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Old Mar 20, 2008, 03:54 PM
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gordian_knot gordian_knot is offline
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Member Since: Mar 2008
Location: Alberta, Canada
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</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
pinksoil said:
I checked none of them because ...I define "cheating" as when two people get together physically and engage in some sort of sexual act-- not over the computer screen.

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That's one of the reasons I wanted to see to what degree, if at all, people consider online activities to be categorized as infidelity. In retrospect I should have added an option which said "I don't consider any of these to be cheating.".

I think it's fascinating to see how people's tolerances differ. Personally, there are circumstances in which I could see myself being less hurt by a sexual affair and much more devistated by an emotional affair. Here's my opinion: consider a married couple, and the wife commits emotionally to another man - which may or may not include real or online sex - rather than put effort and energy into trying to repair her relationship with her husband. That's a horrific betrayal that would hurt me much more than a casual sexual encounter and, if "infidelity" means "not being faithful", I would definitely call that cheating. I could see a relationship recovering from the latter; not so much from the former.

I'd also be curious to see how people's answers would change if I changed the poll question to: "Which of these online activities would be a betrayal serious enough to potentially end your relationship or marriage?"