Is an Emotional Affair Real Cheating?: A Grounded Take

Cheating is cheating, no matter whether it was physical or emotional. Pair (dating app to find the right person) polled 55,653 people in the period from 9/17/14 to 12/8/14 to find out people's opinion on the question "Is moral cheating a real cheating?"

The poll captured attention of many participants around the world (USA – 62%, Canada – 4%, Britain – 11%, Australia – 7% and other countries – 16%).

The results indicate that a minority (30%) doesn't consider emotional connection with another person apart from their partner a deadly sin.

According to Gail Saltz, MD, associate professor of psychiatry at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell School of Medicine, the real problem is that this kind of attachment impacts relationships negatively most of the time: "Many of these emotional affairs do move into a sexual affair. Ultimately it ends painfully one way or another: Your marriage ends, or you've got to give this person up."

Finding out about emotional infidelity may be even more hurtful than learning about a sexual one. Dr. Saltz goes on: "Everybody understands a sexual act need not necessarily contain affection or intimacy. It could be literally about a sexual act. Whereas the emotional affair feels like it's much more about being connected, about loving or liking."

Alex Cusper, Pair service analyst, says that emotional affairs are pretty common. They happen more often nowadays because partners feel emotionally isolated from each other in relationships. The way out is to share feelings and thoughts with your loved one and be always supportive.

Pair, a leading mobile dating service, regularly conducts research among its users. Millions of people from the U.S., Canada, Britain and Australia answer hundreds of questions every month. You can find more about how to find the right people for you, learn about how Pair handles fake profiles, discover tips on how not to lose the right people on Pair, or check out using Invisible Mode on Pair. If you are interested in research on a particular topic, please contact us. Any reprint of the material should be followed by clickable links to the survey.