During an interview with the Australian edition of the Huff Post, relationships expert Melanie Schilling defined micro-cheating as ‘a series of seemingly small actions that indicate a person is emotionally or physically focused on someone outside their relationship.’
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Some internet users see micro-cheating as a real problem for a relationship. However, this concept shouldn’t be worrying for people who believe that physical contact is the first marker of infidelity.
‘There is hardly any physical contact in the relationship,’ says dating coach Chantal Heide on the phenomenon before continuing.
‘The person experiencing these feelings could even want to live with their partner, even if they feel they have a strong connection with someone else.’
The emotional closeness with another person, spending enormous amounts of time with them, lying to their partner about time spent with this other person or being sexually attracted to them can all be considered signs of emotional infidelity. However, it is difficult to come up with an exhaustive list of behaviour linked to this. In 2015, the Guardian published a Guide to micro-cheating, explaining that it was just secret flirting on social media. So, emotional cheating is difficult to define at the moment. Whatever it is, if you think your significant other is showing signs of this, there could be a problem you need to solve in your relationship.
