Mental Cheating

Hello Everyone!! In today's post I want to talk about what I like to call "Mental Cheating".  Since I began writing "Love Bites", more and more people have come to me with their problems, suggestions and questions about their relationships.  One particular suggestion I got from a friend and reader was to write about "Long Distance Cheating".  This concept grabbed my attention right away because, what exactly makes long distance cheating different than regular cheating?  After further discussion and some research I realize that he meant cheating with someone who you NEVER meet. Let me elaborate... Cheating in my book mean being in a committed relationship with a person and doing something with the opposite with another "partner" that your partner would not allow.  This obviously means sex, touching, kissing and things of the physical nature, but I think it also covers heavy flirting, intimate phone calls, intimate meetings, "Sexting", and much more. Just because you don't actually have intercourse, its still sort of cheating.

Now here's what I like to call "Mental Cheating".  Mental cheating is having an intimate relationship with someone that you never meet in person.  This differs from long distance cheating because the distance doesn't matter, the parties involved will most likely never meet and probably have very little desire to do so.  The person who asked me about this is a handsome man (lets call him John), he is in a committed relationship with a beautiful woman who he is very in love with, and they have started a family together.  He explained to me that over the past year he has begin speaking to other females on the Internet, and more recently over the phone and he feels like hes sort of cheating on his spouse.  I began to ask him why and his reasons we very interesting and eye opening.  John told me that over the years his girlfriend has begun to show him less and less passion and enthusiasm about the relationship. He met a woman online who seemed very interested in him physically and they began chatting.  This woman made John laugh and was interesting, and most importantly found John interesting.  She and John would text and call each other, they would send each other funny emails, and talk about their families, they even Sexted!  John thought she was beautiful inside and out, from what he could gather, and he felt very sexy and wanted when speaking to her.  She lived in another town and they never met.  In my book, that's cheating.  Particularly the Sexting.  I am pretty sure that if his significant other knew about this she would feel violated and unhappy with the situation, so why did he do this? 

He told me that he did this to feel special, and to have a woman feel passionately about him and be interested in everything he did. Over the years his girlfriend had begun to show less and less enthusiasm about him and he sought this from this other woman.  He said that part of him did want to someday meet her, but a part of him didn't. He felt like the relationship was perfect just the way it was.  He had his girlfriend who he loved, he had his family, and he had her, when he needed to talk, or wanted to feel manly, sexy, wanted, and reassured in a way that his wife no longer made him feel. 

What are your thoughts on this?  Do you think "Mental Cheating" is as bad as the real thing? Do you think its more common than we know?