How to Recognize Micro-Cheating

08.07.2019

On the one hand, modern relationships have become simpler. First, to get acquainted with a woman, you had to drive a hundred miles through the mud and then be rejected at the ball. And now it’s enough just to download Tinder and be rejected without getting off the couch! But with the simplicity of meeting people today comes the possibility of being involved in micro-cheating. To avoid unpleasant results of such an incident, you need to consider main micro-cheating signs and try to stay away from them in your relationships.

What Is Micro-Cheating?

The first way to define micro-cheating is associated with the emergence of various instant messengers and great opportunities for online communication, and as a result, people have unlimited access to the objects of their lust.

Some equate micro-cheating to flirting in all its manifestations, including direct communication with the object of your interest. That is why the second micro-cheating definition is basically any kind of action directed at obtaining an interest in you from another person you are not dating with.  There is also a third definition. Australian psychologist Melanie Schilling defines micro-cheating as a series of actions that show your emotional attachment to another person with whom you are not in a permanent relationship.

Generally speaking, micro-cheating is a behavioral pattern characterized by secret communication with someone apart from your partner on social networks. If you have inside jokes with this person that only you can understand. If you deliberately belittle the value of this relationship, when you still tell about it to your partner, and try to avoid talking about this person with your beloved, it means you micro-cheat.

In essence, cheating is all that you seek to hide from your partner. By the way, if your partner hides the phone or closes the laptop at your approach, it is possible that they are involved in micro-cheating too. Although there is still hope that they are just watching porn.

Micro-Cheating Signs

Technology has firmly entered into our lives, and we do not imagine communication with people without it. Unfortunately, our technology addiction also applies to cheating. Messengers have improved the ways of meeting people to such an extent that a new concept of cheating appeared in psychology.

Today there are several generally accepted signs of this phenomenon which can serve a kind of a micro-cheating quiz. So, you micro-cheat if you ...

1. Are in constant correspondence with another person behind your partner’s back. The surest sign of micro-cheating is when a person hides something from a partner. It is a betrayal, and secrecy adds fuel to the fire;

2. Complain about problems in a relationship with someone who is interested in you.

3. Communicate on intimate topics with someone who sexually attracts you.

4. Hide that you are in a permanent relationship.

5. Add people you are sexually interested in to your contacts under different names.

Why is micro-cheating dangerous? Technology creates incredible space for micro-cheating. Even if you do not plan to enter into any physical relationship, your online connection may well be called intimate. From messages to a real meeting there is just one step.

If you are used to hiding something from your partner, and at the same time you are not tormented by your conscience, then you will very soon want something more from communicating with the object of desire. What is considered a crucial point? The fact that it becomes easier and easier for you to hide the micro-cheating from your partner.

In addition, getting involved in such emotional cheating, you encourage secrecy and distrust. What is micro-cheating in a relationship? It is just another way to hide your actions and fulfill your emotional purposes with a person you are not dating. As a result, you can become a victim of micro-cheating, and then your mutual silence about the problems will lead to the breakup.

How to deal with signs of micro-cheating in a relationship? If you have faced a micro-cheating of your partner, you just have to speak frankly with them, discuss the limits of what is permitted and understand what they are experiencing towards their interlocutors.

Just listen to your gut instinct: intuition will tell you when something is wrong. It is important to behave objectively and rationally, and not subjectively and emotionally. Unwarranted accusations and insults will not give anything.

You always need to pay attention to specific actions and explain what feelings they cause you, “For example, say, “When you kept texting your ex during our romantic dinner, I feel odd and forgotten. I would prefer you to pay attention to me more at such times.”

Or you can say, “When you end every message to your friend with a heart emoji, I get the impression that you are dating them, not me.”

Relationships must be built on trust, and you must determine why this trust has been lost. If you have noticed that you regularly communicate with someone on the network and try to hide this fact from your partner, then ask yourself if you are going to end this virtual relationship in the name of maintaining the trust of your permanent partner, or are you ready to sacrifice your love for a random person on the web. It is up to you to decide.

Micro-Cheating Examples

Now that we have highlighted what is micro-cheating, it is needed to explain it on real examples. Micro-cheating is not only when you secretly communicate with another person in social networks, exchange personal jokes, or detract from the seriousness of your relationship with a partner. These general definitions can have just regular life examples we have all dealt with.

Is friendship an example of micro-cheating? Although the line between micro-cheating and friendship seem unsteady, it’s easy to distinguish. It is precisely stealth and deception that distinguish micro-cheating from other types of communication.

Your partner may have a completely platonic relationship with a friend, and in this case, they do not hide them and openly tell about meetings with their friends of the opposite sex. There is nothing to worry about. However, if your beloved starts to hide this relationship from you or lie to you about them, you should think about it!

Liking photos of a friend from two years ago, frivolous use of emoji with flowers and hearts, a sudden subscription to the Instagram profile of the ex, a spontaneous appearance of Badoo or Tinder on the list of applications, an ambiguous query history in a search engine - all this somehow fits the definition of micro-cheating examples. In fact, practically anything that becomes a trigger for a suspicious person can fall into the category of micro-cheating. Here are thoughts of real people about this phenomenon in the relationship:

● “If my boyfriend never put likes under my photos but singled out other girls - I would definitely be on alert. Or if he began to like photos of a new colleague, although he usually didn’t pay attention to others, I would consider it micro-cheating. Strange liking rounds of a particular woman, sudden hearts emojis sent to a former group mate or colleague - all this would make me suspect something.”

● “Likes as such are not a cause for concern and jealousy, but rather an occasion to think about your own psychological problems. Although I would get nervous if my husband’s posts began to be constantly liked and commented by a friend who had not done this before.”

● “A lot of sudden likes under old photos of a particular guy are definitely a sign of a micro-cheating.”

Micro-cheating incidents allegedly become more and more often the cause of a breakup. It may seem to someone that only teenagers can quarrel because of the likes under other people’s photos but denying the fact that the Internet has become part of a relationship is illogical. The problem cannot be solved by turning off the computer or smartphone. It is hardly possible to say that social networks have definitely made us alienated. In the end, they also allow you to correspond with your partner at work, and in the queue to the doctor, and from the next room. We can conclude that they have presented an additional language with which you can both say about sympathy and show indifference to the person you love.

The question is that it is true to count our actions on the web and perceive them as a part of emotional micro-cheating. What do ten likes in a row mean under the photo of the guy you met yesterday at the party? Why your partner blocks their phone when you sit down next to them? Why, after a conflict at work, your girlfriend exchanges her dissatisfaction with a colleague for a whole evening, and does not discuss the problem with you? Here are some more thoughts about it:

● “You can communicate with your ex if you honestly talk about with the partner and they react to it normally.”

● “My girlfriend has never posted sexy photos, and if she starts doing it, I will try to find out why she feels the need to do this now, but I’m unlikely to ask her to delete these posts. Of course, I don’t like it, but everyone has their limits, and we have to consider them to save a personal space of those we love.”

● “Sometimes I notice how my girlfriend is texting some guys, her ex included. I hate being jealous, but I don’t tell her anything because I don’t see any real objective reasons for concern and do not consider it micro-cheating.”

● “I would be worried if my husband deleted our common photos from social networks, or even if his phone started to constantly ring from new messages and I wouldn’t know exactly with whom he communicates. I see many of such things as real signs of micro-cheating.”

Micro-jealousy is a new thing

Social networks are not able to spoil our relationship as such, they, rather, make all the changes, resentments and omissions emerge to the surface. For a person having no problems with pathological jealousy, social networks and messengers are just wonderful, they allow people to communicate whenever you are. Theoretically, they also allow to detect a problem as early as possible and calm down by discussing the problem. For the jealous person, the whirl of likes and comments from “suspicious” individuals will be an occasion to dive deeper into neurosis. Here are some thoughts from people experiencing micro-jealousy.

● “My girlfriend is online just when her ex is. They appear online almost at the same time and leave messengers with a difference of a couple of minutes. I cannot believe her because apart from other reasons for jealousy there are just too many coincidences!”

● “I feel anxious when a guy doesn’t respond to my messages in the messenger, although he is online and clearly corresponds with someone else. It seems that there is someone more important in his life than me that he is constantly talking to.”