Is Cuddling Cheating or Not? How To Read Between the Blurry Lines

What is cheating to you? Is it kissing or is it sex? Is it an emotional connection? And, is cuddling cheating too? How far are you able to go?

What does it mean to cheat on your partner? Sex? Emotional affair? Kissing? Is cuddling cheating too? Every single person on this planet has a different definition of what is and isn’t cheating.

The lines are blurry, and it often comes down to it happening and understanding how you feel about it at the time.

For instance, you might say that you don’t believe kissing is cheating, but then if your partner is caught kissing someone else, how would you feel? Would you be okay with it? Would you feel upset and then get over it? Or would you suddenly feel so hurt that you can’t overcome the emotion?

It really is something that you can’t know for sure until you’re right there, in the moment. I also hope that you’re never in the situation where you are right there, in the moment too.

Within those blurred lines, is cuddling cheating to you? This is something often hotly debated.

[Read: Understanding relationships and what is cheating]

Is cuddling cheating to you, or is it nothing?

How do you feel about cuddling? What is a cuddle to you? Do you class a cuddle as the same as a hug?

It really comes down to your own personal definition. Because this is such a personal deal, let me share my view on it and see if you agree at the end.

To me, a hug is something fleeting, designed with comfort in mind but doesn’t really mean anything. You can hug anyone and it doesn’t mean that you have feelings or that you even like them. It’s a way of delivering comfort or saying “hey, it’s okay.”

On the other hand, a cuddle is a little more in-depth.

A cuddle is longer and with more body contact, and in my opinion, it communicates more feelings. In many ways, a cuddle is part of an emotional connection. [Read: 16 non-sexual touches that make you feel loved and connected]

So, when you ask is cuddling cheating, ask whether it involves emotions. If it does, then does cuddling work as part of emotional cheating?

Couples cuddle in bed in the morning or last thing at night. It’s a way of feeling better, sharing body heat, feeling the warmth of the person you care about against you, and it basically causes all those feel good endorphins to be released and help you to feel better about everything negative that’s gone on during that day.

So, would you want your partner doing that for another person?

Again, it’s a personal answer, but for me, no.

Would I class it as cheating? Possibly not cheating as a deal breaker, but I wouldn’t be too impressed with the situation, and it would lead me to question what else was going on that I wasn’t aware of.

You see, cuddling doesn’t happen without any type of communication or connection, it’s not something you do randomly to someone who’s just started in the office at work, or someone you barely know. For cuddling to happen, there is a background of some kind, although it may be perfectly platonic.

[Read: 15 cuddle buddy rules to avoid turning into fuck buddies]

The problem with cheating is …

The biggest issue with cheating is that there is no clear definition of what it is. There are no clear cut lines, no definitives, and no absolutes. You might be in a relationship with someone that only considers sex with someone else as cheating. On the other hand, you might have several other definitions in your mind, such as sexting, social media messaging, emotional cheating, etc.

In that case, is cuddling cheating to your partner? That’s the question you should find out the answer to. You need to be on the same page. There can’t really be any blurred lines when it comes to what you deem to be cheating as an absolute and what you don’t. But, at the same time, you might experience something in your relationship that you suddenly don’t feel comfortable with. As a result, you wonder what else is going on. [Read: 18 emotional affair signs you probably never noticed before]

As I said before, if my partner was caught in a rather cozy cuddle with someone else, I would certainly be wondering if there was any background to it that I needed to know. I would also want to know why they felt it was okay to share close body space with another person, when I know for sure if I was to do it, they wouldn’t be too impressed with it!

So, how can you have the conversation about what is and isn’t cheating with your partner without sounding all negative?

This is something which you need to get right. You can’t sit down and launch into a “we need to talk about cheating” conversation. It’s far better to try in a subtle way. Maybe if cheating comes up during watching a movie together, make a flippant comment, such as “I wouldn’t want my partner doing that …” and then watch their reaction.

Blurred lines simply lead to confusion and upset in the end. Communicate what you really want and what you really see as cheating. The things you won’t accept under any circumstances.

However, it’s also worth remembering, you can never be 100% sure how you’re going to feel about anything until it happens. [Read: Is flirting cheating when you’re already in a relationship?]

My personal experience with cheating

I’ll give you my personal story here. I’m not looking for sympathy, by the way.

I was cheated on. It was horrible. I wasn’t sure of anything for a while, but I’m still with my partner. You might be shaking your head now and wondering if I’ve lost my mind, but that’s the thing – you cannot be sure about anything until you’re in that situation.

Cheating doesn’t always mean the end. Sometimes it means a wake up call to fix a problem that you weren’t even sure was there in the first place. [Read: Affairs in a relationship and the mysterious role of egos in it]

We’re better than we’ve ever been now, but I can’t say I’d want to go through it all again to learn the lesson. So, to avoid you going through it, I want you to know that even though you might have hard boundaries and lines about cheating, even if you’re still asking yourself is cuddling cheating and you’re not sure about it, it’s vital that you keep an open mind in any relationship situation.

Sure, if you have firm boundaries you should stick to them, but also remember that nothing in life is certain. As my story shows, sometimes you have to simply go with it and see how you feel about it after the dust has settled.

For me, if it happened again, that would be my hard line, but for some people, even the first time would be the end.

Learning how you feel about cheating of any kind is something you’ll never know until it happens. You think you know, trust me I did, but you can’t really be sure. All you can do is know what you consider to be cheating and what you don’t.

[Read: What is micro-cheating? Are you guilty of it?]

Is cuddling cheating to you? That’s a question to explore. And while doing so, explore whether there is an emotional connection to that cuddle. If not, surely it’s just a hug, and not an actual cuddle.