In a very broad sense, cheating is betraying a partners expectations about the type of contact that is acceptable with another person.

When a spouse violates ones expectations about what is appropriate, people feel betrayed. As such, cheating is difficult to define because individuals differ in what they consider acceptable forms of contact.

For example, some people believe that it is unacceptable for a spouse or partner to:

• Flirt with others
• Engage in sexual talk with someone else
• Deny being married or in a relationship
• Spend time with specific individuals
• Specific types of contact sleeping in the same bed with another person
• Buy someone intimate gifts and presents
• Chat online with someone else (online affairs)
• Have sexual contact with someone else (sexual infidelity)
• Become emotionally involved with someone else (emotional infidelity)
• Fantasize about sex with other people
• Develop a crush or feelings for another individual
• View pornography
• Share their most private thoughts and feelings with someone else
• Become best friends with someone of the opposite sex
• And the list could go on and on

Cheating is complex because the definition varies so wildly. However, when a spouse violates ones expectations, the feeling is the same feeling betrayed and rejected.

Cheating is also problematic because couples rarely discuss exactly what their expectations are. So in any given relationship, what one person considers to be acceptable may differ from what a partner thinks is appropriate. Many problems arise because people do not see eye-to-eye on this issue.

And to make matters worse, many individuals do not like to define what counts as cheating. Many people prefer not to be explicit about what counts as cheating because by keeping the rules vague and ambiguous, it makes it easier to cheat. If you dont know what the rules are, you really cant break them or so people like to think. It is much easier to deceive a partner (and one's self) when the rules about cheating are not spelled out.