Cheating is an inevitable topic when it comes to talking about relationships. We’ve all heard about it, one way or another. But what about emotional cheating? It seems that people are not as familiar with the term.

FreebieMNL - Tell-Tale Signs of Emotional Cheating
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Emotional cheating is when you start to develop a close and intimate connection with someone other than your partner.  This may sound like friendship — and it usually starts out that way — but emotional cheating entails some kind of sexual tension or attraction to the other person.

The lines that define emotional cheating are often blurred, as it can be hard to tell between a good friendship and a budding romance. If you’ve found yourself in doubt recently, here are a couple signs that could point to emotional cheating.

You are constantly sharing personal topics

You find yourself always contacting this friend or special person with news and updates about your life. The sharing can be about mundane things or it can get pretty personal. Sometimes, you might feel compelled to rant or vent out your anger about fights you’ve had with your partner because you feel that this friend truly listens and cares. Other times, you’d rather go to them than your partner when something good or bad happens to you.

You frequently compare

You start to think about what your partner is doing wrong, and why they can’t just be like your special friend.  In these cases, you put this friend on a pedestal and see their best qualities vs. all the bad things you’ve already seen in your partner. You feel like this other person would understand you more or treat you better than your current partner.

You like to spend a lot of time with the other person

You find yourself wanting to spend a lot of time with the friend, and actually pulling through with it. It comes to a point that you may even start to find excuses just to be with them. You may even avoid hanging out with your partner in favor of your friend.

You lie

You start to delete messages and keep secrets from your partner. Most of the time, this kind of lying is done by deliberately leaving information out. All of your meet-ups, messages, and phone calls are things you don’t want your partner to know about. You do this because, in reality, you know that your friendship with this person isn’t proper.

You feel less attached

All of your actions from the signs mentioned above can lead you to feel less emotionally attached to your partner. You feel that your time, affection, thoughts, and feelings no longer need to be shared with your partner as much since there is someone else who can handle it better.

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Photo from Chee Gin Tan/Getty

Overall, emotional cheating can lead to some pretty bad damage to both your partner and your relationship. The closer you grow to someone else, the more distant you get to your partner.  

If you feel that you’ve been engaging in an emotional affair, it’s time to take a step back and reevaluate what is making you feel this way. It’s a choice between you and your partner whether or not to end the relationship, but the important thing is to communicate!

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