to feel differently. Faithful partners, especially women, usually don’t compartmentalize sex and emotional connection the way sexplorational cheaters do. This is why betrayed partners struggle to understand how the person they love can mentally separate the two elements, viewing extracurricular sex as meaningless from a relationship standpoint. A cheater may insist that his or her behavior wasn’t cheating because there was no emotional connection, so there is no reason for the betrayed partner to be upset. But this doesn’t register as valid to a person who feels deceived.

Booty Calls
On the emotional connection scale, booty calls are a step up from sexploration, but they are still casual. In this situation, cheaters typically have one, but sometimes several, casual sex partners who they see when it’s convenient. These ongoing relationships are almost entirely sexual. There may be the occasional dinner and show before going to bed, but the emotional intimacy is purely superficial, with the relationship based primarily on sex. In some cases, there might be an element of friendship, where the two parties know the basics about one another, but that’s about it. And usually both parties are aware that the sex is not exclusive, and that one (or both) are in a long-term, supposedly monogamous relationship.

Booty call cheaters often try to defend their behavior using the same type of denial as sexplorers: “It wasn’t really cheating, because I never for a moment thought of leaving you.” As with sexploration, in the eyes of the betrayed partner this argument fails, because a non-cheating partner is generally unable to separate sex from emotional bonding. He thinks, “You were having sex with him, and you did it several times—that I know about. So you must have felt some sort of attraction or connection that you don’t feel with me. Otherwise, why would you bother doing it?”

Full-Blown Romantic Connections
Full-blown romantic connections are exactly what they sound like—two people who feel love and have an emotional bond, who engage in an emotional and sexual affair. This type of relationship often begins unintentionally. Often, happily partnered people go about their daily lives, being nice to others and making friends without worrying too much about what those friends look like, when suddenly and unexpectedly, a platonic friendship blossoms into something more.

Emotionally connected affairs tend to feel more potent to both the cheater and the cheated-on partner. The betrayal feels more severe and more damage is done to the primary relationship. After all, this type of cheating involves more than just sex and secrets: There is an emotional shift away from the primary partner toward the affair partner. The more deeply the cheater connects with the other person, the further away the cheater moves from his or her mate, both emotionally and physically. This is true no matter how strongly the cheater denies this, and the longer an emotional affair lasts, the more ingrained this shift becomes.

When discussing emotionally connected affairs, some therapists use “walls and windows” as a descriptive analogy. Dr. Shirley Glass explains this concept in her book, Not Just Friends:
“You can have intimacy in your relationship only when you are honest and open about the significant things in your life. When you withhold information and keep secrets, you create walls that act as barriers to the free flow of thoughts and feelings that invigorate your relationship. But when you open up to each other, the window between you allows you to know each other in unfiltered, intimate ways.”

With emotionally connected affairs, the cheating partner builds walls where there should be windows, cutting off his or her significant other. And with his or her affair partner, the cheater creates windows where there should be walls. Over time, cheaters find themselves turning to the other man or woman to work through fears, meet emotional needs, and resolve confusing moments. They become as emotionally connected with their affair partner as with their mate. As one relationship grows stronger, the other fades.

Can You Really Hide Infidelity?
Men and women who cheat are usually not fooling their significant others as completely as they think. Although their long-term partner may not know exactly what the cheater is up to, he or she will almost certainly sense that something is amiss, even in cases where the cheating is purely sexual in nature. Spouses (and kids) sense the distancing that infidelity creates, perceiving that the cheater is not as present—either physically or emotionally—as in the past. When this occurs, they ask questions like:

• Didn’t you say you’d be home right after work tonight? Why are you so late? How am I supposed to plan an evening when I never know when you’ll be home?
• You seem really distant lately. Is something bothering you? Do you want to talk about it?
• Lately you’re more interested in your work than in us. Have I done something to upset you that makes you want to avoid me?
• We used to talk about everything and now we don’t. Are you angry with me? Is there something you need from me that you’re not getting?
• You tell me that you’re working late on a project, but that makes me feel uneasy. Is that really what you’re doing?

Curious spouses sometimes engage in detective work, typically after they’ve asked questions like the ones above and been stonewalled. In such cases, cheated-on partners will look at bank accounts and credit cards, drive past the cheater’s workplace (or wherever else he or she is supposed to be at any given time), look through wallets and purses, go through browser histories, and check phones for apps, texts, photos, and anything else that might reveal information. Significant others who “complain” and “invade privacy” in these ways are typically more in touch with reality than their cheating partners think.

When infidelity is finally officially uncovered, as it nearly always is, the pain experienced by the betrayed partner is immense, regardless of the type of cheating. Admittedly, a one-time lap dance while the cheater was away on business can be a lot easier to forgive than an ongoing emotional affair, but there is still plenty of pain and suffering. Either way, relationship trust is decimated, and without a great deal of effort and ongoing honesty, it won’t be restored.

If you’ve ever been cheated on, in a loving and fully committed (at least in your head) relationship, then you can probably relate with me when I say this- that horrible moment when I found out and all the horrible moments that followed it came to be one of the most difficult phases of my entire life.

And it’s sad how I’ve seen a lot of people going through the exact thing. When someone you held so dear has the audacity to cheat on you, you end up feeling extremely embarrassed, furious, and even foolish to have trusted them. You end up being angry not only with them but your own self as well.

Once this phase of my life gradually passed and became a distant memory, I realized how I could have handled that situation so much differently, how I should have stopped blaming myself for someone else’s infidelity, how I should have given myself a proper chance to heal, and how I should have been more realistic about life in general.

1. You Can’t Ever Be Sure Of Your Own Reaction
I always felt like I was extremely sure of what my response would be if someone ever cheated on me: I will just break up with them, and that will be the end of the story. I was always 100% sure about this reaction… and sadly, 100% wrong as well. After it actually happened, I started wishing to not have been so absolute about this in my mind.  Because once you actually have to go through it, you realize how different things really are. You realized how your pre-conceived notions play a big part in making you feel even more angry and confused. And you end up feeling like a hypocrite if you ever want to forgive them and start over again.

2. Forgiving Someone Isn’t A Sign Of Weakness
I didn’t dump my boyfriend immediately after it happened. I gave it time. I decided to grant a second chance to our relationship. But this made me feel really upset with myself. Because I though it was a matter of self-respect to dump someone who cheats on you the minute you find out.  I thought any action other than this, any attempts at forgiveness, and any second chances would just automatically mean that you’re weak. But I’ve realized I was wrong. My relationship wasn’t able to recover from that incident, but some still can. People end up cheating for a number of different reasons.  Only you know the circumstances of your relationship. Only you can tell if it was actually a genuine mistake. And if you decide to forgive your partner for it, then it isn’t something that should make you feel weak or pathetic.

3. You Should Talk To Someone
When someone cheats on you, you usually start to blame your own self. Am I not pretty enough? Am I not capable of keeping my partner happy? Was there something I could have done to avoid this? You ask a million questions and you end up feeling like their cheating is something you should be ashamed of. This was one of the reasons why I didn’t tell anyone about my partner’s cheating for about a year, and why I kept all the hurt and pain I was feeling to myself.  But when I finally did let my friends and family know, I realized how things could have been so much better if I had just done this earlier. I felt like a burden had been lifted off my chest. And I finally got some extremely helpful and much-needed advice.

4. Their Cheating Is Not A Reflection Of You
As I mentioned in the last point, one of the reasons I kept this secret to myself for so long was that it made me feel so humiliated. The minute he told me, I started to feel incredibly stupid for believing him, for letting the relationship get to this point, for not realizing the things that were going on behind my back. I actually started to place the entire blame on myself.  It’s true that most relationship problems, including cheating, are a result of the actions of both partners, but it’s never completely your fault. If someone cheats on you, it doesn’t automatically mean that you weren’t good enough or that you went wrong somewhere. If I had realized this one thing earlier, things would have ended up being a lot easier.

5. You Can Take As Much Time As You Want To Process This
There are some people who can get over anything, even infidelity, in no time at all. They don’t stop to grieve or waste their time on someone who isn’t even worth it. But there are also some people who can never get over an experience like this. So there’s no set pattern and no expected time for you to process everything and get over it. Don’t force yourself to get over it immediately or to pretend that it never happened at all. Everyone needs time to heal!

6. Stop Yourself From Stalking And Obsessing Over Your Partner
The minute you find out, you will feel an overpowering urge to know who the other woman/man was. You will want to look at a picture, know what they do, find out each and everything about their life! And you might even start comparing yourself to them. Don’t let this happen! This horrible news is already going to make you feel like crap and if you start to stalk that person, all that will do is make you feel even worse.

7. If You Still Want To Make Your Relationship Work, You Need To Get To The Root Cause Of Their Cheating
Once you find out, it will be very easy to just get caught up with when it happened, who the person was, when and how many times! But the most important thing you should be trying to understand at this point is WHY it actually happened. If you truly want to give your relationship another shot, you need to stop putting yourself through the torture of all the details and start dedicating your time towards figuring out where you both went wrong and why.