With cheating in a relationship, whether physical or emotional, it’s typically clear when things have gone too far — but what about your partner seemingly turning up the charm for a friend or co-worker? Are they flirting or just being friendly?
According to relationship experts, those subtle acts may be “micro-cheating.”
“Micro-cheating is the small behaviors that can sometimes be hard to pinpoint or prove that indicate there are boundary violations in a relationship,” Molly Burrets, a clinical psychologist specializing in couples therapy, told CBS News.
Micro-cheating can involve following or “liking” photos of attractive people on social media or interactions on a day-to-day basis with people in real life.
“For example, revealing too much personal information to someone that you see regularly or intense flirting with someone at work, but never quite acting on it,” Burrets said.
Why do people micro-cheat?
A few things can spur micro-cheating, and it can be intentional or unintentional.
“If a person has a pattern of pushing the boundaries in relationships and getting away with it, they might engage in these behaviors regularly and intentionally,” Burrets said, where as “someone who might feel dissatisfied or unfulfilled in a relationship might be trying to meet those needs or get satisfied elsewhere without fully consciously realizing it.”
“While it might be something about your relationship that is unfulfilling, it also could be something about yourself, your own life, your own self-esteem and your own satisfaction overall, that is compelling you to kind of get that attention fed elsewhere,” she added.
There may also be an evolutionary reason people micro-cheat, explained Wendy Walsh, a relationship expert at the website DatingAdvice and psychology professor with a doctorate in clinical psychology.
“According to evolutionary psychologists who have studied human mating cross-culturally around the world, all humans, no matter what relationship they’re in, always keep in the back of their minds a backup mate, an idea that if something happened in their relationship, who they could call,” she said.
How micro-cheating impacts relationships
Micro-cheating can negatively impact a couple in a number of ways.
First, getting needs met outside of your primary relationship can lead to neglect of that relationship, Burrets said.
“We get a dopamine hit when we get attention and affection from others, and that dopamine hit is stronger when there’s novelty involved. So when it’s a new person, it can feel initially more compelling,” she said. “If we continue to put our energy in sources outside of our relationship, we only have so much bandwidth. And the danger is that we would neglect the nurturing and care of our own primary relationship.”
The effects on a partner can vary.
“There’s a broad spectrum for how partners react to this kind of behavior,” Burrets said. “For some people, flirting is a totally harmless behavior.”
For others, it can feel like a threat, Walsh said.
“It can be very dangerous, because when you have one partner feeling threatened and is not feeling that they have a safe relationship or a secure attachment, then they’re going to react in all kinds of ways,” she said. “If it continues for a long period of time, it can erode trust, and it can erode the feeling of safety in your primary relationship.”
How to prevent micro-cheating
To make sure you and your partner are on the same page about what is and isn’t appropriate, experts advise having a conversation about boundaries and expectations early on.
Burrets suggested having that conversation at the same time you talk about exclusivity.
“If exclusivity is part of your relationship, a lot of times we go in expecting that we both have the same concept of what exclusivity means, and we often don’t,” she said. Questions can include, “How do we define exclusivity? What does that mean to us in this relationship?”
What if I suspect my partner is micro-cheating?
If you haven’t already had conversations about boundaries, now is the time to set expectations, Burrets said.
“Ideally you want to bring this up with a proactive tone, rather than a critical tone,” she said.
If your partner is violating pre-established boundaries, this is a time for greater intention and intensity, Burrets added.
“You don’t want to come at this discussion from an emotionally dysregulated place, because it’s likely to escalate and go absolutely nowhere,” she said. “Try to come at it from a place of curiosity as much as possible, even though you’ll also be managing feelings of betrayal and hurt.”
Walsh agreed, adding if you’re accusatory, the other person is just going to be defensive. Instead, focus on your own feelings with “I” statements, experts suggest.
For example: “I noticed when you liked those women’s pictures on Instagram that I had a feeling inside myself of worry that you are potentially going to leave me or that I wasn’t as attractive, and that feeling showed me how much I value you and our relationship,” Walsh said.
She urged people to bring up their feelings if they want behavior to change.
“Remember, silence is always perceived as permission,” Walsh said.
Can micro-cheating lead to other forms of cheating?
While micro-cheating doesn’t have to lead to formal cheating, Burrets and Walsh said it can be a slippery slope.
“Especially for people who are feeling unsatisfied in their relationship, and then an actual need appears to be getting met by the micro-cheating. It kind of reinforces the behavior and maybe makes it more likely that the person will keep pushing the boundary,” Burrets said.