Define Cheating What is it?

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My and my current girlfreind had a conversation about cheating.

We would watch movies and i asked her what cheating meant to her. I thought cheating only consisted of having sex with someone, but she said its everything 2 people do while they are in a relationship..

I guess for her would be touching, kissing, feeling, playing, things of that nature. I told her my definition of sex is widely varied on how i view things so i thought cheating had to only do with having sex at that given time..

Anyway my question is What do you consider cheating. I am curious to what Apies have to say, I already know what NT people are going to say.. Something along the lines of if you look at someone sexually you might be cheating..(Yes i have heard this line before meeting my current girlfriend.)

Alienation of affection -- giving affection due or promised to one person to someone else instead.

So your saying basically everything is considered cheating?

Except handshaking?

And I like your sig, its awesome.

It's being romantic with a person that isn't your girlfriend. Flirting included.

My husband once told me about a bachelor party he'd had where he made out with a girl.

"So you cheated." I said
"No, that's not cheating." He replied.
"So I can make out with someone?"
"No. I was drunk."
"So as long as I'm drunk I can make out with someone?"
"Alright, fine, it was cheating."

People like to justify their actions to escape wrongdoing. I cheated and people usually understand why I cheated on my ex-husband and are supportive of me, but I don't think that absolves me of responsibility. I should have left. I don't know if I could have left until I remembered that I was human and not worthy of abuse, but the bottom line is that I was a grown woman and should have left.

I think cheating covers a very wide area. I see it an interference of intimacy. This means that cheating can be sex or it can be flirting online. It really depends on where the individuals in the relationship draw the line. Women hit on my husband a lot. There was a server at Beef O'Brady's who completely ignored me and only flirted with my husband. That was six years ago and we haven't eaten there since. I can't control other people but he knows that if he entertained or welcomed that attention from women, I'd be upset. There really must be respect for one's partner. Even if one knows that flirting would be harmless and would never go anywhere, if one's partner is upset by it, the flirting should stop.

To some cheating only means having sex with someone else, to some cheating includes kissing, to some kissing on the cheek is OK but not otherwise, to some cheating includes flirting, to some certain types of flirting are OK but not others, to some it includes ever having a sexual thought about someone else (which would make everyone who isn't superhuman a cheater)... ugh... and people wonder why I avoid the razorwire labyrinth known as serious relationships altogether anymore.

What about an emotional attachment to someone else? Wouldn't that be considered cheating?
Say you had a friend (or whatever), that had always been just a social relationship, and then develops into a more emotionally intimate relationship and despite 'the sex' never happening, the chemistry for it is there. Is that cheating? Or, maybe I'm just making it too complicated

But I agree that kissing and touching would be considered cheating because they are intimate actions; but maybe more forgivable than sex?

A good definition of "cheating": Any behaviour or action that you would not engage in (with someone who's not your partner) in the presence of your partner.

I think the word "cheating" sounds really funny, and I'm embarrassed to say it myself.

Cheating is where one partner violates an agreed-upon boundary behind his or her partner's back.

If I found my boyfriend was cuddling and being emotionally intimate with another woman, it'd devastate me,
whereas other couples have open relationships where they knowingly engage in sex with other people.

For me, cheating is physical affection or flirting with another person, kissing, dates....any of the things that are unique to our relationship that we don't do with friends.