Whether it involves sending a flirty text or holding a secret office crush, drawing a hard line around the definition of cheating has always proven difficult for couples. For the vast majority in monogamous relationships, sleeping with someone outside the partnership or kissing another person at a club crosses an obvious boundary. However, gray areas often emerge around alternative behaviors, such as subscribing to an OnlyFans account or fantasizing about intimacy with someone else. Shedding light on these murky waters, YouGov has published its Big Survey On Relationships, asking the British public to evaluate what constitutes infidelity.
The research categorizes infidelity into two distinct types: physical cheating, defined as sleeping with someone outside the relationship, and emotional cheating, described as forming a deep emotional or romantic connection with another individual. According to the findings, opinions on these boundary lines diverge notably between genders.
How Men and Women View Infidelity Differently
Data from the YouGov research indicates that men are more inclined to express unhappiness over a sex-led affair at 46%, while being comparatively less troubled by emotional cheating at 20%. Conversely, the figures stand at 35% and 29% respectively among women. Meanwhile, roughly one in nine Brits, amounting to 11%, believe specific circumstances can make cheating socially acceptable. In stark contrast, 76% of respondents maintain that absolutely no reason justifies betraying a partner, even waning sexual intimacy.
Participants evaluated 12 specific behaviors to determine whether they count as infidelity. A clear majority agreed that six particular actions constitute cheating: having sex with someone else at 94%, sending nude photos at 82%, using a dating app while committed at 80%, kissing someone else at 73%, secretly messaging or meeting an ex-partner at 69%, and forming a deep emotional attachment at 52%. In every single scenario, a slightly smaller percentage of men compared to women labeled the behavior as cheating.
Where Public Opinion Shifts on Boundaries
The study also highlighted behaviors where more respondents felt they did not constitute cheating. These included directly engaging with sexual content creators like OnlyFans at 47%, developing romantic feelings without physical action at 40%, using AI chatbots for romantic or sexual chats at 30%, flirting at 26%, fantasizing about sex at 16%, and simply having a crush at 15%. Across all these categories, women were consistently more likely than men to view the activity as a form of unfaithfulness.
The Prevalence of Past Infidelity
Beyond perceptions, the survey revealed that nearly a quarter of Brits with past relationship experience, or 23%, confessed to past infidelity. Specifically, 17% admitted to a sexual relationship outside their partnership, 18% reported emotional disloyalty, and 12% acknowledged engaging in both forms. These insights demonstrate that while baseline agreements exist around physical acts, individual interpretations of emotional boundaries remain widely diverse.
