Is online chatting/flirting/virtual encounter considered cheating?? --help plz

Hello all, I'm hoping someone can help me through this one obstacle in my marriage that keeps popping up & causing chaos....
I'm wondering if anyone considers " internet /online chatting & flirting" a form of cheating???

Here's the story: My husband is an IT tech, which obviously means he's on the computer/internet A LOT. He works from home and has this really nice station set up with his work computer and 2 laptops for personal use so while he works he's also surfing the internet on the personal computers. His life is his computers and they are his treasures 2nd to our kids of course they are first which is awesome.

But problem here is that since he has insomnia and really bad, then when he can't sleep he will go on his computer and stay up until really late in the morning. Back in 2005 - 2006 in our former house we used to have the computers in our master bedroom, that changed now but back in those days is when he did his surfing the most.

I found late in 2006 after a hunch and just a pull or gut instinct or something.. that made me look at his phone records that something weird was going on. after 10 years of marriage all of which I've never been jealous or even looking at any of his stuff at all, I always trusted him, always.. up until that day.. ever since now I DO NOT TRUST HIM AT ALL... NOT AT ALL..

After digging I found there was 1 phone number out of our area that he called a lot and during times when I wasn't around. Even late in the night & for long periods or time. I didn't recognize the number and then I went and was able to look at his e-mails & found a whole folder for one lady in particular full of emails & pictures etc.. and this was the woman that the phone number belonged to.
Long story short.. what happened is that he had been in constant communication, MSN CHAT, email, text, phone calls etc... all with this woman and even during times late, late at night when I was laying in bed asleep in our room and he was there chatting with her in front of me. The chats were steamy, didn't go over board but were very, very provocative & explicit. She even sent him pictures and told him a lot about her personal life & he even had her kids as his friends/buddies on his MSN as well. They were that close.

At one point one of the last email "the one that hurt me the most" basically is him telling her that he was in love with her & to please work things out that it would be ok and he could not be without her... During this 1 year online affair she had also sent him email stating she loved him & to meet up & that she wanted to be with him.

I'm not sure if they ever met in person, she lives about 4 - 5 hours away from us but funny thing is during valentines week 2006 all of the sudden he was very down and just feeling bad & with my pushing and idea because I was worried about him (remember I didn't know at that time about this) I told him to take a small vacation trip.. something he'd never done before since we've been married.. we never go anywhere alone/without each other or the kids.. at all.. even still now... I told suggested he go in one direction but when he finally said ok, he surprised me by telling me he was going in the opposite direction. Now I know it was towards her area. he called me about every hour or 2 hours all the time. He only stayed the 1 night and came back home but called me the entire time there at least about every hour and sometimes even every 1/2 hour until he fell asleep.

Again I don't know if they ever met at all but he was right in her area. Also some of the email considently were of her giving him directions to her house right before he left but then another one after he got back saying it was too bad that maybe next time they could meet or something like that. My whole world came to and end when I found all of this out & needless to say I sent myself all the emails & printed them, got her phone number memorized & kept all her pictures.. I have a full folder of him & her with me that I've stashed away. Also to this day he has her as a buddy on his Facebook & every once in a while that I can tell he calls her or she calls him & they text but it's very innocent. but it's like every 3 or 4 months, some times longer between contacts..

i did confront him with this , I didn't divulge all my secrets and that I had a whole stash of stuff but ultimately he agreed to erase that email folder he had of her along with all the emails & pictures.. & to never contact her again.. at first he told me that he did nothing wrong and that she was just a friend to talk to... a shoulder to lean on. That I was obsessed & jealous and that it was all my fault that he had her to talk to. Because since I had a new job & was so busy that I had gotten cold with him & wouldn't give him the love and attention he wanted. later on about many more discussions months later I showed him that one final email from him to her that really hurt me and he finally opologized for hurting me. He still hasn't admitted he did anything wrong and hates when I bring up her name if something ever happens he gets really irrate about it. he still insists that they were just friends & he did not cheat on me.

I trusted my husband for 10 years of our marriage & totally believed in him.. now I can't seem to see him this way even if I try. It's been 3 years since I discovered all that and I feel like I'm obsessed, I'm constanly checking his phone bill for the text #'s & calls & whenever I can I check his emails.. he did change his pass word to all his email accounts.. mind you he has like 10 different emails but really one uses 1 main account & this is the one he has locked up like fortnox.

I'm obessed though, I just don't trust him on the computer at all and it really drives me nuts not knowing what he's doing, who he's chatting with and not being able to see his emails..
I've taught my self how to be better at the computer , not to his level but I'm really good and he has no idea I'm this good. I've been able to put a keylogger on his computer & even gotten his passwords.. I've tracked down all his past email accounts & have been able to pull all past stored history on his computer.. but this is only temporary since he's an expert I can only do it for a small period of time & then take it out before he sees this or discovers it. he still doesn't like me looking at his computer & keeps it locked up all the time.. But on my free time, specially when I'm at work and have some slow time I do some learning & teach my self more tricks.. as he upgrades his computers & tightens his security on his computer I learn more how to get around that.

SO YOU TELL ME NOW???? was he cheating / remember it's all virtual & never supposedly met , so no physical but I feel that he did cheat on me... !!!!

And am I obsessed or what can I do to get over this... ???? how can I trust again.. I've never been like this,, I've always prided my self on being such a good woman/wife and not being the jelouse type or anything and now I'm worse then all that. And worse is that since he works from home he has not work friends to talk with so he explains to me that this is one of the few ways for him to have the day pass quickly versus just staring at the 4 walls while he works at home alone. That he's always home alone & never even goes out with friends or anything.. never hangs out with out me..so that why i want to control him so much & be so jelouse.. Funny thing though is that when he talk/chats although he has a lot of male co-worker friends & old school friends.. primarily it's the women at work & others he chats with the most.... hmmm what should I think them...

Please help me... am I going insane.. how I get over this... it's really making matters worse with us since I can't get over it... I can't trust him.. at all ...

I think people like using words a bit to much to categorize situations.

Is it "cheating" if both people agree "cheating" requires physical contact, then no... if one person thinks it does and other does not, then yes and no...

I would look past the categorized term and simply ask if your feelings are being disrespected... then there is not question.

So long as people have an out simply by hiding behind an indifference to terms, they feel ok with what they do, or use it as an escape to admitting their wrong.

In a committed relationship its a commitment of body AND MIND. Your mind should be treated with the same respect as your physical relationship. Is he dishonoring you by doing this, yes. It is IMHO his duty to ensure you are secure in his desires for you and only you, and that means taking into consideration all his actions that would make you question this.

I would say that it is.I would call this an emotional affair. IMO I think that is worse than just going out, and sleeping with someone. I wouldn't trust him either. He locks his computer, and then you found out about the other girl threw the computer, in her own separate folder. I would also have a problem with him having her on the face book. If you want to trust him again he needs to come clean about everything. Somehow the two of you need to work this out. He knows that you get on the computer, so why else would he be trying to always upgrade the locking system on it. That would tell me that he is trying to cover up something.

I think its a very very sad story, he has betrayed your trust and ruined what could of been a great life/marriage.

In my head yes he is cheating.

I would personaly insist on marriage guidence and tell him how you want the truth before you can carry on the way you are. Since you know so much you can tell yourself if he is being honest with you, and depending on what he says would tell me if my marriage was worth saving or not.

Cheating isn't physical for me... Yeah it'll hurt a lot if my boyfriend would sleep with a girl casually, but it would hurt me MORE if he cared for her, like a crush... and sleeping around with a crush would be the worse... anyways... he was using her as a shoulder to lean on? That right there is an emotional tie that he should only have with you. It's where friends get too close to the point where, the stuff he should go to YOU for he goes to someone else. They even come in same sex friendships with heterosexual people, it's not about the physical bonding, but emotional, and spiritual. I met my boyfriend online, so can online things be serious even if you don't meet in person? Yes totally. So my answer is that, yes, from what the emails say, and the fact that he was getting involved with her family and kids, yes it sounds like cheating... Did they do anything when he went on a mini vacation? I donno, he could have, but if he did, is there anything you can do by worrying about it? It's in the past, your real question is, "Do I really want to try to work this out?" Good luck and I hope everything works out

I voted maybe becuse, (much like Oldsoul stated), this involves two different people with two seperate opinions.

It is my opinion that if a relationship is mutually failing, with both aware of this, without either attempting to correct its demise, then online contact, (for whatever they offer), is not considered cheating. After all, what is there TO cheat on?

However, in your situation, with your relationship going through the "happily married" scenerio, and your partner is seeking gratification elsewhere while allowing you to believe that "all's good", then, I'd have to say that, yes, in this case, it is considered cheating.

He had willfully mislead you. Since you've confronted him, he had intently made effort of covering his tracks..locking you out. THAT is a direct indication that he very well has something to hide, (if not regarding this woman whom you discovered, then possibly of another), regardless, he has violated your trust, and this should not be your burdon to correct.

I feel, however, that seeking more evidence of his betrayal is not healthy behavior for you to proceed with. This will only deliver you further misery. It already is. It has consumed you. It is transforming you into someone you clearly are not, which only adds to your inner misery, not to mention that it is constructing much harbored resentment toward your hub due to the fact that it is because of him that you are behaving like this. This is NOT what you want. This harbored resentment is only adding salt to the wound, compounding what is already traumatic for you....digging this hole deeper...and possibly creating a sense of hopelessness for you.
With harbored resentment only comes anger and, if allowed long enough to fester, hate. You want to avoid this at all costs. Distrust is more than enough for you to have to deal with at this time.

The healthy possible soltution is for you to confront hub with joint counseling.
Obviously, you have made him aware of where you are emotionally regarding all of this. You are still uncertain of 'exactly' where he is emotionally, and apparently he is reluctant to provide you with that.
From your description of your marriage, it is WELL worth the effort of seeking counseling and strive for a mutual solution to this. He must be willing, however. If he is not, I suggest then, that you seek counseling for your own self to overcome this new obsession of seeking his further betrayal. You are in need of support. You deserve that, if not by him, then elsewhere. Do not allow what he has done to you transform you into someone you don't even like, yourself.

From what you have said about his little trip, it is my understanding that I don't think he followed through with the meeting. He called you every half n full hour while away. Returned the next day. You read in his follow-up email that it didn't happen. Then, accept that for what it tells you. Although, I understand that because of his betrayal, it's difficult to have faith in that...but, try to read that for what it really says. Personally, I don't think he did meet her....and THAT alone really does make a statement. I think he couldn't go through with it. THAT just may tell you something..wouldn't you think?

I'm an optimist. I try to see the good in any situation, however, the fact that he continues to lock you out of his systems is an indication of something not quite right. And that so needs to be addressed. He has NO reason not to trust you. Perhaps, his actions are signals of guilt...regardless...that is behavior that has no place.

Counseling is about the only hopeful solution to this matter, from what I can tell.

I am so sorry that this is happening. I understand your pain. Been there myself, (with the inclusion of hub's serious addiction to extensive porn for many years).
The best you can do is to do what's best for you. Once you've got yourself stabilized, then you can approach this with confidence?

Best wishes and many, many ~

Shangrala

I agree that this is an “emotional” affair. The degree of the damage in my opinion is what he planned to do, what he did afterwards etc. I think if I had a choice I’d prefer my husband to have a one night stand rather than an ongoing emotionally invested affair. Again, this is my opinion, but I can understand how a huge mistake can be made as the result of a split second decision. But a conscious choice to log on to a computer or dial a telephone day after day… that tells another story. I would also be further troubled that he’s chosen to attempt to keep me locked out of these tools now that he’s been caught.

I have to have as much closure as I possibly can. I would sit him down and tell him, I don’t trust you. You’re more secretive now than before you “ended” this relationship. If you want this marriage to work you cannot continue to act in this suspicious manner. We need to see a counselor to try to determine exactly what you were looking for when you started this relationship, why you felt the need to continue it for so long.

hey hun

this is not an easy thing to go through
poor you

i am sooooooo not a relationship expert. omg. unless you count experience lol

i am 46. and i have been around the block. am in a relationship currently, and i will say for sure, that if he is confiding in someone other than me, if he is fantasizing about someone other than me, if he is physically touching/kissing/having sex with someone other than me , , , he is cheating

i am cool with having separate email accounts. i have private feelings that i discuss with good friends of both sexes. but i AM faithful to my lover. i have to step out on a limb and trust him - or else - we have NOTHING.

once you own a history of distrust, as you have, it is much harder to start over and build trust

at the end of the day, you have to go with your heart. IS an emotional affair , cheating , to you? and . . . . if you happen to be like me and it IS cheating . . . do you give one more chance? note. if you offer a second chance you can and possibly should, ask for conditions. you are 'allowed' to ask for a shared email account and not him having 12 acc's and you aren't on them
also, you can say "delete blank blank from your facebook""
if he doesn't,
or does not want to
you have a huge answer there
i wish you the absolute best
you seem like a wonderful person
you deserve to be cherished, and to feel safe.
((major hugs))
thanx for letting me chime in

Hi...i know exactly where your coming from. Ive been with my boyfriend for almost 9years. He does exactly the same thing. Ive caught him many times on chat sites, online profiles, etc. when confronted he tells me its just a "hobby" of his. Until this past January. He has chatted with sone girl on some sex online sight. I wouldnt have found out if he hadnt left his time sheet at home, he was supposd to have turned it in to his boss unfortunately he forgot. So when I noticed he had left it brfore he left for work I seen that he got off work early on Jan. 18th. I called him up he would not tell me where he was until he got off work the next morning, long story short hes been chatting with this online web sex site and got a room for both of them. However he told me it was a waste bcuz he claimoours she never showed up. til this day I dont know what to believe he told me he wad sorry but I dont believe him. Its my fault cause im letting him do this to me, but a part of me cant let him go. I tell him to leave to get the hell out but he wont. To me online chatting is CHEATING... I DONT UNDERSTAND WHY.THEY CAN DO THIS WHEN US LADIES ARE RIGHT THERE. MY CO WORKERs tell me to leave hm and I know I should but he wont leave. He.says he loves me and our daughter too much. I dont believe a single word he says anymore until now he cant evenn pro ve t hat he is changing. He is still online chatting and has profiles trying m eet other woman. All I can say is that yes I believe chatting or sending emails on the down low knowing they have a wife or girlfriend at home is CHEATING.

Yes it is cheating. If you are doing something you believe your partner would e uncomfortable with or outright hurt it is an emotional betrayal. One should be investing this time into bettering themselves and their relationship, not building new ones. I'm devastated by what my partner has done & it's only been two weeks since he started talking to her and its not as bad as this one. I still none the less am heartbroken and feel completely betrayed. I believe it violates our relationship. Good luck to you. No one deserves to feel like this.

I'm not answering the poll because it doesn't matter what I, or anyone else, thinks. It matters what YOU think and how YOU feel.

Personally I don't think that chatting and flirting online is in its self anything more than harmless fun.

As long as the mental distinction is able to be maintained that it is just some harmless fun and things don't escalate to rl.

I am sorry you have developed this obsession, but, at least (let us try to see some positives), you have honed your hacking skills. If you work in a profession that can make use of them, perhaps you can benefit from that? Say, add one or more skills listed on

Internet Security | Skills | LinkedIn

to your LI profile.

At least there will be something good out of all that.

Sadly I am in the same situation. My friend of about 18 years and husband of 2 years has been having steamy online chat with a lot of women with one more serious than the rest. I confronted him and after "blaming it" on me we agreed to give it another go. During the time I was in a depressed situation for about 3 months, he invested all his time nurturing relationships with other women instead of taking care of me.

This happened between Dec12-May13 and I discovered this in Jun13 and after 3 months of second chance, I recently found more chat history, video calls which never stopped. He deleted the contacts on his skype as soon as I confronted him and started saying am invading his personal space when like you I never intruded in his space before. I am not jealous, I am not fussy, I am very outgoing and understand he needs his own space too but unlike him, I know my boundaries. I have a lot of male friends but they all know am married and loyal.

I now find myself without a friend and possibly a husband. The first time this happened, I felt betrayed and looked to end my life. I still do.

But i realise this is silly and why should I be depressed when he was not apologetic ever...always blamed on me when he never even told me anything. If things were so perfect why did not he approach me? He told me online chat, video call is not cheating and he is not doing like all other men i.e cheat physically. Should I be grateful then?

I can only tell you, think straight. Talk to him.

For me, betrayal by a friend/husband has always been my biggest fear and I felt safe with him until now.....

I am sorry you are having to go through this...yes it is cheating

I feel if he is unwilling to respect your feelings and earn your trust back then you should talk to a divorce attorney and find out what your options are. I feel that he definitely has something more to hide. And if he does not feel that chatting online is cheating then chances are he will do it again with someone new. That means you will have no peace in your life. This guy doesn't deserve you if he can't respect you.

it is without a doubt, 100% cheating. It matters very little if he met her but with him saying he was in love with her is beyond imagining. This is jumping in with both feet. It matters very little that it was online, email, chat, phone and all that you can carry on and get very emotionally attached before even meeting in person. He knew what he was doing - he did it in the "dark" in other words at times when you would not know. He hid it, he kept up the front that things were normal on the surface and lived a double life.

I cannot give advice as to what you should do but I can offer this.

you are NOT in any way feeling anything unreasonable, you are not obsessed. Everything that has happened has given you every right to be distrusting of him and "paranoid" of his every move. I don't blame you one bit because I've been there. I don't know if the trust can ever be mended. I would commend you on the ability to get over it if you did. seriously.

oh wow what a story...it is cheating in my opinion.
I was involved in a similar story, but I was the other woman, not the wife. He is an IT tech also haha. This is so complicated.... what IS can tell from my experience is that it's very easy to fall in love with a persona, an online persona, don't know why yet, and it hurts a lot because of......everything. But it's definitely cheating. I am sorry.

While it does sound to me like a huge line was crossed, I have to say that I think in these matters it's best to have a verbal agreement with your partner. It sounds to me like he became emotionally connected with this woman which, if the agreement the two of you have is monogamy, presents a lot of problems, as you outlined. I'm not surprised that you don't trust him.
What I have found is that everyone is different. For example: in a past relationship my partner was always chatting online and flirting, especially with younger girls. He was always watching porn and just generally being shady, and then refusing to sleep with me. That was an issue. I became jealous and obsessed and monitored everything. I would come back from being away for vacation and all these girls would come up to him when we were out in public (we lived in a relatively small town) and tell him what a 'good time' they had with him while I was gone. With me standing right there. Drove me nuts.
I took that out of the relationship and projected it onto future partners. I assumed that porn and the internet were the enemy and that nobody could be trusted. In relationships things would be great for a few weeks, and then I would realize that they still had attractions to other people and feel betrayed, like I couldn't trust them. Totally insecure. And all the old anger and jealousy would come up.
I've been in my current relationship nearly two years. My current partner was in a polyamorous relationship prior to ours, and was seeing multiple partners when we got together. I tried to do that in the beginning but couldn't. We decided to become monogamous. Over the next year I struggled with why I couldn't, and realized that it has more to do with my own insecurities and attachment/abandonment issues than it does anything that she's done so far. I was jealous of everything: the fact that she had so many facebook friends, the fact that so many people text her, the fact that she can wear dresses and look better than me (and possibly get attention from other people), the fact that she's still friends with (and talks to on a regular basis) previous sexual and relationship partners....the first year of our relationship was HELL. And I scrambled to do the work on myself that I needed to do because she was not doing anything. It was all me. It was all what I had previously thought of these things that was 'wrong'. And I recognized that within myself: I wanted to change.
So I did everything I could. Counselling, talking, you name it. And then sometime maybe around a year or just prior to a year of being together I noticed one day that it was gone. All those feelings, the jealousy, envy, insecurity, mistrust, gone. I'm not perfect. I still experience twinges of it. But I think what I needed was to a.) see that she really cared about me and that I could trust her, which all her actions showed (and continue to show), and b.) give myself time to fully process the reasons that I felt the way I did about what I considered to be taboos and 'cheating'. And to be honest, I am surprised with how open-minded I actually am, underneath all of the stuff that was sitting on top of it for so many years.
So now, I don't care if she watches porn. Sometimes we watch it together. I don't really care if she flirts with others. I occasionally flirt with someone but we still have the arrangement of being monogamous so I honor that, and I know she does too. I don't need to check her phone and computer and email to know that. I just trust her, which is something I didn't ever think I'd be able to do. She chats constantly with people online. I have to admit that when I do feel twinges, it's around this. But I have confidence that it will fade over time, as it already is fading.
I sincerely believe it is up to the individual. Nobody can tell you what is cheating and what is not. Every partnership is different. It all comes down to what you agree to honor in your relationship. And then to talk about what happens if one of you crosses a line and breaks one of the agreements. Because that happens too. And you'd be surprised sometimes who ends up doing the crossing. It can happen to anyone, really. Not saying that we're not each responsible for our own behavior, but the exact opposite in fact.
I know a lot of what I've outlined doesn't have much to do directly with your situation. I guess I'm just trying to outline that the most important thing is that the agreement is verbalized, and that each person take ownership for their feelings and actions.
Hope it helps.

Also...I would add that just because it takes place online and over the phone does NOT disqualify it from 'meaning anything'. Quite the opposite in fact. For some people it might seem harmless. But some of the most intense relationships I've had have taken place 99% online.

He is cheating. One hundred percent. He is walking over you.

You are NOT obsessed. Being jealous is a perfectly healthy and normal reaction in this situation. Please do not beat yourself up. It is *him* who betrayed your love and trust.

I honestly wish you the strength to get rid of this joke of a man who broke his promise to you and so obviously lacks integrity.

I also believe he is emotionally attached to her, but still he doesn't want to distroy his family. I think he feels like being between a rock and a hard place. Actually I feel sorry for him, his life is not easy at all, caught bewteen a wife and a lover, not knowing what to do, I guess he doesn't want to hurt his wife, but he also doesn't want to give up on the other woman.
Many people need diversity in their lives and nobody can prevent them from looking for it. If he breaks up with that woman, he will find another

I would never feel sorry for someone who by choice got married and allowed themselves to get involved with another outside the marriage. It's not whether or not you can have feelings for another person, it's whether you do the right thing and either choose not to pursue this other person or choose to leave the one you are with in order to be with that person. Anything in between is choosing to have your cake and eat it too. not something to pity at all but that's just my view.