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As bad as things sometimes are, you're not ready to break-up. Your partner has really made you mad, doesn't listen to you sometimes and doesn't seem interested in what concerns you. You aren't ready to call the moving company, but you probably bitch to your friends. Maybe a lot. You may feel hurt and end up doing things you know will annoy him, like going out more with your girlfriends or buying really expensive shoes. Its not that you don't love him, you're just…angry.
You'll both get over it. Everyone fights now and then, right? It doesn't mean you don't love each other. But the fights are getting uglier…and you're fighting about the same things without really making any progress.
This is what the pre-cheating phase of relationships look like.
No one engages in cheating behavior because he or she doesn’t care. While there may be the occasional relationship-impaired individual who doesn't even consider fidelity, most people expect to be faithful to their partners. When you first get together, you love one another. He makes you laugh, makes you feel better during your hormonal days and is generally the one you want to talk to when life's a bitch. It doesn't, however, stay this way.
Just in the nature of human interaction, every relationship involves conflict. Moments when you could scream. Really annoying habits, like her always leaving two or three bras hanging on the bedroom door knob. Or him leaving the toilet seat up. If you've got a relationship, you've got conflict.
The pre-cheating phase is one in which conflicts have arisen and not been adequately resolved. Over time, you can start to feel like your partner doesn't really care if you feel okay about the situation you're fighting over. And if you're feelings don't matter, the bedrock of your love starts to crumble a little.
The other woman laughs at your jokes, finds you really sexy and doesn't bitch about the same old things. She likes you. She wants your body. Little by little, you find yourself feeling closer to her than to the woman you're going home to.
Maybe you start exchanging racy emails with the other guy. There might be phone calls that start out with you trying to get "a guy's point of view." It doesn't feel like cheating because you're talking about your mate. You're trying to understand him. And yet, you find yourself talking to your guy friend four and five times a day. He understands you. You may answer your phone with a lilt in your voice when he calls while there may be a sense of heaviness when your mate phones. Will there be another fight? Is he mad because you didn't pay a bill? Or talk to the kid's teacher at school, as he requested?
You're not thinking of cheating because you still love your spouse, but cheating isn't something that happens suddenly. First, estrangement grows in relationships. You begin having more and more times when you don't feel close to your mate. Times when you aren't sure that you matter that much to her.
Cheating on your mate may not have even occurred to you, but problems in relationship--when left unattended--poison love. And when love is lying gasping on the floor, cheating doesn't seem like cheating. Its like turning away from darkness to what seems like light.
Relationships cycle, if you're not paying attention. They bloom, then regular life happens, then the relationship can start to corrode if you don't deal with the issues. On the downward swing, you may find yourself falling out of love with your mate and into attraction with someone else.
More and more couples are identifying 'emotional cheating'. This is generally a sign of things going bad. Pay attention to how you feel in relationships. Listen to how your mate feels. Deal with the issues or they'll end up killing the love. Don't let yourself slip into the Pre-Cheating Phase. Its the beginning of the end.
