Is cheating/having an affair the same as lying?

Cheating is 100x worse. There are legitimate reasons to tell people shit that isn't true. Other people don't need to know about your medical conditions, or your sex life, or your goddamn family, but insist that they do. But choosing to get into a committed relationship with someone and then going on to destroy your partner's feelings and decieve him/her? There is no acceptable reason for that, outside of some absurd case of coercion that shouldn't necessarily even be called 'cheating.'

Sometimes, life puts you into difficult situations, and lying becomes necessary to survive them. But if you cheat, you put yourself into that situation, and you better believe you'll be hated for it.