Is online intimacy can be considered as cheating on unsuspecting spouse?

@GlassDog having coffee together & confiding can be harmless but when it gets deeper, can be detrimental to both parties with spouses not knowing their closeness. That's the thin dividing line between friendship & affair.

@1Dogma Yes, exactly. It can spill over. It's just difficult to know exactly where that point is. And, also, where our spouse thinks that point is.

@GlassDog Just don't tell wife that you had coffee with your bestfriend. Not good if she finds out that the bf was a woman. 😉

@1Dogma True.
I have a protocol for when I read someone saying "harmless" flirting with others, when in a relationship.
I file the entrance in the same box as "vegetarian hienas", "flying winged hippopotamus", "plain earth" and "squared circles".

@CharlieZ 😁 I got you

@1Dogma 😁

@DivinityinMotion little form of betrayals.

@firefall why worse? Physical intimacy has more weight, I believe.

@1Dogma Bodies are nice, but emotional intimacy is more important to me, and the idea my partner has fallen in love with someone else hurts worse than that they had an itch and scratched it

@firefall hmmnn...point taken on itch to scratch vs. emotionally falling inlove.

@Northwest I agree...but the last line, I think both weigh heavy.

@1Dogma While they may both weigh heavily, losing someone's heart, in my opinion, is something you probably cannot recover from.

@SW-User May be I´m wrong.
But I see that the source of disagreement here is about semantics on the meaning and nature of the "intimacy" expression.
We all have or should have a certain kind of valuable emotional intimacy with friends of the opposite gender / sex. And that is quite good!
Good as long as never collide to the kind of intimacy (another meaning) that we agreeded to reserve for monogamous couples.
That exclusivity includes the sexual one in their physical side.
But it´s far to be restricted by that one.
There is and should be an emotional gender role based área that is part of the exclusive complicity of the couples and that is not available for friends, no it matter how close they are.
Let me give you a bit extreme analogy.
I can talk ABOUT sex with a female friend or my SISTER.
But entertaining any talk that may be construed as sexually charged personal mutual attraction (even if with jockingly sexual only subtones or fliirting) is, for my use, out of the board so with my sister as with a friend, provided that at least one of us is in a relationship.

And this, yes, is subject to nesessary open communication.
But, as trust is related to choices over what we DO and not on concious intent, not even communication is enough.
Intentions and thoughts mean near to nothing if they are reasons to step over agreed boundaries.

So, we´d better say on what kind of intimacy are we talking about.

@CharlieZ I agree with you in part. The problem is that each person's ideas on non - sexual, emotional intimacy is different. To me, it wouldn't bother me if my significant other made a general sexual innuendo joke in front of other friends. It WOULD bother me, however, if that joke was specific or specifically addressed toward another woman in the group. For example, if everyone is talking about a subject like favorite sex positions and he says "I love to bend a woman over a table and take her from behind".... fine. But if he says to his best friend who is in the group, "I'd love to bend YOU over the table and take you from behind" then we'd have a problem.... but that would be MY personal opinion and boundary. Each couple has their own and they should be made clear within the individual relationship. Others may look on and say something is inappropriate, but if a couple has decided together, that for their relationship that thing is appropriate, no-one else matters. That's why I say it's not a cut and dry thing for everyone.

@SW-User Well we should marry our bestfriends.

@Turtlepower For me, love maybe vague to understand but isn't weird. Abusive people use all the loving words to manipulate. Hurting the person you love is illogical. In fact it's insane. People who hurt their beloved have mental issues. Again, just my opinion. I better leave than to hurt. Hurting my beloved means hurting myself too and I'm neither a sadist or masochist.

@1Dogma I'm talking about the abused person who is still saying they love the other person despite the abuse. That's no different than me saying I love my wife despite no sex. Just saying it's not always black and white.

@Turtlepower Yeah words can be poweful. Some people are gullible.

@1Dogma 🤔

@SW-User 😉

@1Dogma 😛

@Reflection2 that's life. Cheaters are everywhere.

@SW-User well some people are decent enough to create alibis so they can be forgiven as cheats. Sexless marriage, lack.of intimacy, abusive relationship..etc

@1Dogma yeppers, we justify anything to make ourselves seem right in it. Just the way it is. But we shouldn't call others out for the way they sin different

@SW-User Well, we are all sinners. But there are beautiful sins that are tempting.

@Magenta people can be hideous.

@SW-User I have no one to ask. Lol

Haha. 😉. @1Dogma