Recently I had the amazing opportunity to be a guest on my friends podcast. Which is amazing by the way, and will be linked at the bottom. The top was “What Exactly is Cheating?”. The question we ALL want to know. For my friends who are more of readers than podcast listeners, I wanted to write a piece on my opinion of cheating.

So my personal definition is that cheating is the act or decision to cheat someone out of an experience. Now this experience can be a conversation, a date, an emotional connection, a text message, etc. If you have an opportunity present itself and you hide that from your partner because you know it’s wrong… CHEATERRRRRR!

With that being said, a rule of thumb I use in my relationship is “If did this action to my partner, would I be okay with them doing it back to me?”… Well would you? This brings me to the word of the hour RECIPROCATION. Any action that my partner does, if reciprocated should not have any effect on our relationship and vice versa. And I use this term because it is very vague. Every relationship is different. In Caribbean culture whining is nothing, maybe in a Southern American household whining on someone at a party is a no go. Maybe cheating looks like not telling your partner about a new love interest in a polygamous relationship, where a new love interest is COMPLETELY cut off in a monogamous relationship. To each their own. The point is, if you decided to act on something, how would you feel if done to you?

This brings me to my next point; how do you define cheating for your relationship? We all know the first 3 months are the honey moon stage, and we are all so smitten. We tend to forget to have these conversations up front. Personally speaking im so in love the first 3 months that I forget to have conversations on a lot of things. Then later down I am confused like wait wtf, who am I dating now? LOL. But I find these days that having these conversations in the dating phase/getting to know you phase leaves no room for error. Say your partner goes out and does something, but you guys never set boundaries how do you handle that? If dancing was never an issue for you, but for them exactly how do you handle that situation? Yes moving forward, you guys are on the same page. But imagine all the trouble you would’ve saved by tackling these conversations of what cheating looks like for you in a relationship.

Okay, so… why do people cheat? Again these are my personal opinions. I truly believe people cheat because of a lack of something. To be honest this lack of something can be anything ranging from attention, emotional reassurance, time, conversation, finances. And the list goes so on and so forth. How do we make sure this doesn’t happen? communication, communication and dag on communication. Check in on each other. have the conversations. “Listen babe, I know you’ve been working hard but I am missing how we used to lay in bed and watch our favorite show together. Maybe we can try that again”. This brings me back to my word of the hour…. RECIPROCATION! In the event that you knew your partner was missing something, and felt the need to step out how would you want them to go about that? And 10 times out of 10 you want your partner to be upfront, and honest, and tell you how they feel as well as what they need. Or at least I’d hope thats what you’d want.

Anyways, with that said dont let anyone take you fi eeediattttttt. YOU ARE THAT & YOU ARE WORTHY 🙂

For more on cheating make sure to tune into the latest episode of Adversity Hour where you will hear the host and good friend of mine Miesha, her friend, and myself talk more about this topic. Hope you guys enjoy!