English is not my first language but I get that most people who talk about cheating are talking about sex with a lover without their partners knowing or being Ok with it.

My experience is probably not what you imagine. To the point that I don’t really know if there was a lover or not. Neither I really care. I caught the ex lying several times about plenty of things (like saying that he went with a friend and talking with that person and that person not knowing about what I was talking about).

I started seeing a pattern in his lies. At some point, I realized that I could even anticipate his lies and even get easy proof of that (we had common friends, so I could ask, did you like that movie? And the person says that they didn’t see it yet when supposedly they have gone with ex). Maybe he lied because he didn’t want to see the movie, maybe he was with a lover. And there was plenty of those interactions, with him telling me he had done something with friends, but those friends had no clue of that thing.

I stopped believing what he said and decided that it was irrelevant if he had a lover or not, I didn’t bother to investigate. But I needed to believe what my partner said. I mean, for all I know, he could not have a lover and I would still have a problem with being lied to. And he also made promises that he wouldn’t keep only to say that he never promised that.

There was no point in confrontation or talking because I knew he would lie to my face (again) and nothing he could say would make me believe him since I was convinced that he would lie to my face again.

As you can see, the possibility of sex never bugged me. But being lied to my face did. Incidentally, he believed that “the good in the relationship compensated the bad, that I should work more on the relationship (apparently cooking wasn’t enough, he wanted favorite dish and more attention on my part which probably would have meant that I would catch him in more lies) and that we should “give it another try”. He also was ridiculously jealous. As in getting pissed if I went to see the movie he supposedly has already seen with other people if there were men in the group (absurd).

For me, it was the opposite, I thought the relationship was not worth it and that I didn’t want to double-check what a boyfriend told me all the time. That I should be able to take his word and don’t feel like an idiot for doing that.

So I broke up and it was a relief. The drama came from his part because, in his mind, I must have been cheating (having sex with another man).

I’m quite consistent with my view:

Cheat = lies + deception + sex.

I don’t mind sex, but I do mind lies and deception. Since cheating implies lies and deception too, I do mind cheating. You only are looking at a part of the equation (sex), but not the part I care about (lies + deception). Cheating involves the 3. Nonmonogamy removes the problematic parts for me.

That doesn’t mean that other people can’t care about the sex part. It has to do with expectations and promises. The default for most people is monogamous. So unless you specifically talk about open, they would feel betrayed if someone has a lover. And betrayal always hurts.