What is digital infidelity?

Discovering your partner has been cheating is devastating. The pain of infidelity can be overwhelming as it’s the ultimate betrayal of your trust and commitment. While some couples can move on from this, many cannot, and infidelity leads to the complete breakdown of the relationship.

Traditional forms of infidelity

Traditionally, cheating has been either physical, in the form of an extra-marital affair (once grounds for divorce), or emotional. Emotional affairs can be just as destructive. The impact of knowing that your partner has formed a deep and intimate connection with someone else is hard to get over. In fact, many feel dealing with this type of emotional betrayal is harder than physical betrayal.

The impact of digital communication on infidelity

It is estimated that 83% of the UK population use social media (Statista, January 2024). This means that it has never been easier to communicate and connect with our family, friends, acquaintances, exes and strangers, based anywhere in the world.

If one of you is looking for an affair, digital communication makes it easy. It offers the advantage of removing the risk of being seen, provides unlimited access to that person and gives you a private space in which to get to know them. This greatly increases the risk of emotional affairs.

The issue of intent

For those embarking on a digital relationship, there is an issue of intent. What is motivating the communication? If it is to generate an intimate or sexual connection with someone, then this can be defined as digital infidelity.

What constitutes digital infidelity?

While it is hard to provide a definitive definition of a digital affair, anything that betrays the trust of a primary relationship counts.

• This might include:
  – Sending flirtatious, romantic or sexually explicit messages to someone other than your partner
  – Sexting – sharing intimate images and videos with someone other than your partner.
  – Hiding any online communication from your partner.
  – Developing a relationship online that rivals and undermines your primary relationship.

While digital infidelity may not lead to a physical affair, it nevertheless builds emotional intimacy and a deep connection, which would devastate the trust of a committed relationship.

How to protect your relationship from digital fidelity

It’s important to establish what constitutes digital infidelity between you and your partner. What are you both comfortable with and what would constitute crossing a line? If you establish boundaries together and one of you then breaks these, this action would deliberately undermine the trust in your relationship.

If you are struggling with the impact of divorce and separation, we offer a no obligation initial consultation for a fixed fee of £100 (incl. VAT), for up to one hour. At this meeting, we can advise you on all the issues relating to your personal circumstances, allowing you to make informed decisions moving forward.
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