As new co-workers, friends, and acquaintances enter your lives and social feeds, new opportunities for micro-cheating will come up. And be specific! Is DMing anyone and everyone on Instagram a no-no? Or just people you’ve previously dated or had an interest in? Is physical affection always inappropriate, or just when it’s directed towards single friends? Is talking with a co-worker after-hours always unfair, or just when it happens over text (as opposed to email)? That may entail better prioritizing quality time, starting to schedule sex, or engaging in more PDA.Ĭhat about what counts as cheating and micro-cheating. Because micro-cheating is usually indicative of issues within the relationship, work with your partner to rectify that. Take steps to strengthen your relationship.
(And be sure your partner has space to share their feelings, too!). Head to neutral territory (think: park, parked car, coffee shop), then, get realll well, real, about what you’re feeling and where you think that feeling is stemming from. And that’s good reason to reconsider your relationship.īut, if your partner responds with care, and is open to changing their behavior and setting boundaries, your relationship could grow stronger.īuilding boundaries where there previously weren’t any can be tricky.
“If they blow you off saying ‘it’s no big deal,’ or make you feel needy or unreasonable, that’s a form of gaslighting,” says Engle. “We’ve been seeing each other for a few months now, and I’d love to have a conversation about deleting dating apps off our phones and not ‘swiping just for kicks’ anymore.”.
Would you be open to a conversation about social media and boundaries?”
muting someone or deleting a text exchange so your partner won’t find out you’re chatting.paying more attention to someone who isn’t your partner than your actual partner at a party.always replying to a specific person’s Instagram story.This means that anything from downloading the new dating app Lex “just to check it out!” to playing with a friend’s hair, double-tapping an ex’s Instagram photo, or having regular, ahem, extended lunches with a co-worker could count. Again, it all depends on what things count as cheating in your relationship.