So Many Ways to Cheat....... Are some types of infidelity more painful than others?

In the minds of most people, cheating is cheating. One person breaks the trust of his or her significant other by secretly engaging in sex outside the relationship, and that’s all there is to it. However, there are countless ways to cheat, and some can
be more damaging to a primary relationship than others. 
Typically, infidelity falls into one of three categories:

1. Sexploration 
2. Booty Calls
3. Full-Blown Romantic Connections

If you’ve ever cheated or been cheated upon, you will likely recognize your or your partner’s behavior and thought patterns in one (or more) of these groupings.

Sexploration

When asked what infidelity looks like, many people envision sexploration—purely sexual activity with no emotional component or connection. Sexploration involves casual hook-ups, hitting the strip clubs, looking at porn, playing the field, anonymous sex, etc. Sometimes the people who engage in sexploration think that because the activity doesn’t mean anything to them on an emotional level, they’re not really cheating. In their mind, it’s nothing more than a fun and relaxing diversion from the stress and strain of everyday life, roughly equivalent to mountain climbing, a night at the casino, or a good shopping spree.
Of course, their significant others tend to feel differently. In their minds, a betrayal is a betrayal. Faithful partners, especially women, typically don’t compartmentalize sex and emotional connection the way sexplorational cheaters do. This is why betrayed partners struggle to understand how the person they love can mentally separate the two elements, viewing extracurricular sex as meaningless from a relationship standpoint. So a cheater’s insistence that it wasn’t cheating because there was no emotional connection and, therefore, there is no reason for the betrayed partner to be upset just doesn’t register as valid to the cheated on spouse.

Booty Calls

On the emotional connection scale, booty calls are a step up from sexploration, but they are still pretty casual. With booty calls, cheaters typically have one or maybe several casual sex partners that they see intermittently when convenient. These ongoing relationships are almost entirely sexual. There may, at times, be the occasional dinner and a show before jumping into bed. But the emotional intimacy is purely superficial, with the relationship based more on sex than anything else. In some cases, there may be a light element of friendship, where the two parties know the basics about one another, but that’s about it. And usually both parties are aware that the sex is not exclusive, and that one (or both) are in a long-term supposedly monogamous relationship.

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Booty call cheaters often try to defend their behavior with the same denial as sexplorers. “It wasn’t really cheating, honey, because I never for a moment thought of leaving you.” As with sexploration, in the eyes of the betrayed partner this argument fails miserably, primarily because a non-cheating partner is generally unable to separate sex from emotional bonding. He or she thinks, “You were having sex with him/her, and you did it several times (that I know about), so you must have felt some sort of attraction or connection that you don’t feel with me. Otherwise, why would you bother doing it?”

Full-Blown Romantic Connections

Full-blown romantic connections are exactly what they sound like—two people who feel love and an emotional bond engaging in an ongoing emotional and sexual affair. Interestingly, this type of relationship often happens unintentionally. Essentially, happily partnered people are simply going about their daily lives, being nice to others and making friends wherever they can without worrying too much about what those friends look like, and then suddenly and unexpectedly a platonic friendship blossoms into something more.
Typically, emotionally connected affairs feel more potent to both the cheater and the cheated on partner. As such, the betrayal feels more severe, and more damage is done to the primary relationship. After all, this type of cheating involves more than just sex and secrets; there is also an emotional shift away from the primary partner and toward the affair partner. The more deeply the cheater connects with the other man/woman, the further away the cheater moves from his/her mate, both emotionally and physically. This is true no matter how strongly the cheater denies this. And the longer an emotional affair lasts, the more ingrained this shift becomes.
When discussing emotionally connected affairs, some therapists use “walls and windows” as a descriptive analogy. Dr. Shirley Glass explains this concept in her book, Not Just Friends, writing, “You can have intimacy in your relationship only when you are honest and open about the significant things in your life. When you withhold information and keep secrets, you create walls that act as barriers to the free flow of thoughts and feelings that invigorate your relationship. But when you open up to each other, the window between you allows you to know each other in unfiltered, intimate ways.”

With emotionally connected affairs, the cheating partner builds walls where there should be windows, cutting off his or her significant other. And with his or her affair partner, the cheater creates windows where there should be walls. Over time, cheaters find themselves turning to the other man/woman to work through fears, to meet emotional needs, and to resolve confusing moments. They become as emotionally connected with their affair partner as with their mate. One relationship grows stronger, the other fades.

Can You Really Hide Infidelity? 

Usually, the men and women who cheat are not fooling their significant others as completely as they think. Although their long-term partner may not know exactly what the cheater is up to, he or she will almost certainly sense that something is amiss, even in cases where the cheating is purely sexual (non-emotional) in nature. Spouses (and also kids) sense the distancing that infidelity creates, perceiving that the cheater is not as present, either physically or emotionally, as in the past. When this occurs, they ask questions like:

• Didn’t you say you’d be home right after work tonight? Why are you so late? And how am I supposed to plan an evening when I never know if or when you’ll be home?
• You seem really distant lately? Is something bothering you? Do you want to talk about it?
• Lately you’re more interested in your work than your family. Have I done something to upset you that makes you want to avoid me?
• We used to talk about everything, all the time, but now we don’t. Are you angry with me? Is there something you need from me that you’re not getting?
• You tell me that you’re working late on a big project, but that makes me feel uneasy for some reason. Is that really what you’re doing? 

At times, curious spouses will engage in detective work, typically after they’ve asked questions like the ones listed above and been stonewalled. In such cases, cheated on partners will look at bank accounts and credit cards with a fine-toothed comb, drive past the cheater’s workplace (or wherever else he or she is supposed to be at any given time), turn out wallets and purses, go through browser histories, and check phones for apps, texts, photos, and anything else that might reveal information. Significant others who “complain” and “invade privacy” in these ways are typically more in touch with reality than their cheating partners think.
When infidelity is finally officially uncovered (as it nearly always is), the pain experienced by the betrayed partner is immense, regardless of the type of cheating. Admittedly, a one-time lap dance while the cheater was away on business is typically a lot easier to forgive than an ongoing emotional affair, but there is plenty of pain and suffering either way. Relationship trust is decimated, and without a great deal of effort and ongoing honesty it won’t be restored.

Robert Weiss LCSW, CSAT-S is Senior Vice President of National Clinical Development for Elements Behavioral Health, creating and overseeing addiction and mental health treatment programs for more than a dozen high-end treatment facilities, including Promises Treatment Centers in Malibu, The Ranch in rural Tennessee, and The Right Step in Texas. He is the author of several highly regarded books, including the forthcoming volume, Out of the Doghouse: A Step-By-Step Relationship Saving Guide for Men Caught Cheating. For more information please visit his website at robertweissmsw.com or follow him on Twitter, @RobWeissMSW.