Are you micro-cheating? The new relationship buzz-word is dividing the media

Each year, some new buzz-word comes along to attempt to describe an aspect of human behaviour, generating countless clickbait listicles: 5 Signs You Were Raised By Helicopter Parents. 10 Signs Your Partner is “Stashing” You — and so on.

The term micro-cheating was coined by Australian psychologist Melanie Schilling, who has defined it as “a series of seemingly small actions that indicate a person is emotionally or physically focused on someone outside of the relationship”.

In response, Twitter spats broke out as people debated.

Is it micro-cheating to repeatedly like someone’s Instagram posts or constantly refresh the social media page of a work colleague? Many found the term ludicrous, with BBC Radio DJ Greg James tweeting “Reading an article about micro-cheating without telling your partner = Micro-cheating.”

Some were also quick to point out the dangers of the term, pointing out that it could validate controlling behaviour that may even be considered abusive: US relationship advice columnist Dan Savage tweeted: “You know who regards these sorts of behaviours as cheating? Abusers.”

Lots of the examples online do indeed suggest a thought-police level of control that definitely can’t be healthy. One online forum even used the example of a boyfriend sitting with his eyes closed for too long…because that could mean he might be thinking of someone he’s attracted to.

But other examples, such as keeping dating apps updated when you’re in a long-term relationship (um, hello?

What could that BE for?!), or entering someone’s phone number into your phone under a code name, seem more reasonable causes for concern.

By concentrating on specific actions rather than the intention behind them, we are probably missing Schilling’s point, though.

Waterford relationship counsellor Laura Walsh has 18 years’ experience counselling couples and she says that it’s the underlying sense of deception and betrayal that is the damaging thing, whether the cheating has been physical or whether it falls on the contestable spectrum of “emotional infidelities”.

“One thing that hasn’t really been addressed in articles about this so far is the awful self-doubt that comes about when there are subtle signs of deception,” Laura says.

You start to second-guess yourself and doubt your own instincts if your partner is not being open and honest with you. It’s a very toxic place to be in in a relationship.

The definition of what constitutes infidelity is entirely up to individual couples, with huge variation in what’s considered acceptable. What’s important, rather than specific actions, is whether there’s intentional deceit taking place, she says.

“Deception is a massive source of pain in the couples I have seen,” she says. “It’s as though the betrayal of any act, be that sex with someone else or sexting someone, is in the deception. Then comes the ‘what were you looking for?’ — the need to know.”

There may be a gender divide when it comes to what we view as emotional infidelity. Men’s Health magazine asked 2,400 men and women what constituted micro-cheating, and there was a clear divide in the results.

Only 22% of men thought they were cheating if they used the services of an online “camgirl,” while 47% of women did.

Some 62% of women thought that a man taking a woman he knew he was attracted to dinner constituted an infidelity, while 43% of men did. Only three-quarters of men thought that sexting someone else was cheating, while 94% of women did.

It’s certainly true in Laura’s experience that there’s a general tendency for men to have a more physical view of what constitutes cheating, while women tend to focus more on the emotional aspects, she says.

When it comes to the emotional aspects of an affair, women want to know ‘why her?’ and about the love side of the affair. Men tend to feel very diminished sexually by the fact that she’s been with someone else.

There seems to be an online or social media aspect to most of the examples of micro-cheating floating around. Laura, who is based in Tramore, and who trained in the UK before becoming a member of the Irish Association of Counsellors and Psychotherapists (IACP), says that digital interference has formed an increasingly large role in marital strife.

“People come in now and talk about texts they’ve seen,” she says.

When smartphones first came in and people could actually track their partner, I had couples coming in with this dreadful sense of betrayal: ‘I’ve been tracked, he’s been watching where I am from his desktop.’ That’s all new stuff.

The explosion of interest around micro-cheating could point to how much stress this digital minefield is putting on relationships. Is micro-cheating nothing more than paranoia caused by a world where, increasingly, we have the illusion that we can know our partners’ every move? How healthy is that anyway?

According to a recent survey of UK long-term couples, one or both partners had secretly read each others’ texts and emails in a third of couples, while one in five had checked their partner’s browsing history.

“Our natural curiosity is being put under the microscope and we’re being criticised and monitored by social media,” Laura says.

“So much is in text or on social media, that our every word can be examined. I think that makes people way more open to being judged as having emotionally cheated these days.”

“How do we even get our heads around being able to 24/7 see where our partner is?” Laura asks.

“We’re being made to experience a new kind of intensity of relationship that we never had to before. But it’s mind-boggling: if you were a very jealous individual, imagine how much power you have with modern technology… and how much it has the power to do your head in.”

It’s a destructive power, too: in a 2012 university study, where two-thirds of respondents admitted to snooping through their partners’ phones and social media accounts, 28% of relationships got worse as a result of “partner monitoring”.

Laura says that if you find yourself drawn to constant online monitoring, it may be yourself you need to look at, rather than your partner.

We can’t police everything. If you don’t trust your partner you can either look at what they’re doing, or you can look at your own behaviour and ask, what am I doing? What is happening with me, that I’m not trusting?

"But the subtleties of what we’re talking about make it difficult, because it’s hard to know. Could he send the same text to a guy friend, would that be fine? If not, there may be something to talk about.”

Admitting to feelings of jealousy can be intensely uncomfortable, but online snooping isn’t a substitute for communication, so it’s better to bite the bullet, put down the device and disclose your worries.

The effects of micro-cheating behaviours can be erosive, not least because, Laura says, they can be a sign of emotional detachment: “Some people can’t attach to one person because of emotional intimacy issues.

You’re not going to stop being attracted to people just because you’ve been married or in a relationship for a long time. We’re all human, and it’s important to have relationships with other adults that aren’t about love and intimacy. But it’s about withholding intimacy from your partner, that’s when it’s a problem.

“If someone’s not emotionally available, their partner may be trying and trying and trying to move closer with no result, which is really hurtful.”

Laura says that, no matter how much technology might change, the basics of strong relationships, communication, trust, and an equal mutual input into the relationship, haven’t.

And when it comes to the vagaries of micro-cheating, there’s only one basic rule: “It’s emotional cheating when you intend it to be.”