By Lauren Keating

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Cheating has entered its digital era, where an opportunity to flirt with infidelity is just a swipe, like, or late-night DM away. With temptation in your pocket, it’s never been easier to pursue and develop connections outside of your relationship. Partners no longer just worry about finding makeup stains or restaurant receipts. Thanks to dating apps, social media, FaceTime, and texting, there is a new relationship crime that can threaten the end of a relationship: MICROCHEATING!

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“Microcheating refers to emotionally or digitally intimate behaviors that occur outside of one (or both) partner’s expectations for the relationship,” said marriage and family therapist Dr. Michele Parker, PhD, LMFT. “The behaviors cultivate intimate connections by engaging in online flirtation or maintaining previous connections outside of the relationship without transparency.”

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Every couple’s definition of cheating is different. Some may only classify infidelity as being unfaithful in a  sexual manner.  Others may also consider emotional connection outside of the relationship as cheating. A partner may consider an emotional affair worse because it may appear to be more intimate than a physical encounter driven just by sexual desire to them.
    Flirting or hanging out with a single friend might be considered cheating for one couple, but may not be an issue and considered innocent to another. This alone leaves many gray areas if a specific couple’s expectations are not clearly defined, so that no lines are crossed.
    Add in smartphones and the Internet, and these lines can easily become blurred.  

Jealousy can be sparked by likes and comments. And this can suck someone into developing deeper virtual connections.

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So, is someone’s behavior considered microcheating or is it just a modern dating drama initiated by the insecure?
“Microcheating often begins with subtle attempts for online engagement and validation-seeking through seemingly harmless emotional disclosures. Because these acts are less clearly defined among couples, they can become more destructive to a relationship than physical affairs,” Dr. Parker, who practices in New York, Connecticut and Florida with Interdependence Clinical Consulting, said. 
   It’s the small, yet repeated betrayals that accumulate over time that can destabilize feeling secure in the relationship. Without defining boundaries, couples can become stuck in a cycle of defensive behavior such as saying, “You cheated on me,” when the partner engages in private messaging with someone on social media.
   “Partners often assume they are aligned in their definition of cheating without ever articulating it, allowing microcheating to occur in unspoken, gray areas. It can be helpful for couples to explicitly define what constitutes betrayal for each partner and clarify expectations for digital behavior (e.g., DMs, liking/commenting on pictures),” said Dr. Parker. “However, I encourage couples to have broader discussions about fostering emotional security and protecting the relational bond to avoid conflict cycles of labeling and defending behaviors.”

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How can couples then set boundaries to clearly define what cheating is to them?
No one wants to find inappropriate texts or messages sent or received from their partner. Nobody wants to sit down and have the awkward or tough conversation of having their partner answer, “what would I have to do for you to feel like I cheated on you,” or  “What can I technically get away with without making you leave?”
   But matchmaker Jackie Dorman, Founder and CEO of Last Year Single®, said it’s a conversation that needs to be had—and early on in an exclusive relationship.  
   “People assume they’re aligned, move forward without clarifying anything, and then feel blindsided when someone’s feelings get hurt,” the Philadelphia-based relationship coach with over 25 years of experience said. “Instead of waiting for a blowup, it’s far healthier to get curious early. That can look like asking questions such as, ‘What feels disrespectful to you?’ ‘What would hurt if it happened?’ or ‘Are private DMs okay? What about flirty jokes?’ Defining boundaries isn’t controlling. It’s actually a sign of maturity.”
  Understand that you shouldn’t assume everyone shares the same beliefs or comfort level with same-sex and opposite-sex friendships.

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Is it healthy to share social media passwords or check a partner’s phone?
There are people who willingly allow their partner access to their phone. Others may view this as an invasion of privacy even if they have nothing to hide.
   “Transparency and surveillance are very different things with very different outcomes,” Dr. Parker said. “While temporary, structured transparency may help stabilize a relationship after betrayal, long-term monitoring typically signals unresolved attachment insecurity.”
   It’s those with high attachment anxiety, or fear of abandonment, who are the ones who exhibit hypervigilance if they feel a threat or are suspicious in the relationship.
   “If password sharing becomes a long-term coping strategy, it can reinforce anxious attachment dynamics rather than resolve them,” she said. “Couples who share technology access should be sure they are rebuilding trust, as opposed to regulating anxiety. Rebuilding trust is not achieved through forced disclosure, but through consistent emotional responsiveness over time.”

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Those who are experiencing distrust or believe their partner is up to something suspicious online need to look deeper into the root problem. “Lack of trust is not simply a result of a partner’s behavior alone, which can be a hard reality to accept after infidelity,” Dr. Parker said.
   Microcheating can occur when a partner doesn’t want to leave the relationship, but is trying to fill a void when it comes to attention, validation, or reassurance.
   And secrecy can be a red flag. “If you’d delete it, hide it, or feel that little jolt of anxiety if your partner picked up your phone or walked into the room while you were texting, that’s important information,” Dorman said.

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How should you handle microcheating if you found your partner guilty?
“Discovering a partner’s infidelity threatens attachment security because it involves secrecy and intimacy outside of the relationship,” Dr. Parker said. “Our research has shown that such threats to attachment security often hyper-activate abandonment fears or trigger emotional withdrawal, both of which are problematic to existing and future relationships.”

 

  It’s important to avoid having a destructive self-protective response. According to Dr. Parker, this includes:

•   Going on the attack by confronting a partner with evidence of screenshots, etc.

•    Engaging in similar online behavior to retaliate against a partner.

•    Reaching out to people whom your partner may have engaged with online.  

•    Using deception (e.g., fake profiles) to catch a partner in a lie.

“It is crucial in such instances to pause for a moment (or longer if necessary) and identify what is coming up inside (e.g., hurt, fear, insecurity),” she said. “Calmly sharing one’s internal experience with a partner helps avoid a debate about what constitutes ‘cheating’ and what does not. This offers the partner an opportunity to acknowledge and respond to the underlying effects of their behavior without getting defensive.”

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If caught, avoid saying “it was nothing.”
  “The healthier approach is to own what happened and then get honest about what motivated it,” Dorman said, “Instead of only fighting about the behavior itself, couples need to talk about the need underneath it.”
  This may also mean looking in the mirror and breaking toxic cycles.
   “Couples can become polarized by a ‘victim’ and ‘offender’ dichotomy that keeps them stuck in a destructive, emotionally distancing cycle. Continued distrust is an attempt to protect oneself against emotional injury, but it takes effort from each partner to overcome a breach of trust in the relationship,”   Dr. Parker said. “As opposed to waiting for the moment when trust magically reappears, both partners should address underlying attachment fears through emotional transparency and consistent reassurance.”
   Microcheating by name alone sounds bad, but it isn’t a death sentence to a relationship. Remember that cheating reflects a difficulty tolerating intimacy, emotional distress, or unmet relationship needs.
  Dr. Parker revealed that research overwhelmingly shows insecure attachment is a strong predictor of both physical and emotional infidelity (Parker & Campbell, 2017; Mosley, Lancaster, Parker, & Campbell, 2020).
   “Those with insecure attachment cheat emotionally to regulate abandonment fears (anxious attachment), seek validation without vulnerability, avoid direct relational conflict (avoidant attachment), and create emotional distance while preserving relational security.”
  Partners dealing with this should reach out to a relationship therapist to identify the unmet attachment needs to rebuild intimacy and trust. It’s important to be realistic that temptation will always exist and to instead build a safe space for open communication.

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 “If you’d delete it, hide it, or feel that little jolt of anxiety if your partner picked up your phone or walked into the room while you were texting, that’s important information.” 

— Dr. Jackie Dorman

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Jackie Dorman, Founder and CEO of Last Year Single®

You can find Dorman at www.jackiedorman.com and @JackieDormanofficial on Instagram and Facebook!

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Michele L. Parker, Ph.D., LMFT, CCMA, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Science at Florida State University. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist and certified clinical medical assistant. Dr. Parker’s clinical specialization focuses on the integration of physical and relational health, particularly in collaborative healthcare settings. Her research focuses on the health and well-being of families and couples affected by complex medical conditions, such as autism. Dr. Parker’s research has been published in prominent journals such as the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, Issues in Mental Health Nursing, and Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders.