CHEATING MYTH: “IF IT AIN’T SEX, IT AIN’T CHEATING” or if you prefer CHEATING MYTH: “WHEN IT COMES TO CHEATING, SIZE MATTERS”

BADASS COUSELING NEWSLETTER, FEBRUARY 2026

Copyright 2026.

(an excerpt from Sven’s EXCITING! and soon-to-be-released, comprehensive, self-revealing new book on cheating)

CHAPTER 4

CHEATING MYTH: “IF IT AIN’T SEX, IT AIN’T CHEATING”

or if you prefer

CHEATING MYTH: “WHEN IT COMES TO CHEATING, SIZE MATTERS”

Small is still cheating.

            Just because a cheater can get away with it, defend it to the point of overwhelming their partner into letting it go, hide it, or even sorta deny it to themself or their friends doesn’t mean it’s not cheating.

Just ask their spouse.

 Jetta

Figlio was, for decades, one of the most well-known restaurant/bar hot spots in Minneapolis. It was there that I found myself for Friday happy hour one sunny May afternoon, when I got to talking with an enchanting, fiery woman, named Jetta.

Hot, dark hair, in her mid-thirties, with a female friend, Jetta’s smile lit up the entire room. She hadn’t done anything overt to invite me to join her, but she and her friend were giving off a great energy. So, even if nothing became of it, I knew it would be easy to approach them and that we’d at least enjoy a lively conversation.

Jetta had a ring on her finger, but she and her friend were game to chat. We laughed and drank together for several hours before they hit the road. There had clearly been sparks between Jetta and me. After flirty looks from her, I wasn’t shy about nuzzling into her neck and kissing her ears at one point. But she was elusive enough that I figured it was over when they left . . . until I walked the two blocks back to my car.

Walking down South Hennepin, I was going to call Nate, one of the big horses I drank with on occasion. Scrolling through my cell phone’s contact list, I saw a name that didn’t belong, right there among the J’s.

I suddenly remembered how, back at Figlio, Jetta had been messing with my phone when I was talking with her friend. I figured she was just being an ass, or something. Now I discovered I’d been wrong. It was the first time ever a gal (and a married one, at that), actually programmed her name and number, quite unsolicited, into my flip phone.

So, what the hell! I called her up and chewed her ass. She loved it. We flirted some more as she drove back home to her husband. I was liquored up just enough to really enjoy it.

A day or two later, Jetta and I spoke again. Again the flirtation, again the talk of getting together for more fun. And then – true to form – I began asking questions about her, even though I’d had no deliberate intention of doing so. Within an hour, we were deep into heavy counseling. A full-on client session, right there on the phone with a girl who flat-out stated she wanted to hook up. As often happens, I was able to pinpoint for her precisely what the problem was in her marriage and, quite blithely, challenge her to look at who she really was and what she was really doing.

She took it in the spirit intended. As if cold water had been kindly splashed in her face, she ended our call with an apology for wasting my time (though she hadn’t) and asked me to delete her number from my cell, which I, of course, did.

Despite her flirtations with the mother of all marital disasters, she realized very starkly that she did not want to go down the cul-de-sac she’d turned onto. To her credit, a dose of reality had jolted her back on course. She stated very plainly, “Y’know, Sven, I love my husband. I really do.”

            She knew what she was doing and that it was wrong. But the level of wrong didn’t outweigh the level of pain or discontent in her marriage, until I gently forced her to look at it.

            That was that. I got the joy of a new experience (a salty chick surreptitiously programming her number into my phone) and the treat of knowing I’m just dumb enough to drive a hungry woman back to her husband. Not a bad week.  

 When They Let Down Their Guard

Do you have any idea how little work it really takes to connect with a married person who has already allowed their eye to stray? As we explored in the previous chapter, co-cheaters don’t need to do much to “convince” the other person to have an affair. Quite honestly, the cheater will often do the work of pursuing someone else. It’s stunning, really. Sad, but stunning.

What we didn’t explore was the reason why it’s so easy for them to put thought to action, and I think the reason is sneakier than you might suspect. See, married people are already more relaxed around the opposite sex than they were when single. They’ve generally let down their fear of getting hit on and/or rejected, because they’re taken – and they have the ring to prove it. The ring on that finger makes them safe, or at least they thought it did, earlier in their marriage. Now, that sense of safety can breed a relaxation. The same ease that they’ve acquired over years of marriage becomes a potential cheating death trap, because it removes a normally formidable wall to befriending people who might be a love interest. Combine that with the innate belief that they are no longer as “desirable” to others as an unmarried would be and you’ve kicked the door wide open for an affair.

Once that person who is in a season of marital unrest strikes up a conversation with a potential co-cheater and is met with kindness, they begin to feel stuff inside that they haven’t felt in a long time. Before you know it, they’re obsessing about the guy at the coffee shop, the new temp at work, or the trainer or yoga instructor. It’s on her mind while she’s doing the laundry or on his mind while he’s taking the kids to football practice.

So, by becoming more comfortable with people who would formerly stir great anxiety, they simultaneously position themselves to be more susceptible and receptive to an affair, after their marriage has sucked so much life out of them. They now have the social tools to get their needs met elsewhere, if for no other reason than the ring gives them a polite way out if things get uncomfortable.

 What Counts as Cheating?

I don’t define cheating by any one physical barrier. In fact, quite often, cheating is not physical, at all. A great many people – some would say most – acknowledge that an emotional affair, with no physical component, is in fact cheating and can be just as damaging, or more. Some have experienced financial cheating, where one is secretly investing, stealing, risking, gambling family money on the sly, or even paying for past kids or lovers with joint funds, unbeknownst to their partner. Some will fight the cheating discussion with the belief that only sexual intercourse counts as cheating. I’ve heard some victims argue, quite interestingly, that their partner’s actions of sex and intercourse weren’t cheating, because there was no emotional component. There are some who say, “Defining cheating is slippery, but I know it when I see it.”

Of course, no one will be quicker to argue with you more on the definition of cheating than someone caught in adultery, always proclaiming what they did, no matter what it was or how bad it was, absolutely was not cheating, or not as bad as you’re making it out to be. Their self-preservation enables them to overlook the pain of their partner, not to mention the obvious illogic of their words. See, more often than not, a cheater largely defines cheating as “that which I cannot somehow defend and get away with it.”

For the purposes of this book, I basically define cheating as:

#1 Definition of Cheating (Long Form)

-       A movement away from the relationship and it’s direction and promises; &

-       Hurtful action toward your partner (if they knew); &

-       Violates the terms of the relationship contract, whether sexual, emotional, financial, or other; &

-       If some sort of relationship affair, it’s with a member of the gender-of-attraction; &

-       The cheater knows it’s wrong or crosses a line; &/or

-       The cheater would be hurt if it were done to them; &

-       Taking advantage; &

-       It’s secret.

#2 Definition of Cheating (Specific)

Would it hurt your partner,

specifically regarding a person of your gender-of-attraction?

#3 Definition of Cheating (General & Brash)
Is it secret?

That’s it. Other than Christmas and special occasions,

if anything is secret, it’s a 99% lock that it’s cheating of some variety.

Generally, though couples may bicker about minutiae, each partner has a clear understanding of what constitutes cheating in the eyes of the other. More often than not, the cheater knows inside themself that what they are doing is wrong in both their eyes and their partner’s eyes, whether they admit it or not. In most affairs that line happens waaay before the humping (if it’s that kind of cheating). That’s why it’s kept a secret 99.99% of the time.

The cheater who claims not to feel, or know these things is just tricking themself or flat out lying to their partner.

Parenthetically, this book deals primarily with sexual/emotional cheating, even though I’ve had couples struggle with a partner falling in love with their work, the kids, their hobby, or any number of other passions that pulled them out of the marriage, including one family which accused the old-school father of falling in love with his tractor. Such pursuits are touched on, but not the primary focus as cheating herein.

 “Honey, I Met Someone Interesting”

If your spouse comes home from the coffee shop and says, “I met the most fascinating person at the coffee shop, this morning,” there’s a high probability you have marriage problems, or your partner does. You had ’em leading up to that point, but you’re about to have even more. Or, more accurately, your marriage problems are soon going to be far more visible (than the likely fighting or coldness that’s been going on for some time).

Okay, now I know anyone with even an ounce of scientific ability in their head read that and thought, that is the most absolutist BS in this already BS book. Such a small thing can indicate so much? No way! That’s just dumb!

And that’s a fine hypothesis, but I can tell you as someone who has tested it, who’s been out there in the trenches of therapy with these couples or in the trenches of co-cheating with wives of other men and women, I can name at least a handful of my own cheats, just off the top of my head, where the wife said precisely that.

Because here’s the thing: All affairs (apart from 1-nighters with sex workers) start as friendships. All of them. Even if the friendship period is very short. (Remember what I said before about married people letting down their guard?) And since we’ve already established that people cheat because of what’s going on internally – not because the other person is so irresistible – they are meeting Mr. Interesting at Starbucks, or Ms. Intriguing on social media when they are already in a particularly vulnerable place.

I can already hear your next argument: “Yeah, but Sven, that’s not the point. Sure, I can see how affairs would start as friendships, and sure cheating indicates problems. Fine. But that does not in any way mean that just because my spouse or I meet someone intriguing at the coffee shop, it’s a guarantee of cheating and problems.”

To which I say: That’s exactly what the seemingly innocuous (though utterly specious) admission hopes to convey – complete innocence and harmlessness. Because if someone is using language like intriguing, interesting, and fascinating, the reality is their heart and mind are stepping toward someone else. Those are words of engagement, not disengagement. Otherwise, it would just be, “I met a random person” at the gym/coffee shop/flight today. There’d be no “intriguing” or “captivating.” Telling you about it simply creates the illusion of transparency, as if it is no big deal, while it is likely masking deeper feelings and soon-to-be actions.

I’ve seen it. I’ve lived it. I was that “intriguing” guy, not because I’m particularly fascinating, but because I stuck out from her normal life, was in the right place at the right time, and because I took an interest in her…and that made all the difference..

These tiniest of indicators grow from infinitesimally small and almost invisible to full-on consuming passion. When you’ve watched the patterns play out so many times from so many angles, you learn that the slightest shifts have the most powerful meanings and indicate quite vividly the shape of things to come, even though the skeptic or therapist might pass them off as utterly bereft of meaning at that early stage.

Cheating is any instance of someone proclaiming their want – whether that want is expressed through a furtive look or full-on physical joining – and testing the waters with someone other than their partner. It’s moving in a direction away from their marriage and toward another person, whether real or AI.

Some people move much slower than others, but if they’re moving, they’ve entered the stages of cheating. They know what they are feeling inside of themselves. What was previously and is still discontent in their lives and marriage has taken new focus on a person they’ve now become enamored of. They’re fully aware of their feelings, though would never admit them. The most interesting part is if they subtly, unannounced start crafting their coffee shop routine for the same time Mr. or Ms. Fascinating is there. For, we’re now entering the next stage of the cheating realm, that of intention/action.

 The Stages of Cheating

Again, cheating isn’t a physical progression – it’s an emotional one. The crime is not the “size” of the action, per se, but the stage upon which it is committed. You bring a handgun out deer hunting and your buddies would laugh at you, either because of your hubris or your stupidity, saying something like, “You’re gonna drop a buck at a hundred yards with that? Okay, expert,” as they laugh their asses off. But you bring that same pistol through security in an airport, and you have a whole different set of problems. It’s not the size of the weapon. It’s the theatre into which you bring it.

Likewise, the fact that an actual cheating action is small doesn’t make it okay if it happens in a forbidden direction. For example, a woman talking with a man alone in a closed room about how distraught she is means one thing if that person is her boss, her performance has dropped, and it’s her quarterly review in the conference room. But telling that same distress to a man alone in a quiet hotel bar with a glass of Rioja in your hand at 9:30 in the evening, while on a business trip, is likely a different beast. If telling your partner about your motivations, and behaviors in these situations would upset or infuriate them, then not doing so is 99% of the time cheating.

The progression of cheating looks something like this:

·      Feeling miserable (usually increasingly over months or years)

·      Feeling certain your present relationship is your problem

·      Considering crossing over lines

·      Fantasizing about “what if” or even wishing a relationship might cross over lines

·      About to cross over lines (usually when opportunity has arisen or is now possible)

·      Crossing somewhat over lines (driven by feelings)

·      Crossing way over the lines (driven by stronger feelings)

That’s why both an emotional affair and a sexual one can count as cheating. More important: That’s why it’s so, so easy to cheat. The problem is, most people dismiss the progression; they only acknowledge they’re in, or almost in, an infidelity spiral after they’ve gotten to the later stages, at which point the heart has become fully engaged and the stakes are now high. By now, the problems may be ten times worse than they were just a month, or weeks prior. It’s like the heart reaches critical mass, a momentum regarding cheating that makes turning back or fixing it seem next to impossible, or just undesirable anymore.

Luckily, there are red flags that the head can pick up on before the heart is engaged. And cheating is far less dangerous before it hits the heart stage. Read that again.

 Dani’s Story

“Brotha, that is wacked,” Dyson said, incredulously. “What is that, like the fifth or sixth one, right?”

“Sixth! In literally five weeks! This has never happened before. Why all of a sudden? My own unresolved stuff, somehow,” I responded. Two decades prior, when we were seminary classmates, I had talked Dyson down from the ledge of marrying a great gal with whom he was no longer in love. Now fully out as a gay man, Dyson was one of my closest friends.

“Who cares? You dated her in college? Dude, she obviously still has strong feelings for you. I mean she said that, right?”

“Unresolved hurt,” I offered.

He continued, “But clearly, she’s not fully in her relationship if she’s contacting you on Facebook and still sad about how you broke her heart 20 years ago. I mean, the stuff in that email says it’s more than random thoughts: (a) She still has strong feelings for you, and (b) Why the hell would she even be thinking about this stuff if she were happily married?”

“Yeah, she said she’s also sad about one or two other guys who hurt her. So, clearly those past times of getting her heart broken are obstructing her marriage. But really that’s not even the point. The point, like you said, is that if she were fully emotionally connected to her husband, she wouldn’t be contacting me. She’d be happily enjoying life. Meanwhile, some beginning therapist is probably telling her that her ‘real problem’ is with these past men and that she needs to resolve things with them; huge mistake in counseling.”

Dani and I had dated for a year-plus, a lifetime ago. Two marriages and a series of smaller significant relationships had passed since Dani. There was still a fondness in my heart for her, but nothing significant. She flat-out admitted, there was such a spot for me in her that was quite a bit larger than my fondness, even though I had ended the relationship in a reckless manner.

Shortly after Dani contacted me, I apologized to her in an extended letter for precisely that. It was obvious that she was still hurting from my actions and that I had the power to bring about resolution for her. Plus, I definitely had been in the wrong, so it was only fair for me to own up to my ill-chosen actions.

But the apology wasn’t what this was all about. It helped and it healed, she conceded. But there was more . . . sort of.

See, to the outside observer, Dani’s and my recent online interactions might have looked innocuous enough – a “no harm, no foul” sort of thing. She had not overtly hit on me, nor I on her. Just two old flames reconnecting and mending the past. However, there was far more going on. Dani was coming to me on the counsel of her therapist as a means to resolve past issues. But that was really BS and always is. Foolish therapists buy into the notion of reconnecting with an ex when a client talks of unresolved hurt, as if that supposed hurt from an ex is the real problem, and as if the only way to resolve it is through contact. (It’s not.)

So that hints the question: Why do you contact an old boyfriend, who had been a major love, now, 20 years later?

The answer is simple: You don’t. The healing, to the degree necessary, can happen without contact. Unless something is missing today. No one does that, except to connect one’s present heart with someone your heart was connected with in the past.

I mean, it’s one thing to bump into an old flame at a funeral, a class reunion, or a random airport on business. But to take the deliberate action of reconnecting while still presently married would simply never happen, if it weren’t for the supposedly socially acceptable ruse of friending on social media, which I get into later.

So why, in the eye of an experienced observer of human nature and relationships, did she make contact with me? She was running toward the desire to feel connected in her heart with someone, even if it was only through an online affair, which it never morphed into. However, the much bigger issue is what she was running from. Dani was in the strong stages of marital discontent, driven by an emotional detachment from her husband. She wasn’t sleeping around or falling in love yet, and perhaps never would because of her own views on commitment. But the disconnection from her husband had gotten bad enough that she was at least (a) daydreaming about past loves, and (b) putting feelers out there to make contact.

After this brief reconnection, I parted from Dani as friends. We still maintained minor contact online, but the spark passed because I wasn’t interested in a relationship and she didn’t seem to quite be at the point of action yet. What she was ready for, however, and indeed was already doing, was looking for more and more reasons to justify her feelings – i.e., not just something to push away from (marriage) but someone pulling her away (co-cheater). She was dipping her toes into the unfulfilling waters of infidelity.

 “Almost Cheating”

I’ve seen so many clients in the early stages of cheating or considering cheating attempt to radically minimize the impact of another person in their lives, seemingly dismissing not just their own feelings but the amount of time and energy spent thinking about that person, which fascinatingly directly correlates to the degree that they’ve checked out of their marriage.

However, underneath it is a dangerous hunger or desire for more, even if they are too terrified to admit it to themselves.

The 4th Core Truth About Cheating

Regardless of what’s coming out of their mouths denying it, a great many partners in strained or unhappy marriages are in a state of almost cheating or thinking about cheating.

And they know what they’re feeling.

My point in this chapter can be boiled down to this: The lines between Dani’s story of friending me on Facebook and Jetta’s story of adding her number to my phone are razor thin – to the point that it is almost insignificant. Each is different, each at a different stage. Dani was considering and pecking around while Jetta was giving out her number and arranging a date. People sniff butts at coffee shops, gyms, churches, yoga classes, and other seemingly innocuous places. We can sit here splitting hairs over the exact definition of cheating all we want, but once the intent is there, and once the would-be cheater is blatantly running from the truth of their unhappiness and especially their intentions, cheating becomes practically inevitable. But the choices are still consciously made, fully aware of who they’re hurting and contracts they’re breaching.

 Easy to Do, Hard to Spot, Harder to Fix

In an ideal world, you or your partner would catch on to the risk of cheating before it actually happened. You’d catch on at the earliest stages of near-cheating – wishing or fantasizing about it – before there was any sort of action toward it whatsoever. Hell, optimally, you’d have gone to therapy and sorted out issues long before even that.

But there comes a time in the movement from fidelity to infidelity, a point in the devolution to having a full-blown affair, when it is no longer preventable: The damage has already been done, even if nothing further happens. The arrow has not just left the quiver and been mounted for release, but has been drawn, aimed, and let fly. As we’ve discussed, that point, or moment, is not necessarily defined by an external action, but by a shift internally. It is at that moment – and every cheater and co-cheater knows the moment the line was crossed for them – that the husband and wife, or partners are never again just dealing with marriage problems or even their massive feelings of unhappiness with their own lives but are also dealing with the 500-pound gorilla that just walked in and sat its fat ass on their living room couch – it’s the wanting. And getting that behemoth, that cheating relationship, that wanting out of their head, heart, and life is a Herculean task.

Most people end up having to deal with that gorilla, though usually not in productive ways. Most people don’t catch cheating before the gorilla is on the premises. And they proceed not to notice it until it’s King Kong, smashing the entire house down. Here’s why:

1.     The cheater (especially the most mild-mannered) will deny the crap out of it before ever admitting it. Obviously, if you’re considering cheating, by definition you are not interested in being truthful. Considering cheating and telling the truth about cheating are pretty much mutually exclusive. They can’t coexist. There can be shades of each, but never a preponderance of both. (Remember the partner who, in a moment of seeming transparency, admits to meeting Someone Intriguing at the coffee shop, but simultaneously denies anything going on or any feelings whatsoever, which is the seed of the bigger lie to come?). As one grows, the other fades. This denial extends not only to what they tell their partner but what they tell themself.

2.     Many people misunderstand the true definition of cheating. They don’t have enough experience and thus information to even know the indicators when those indicators are flashing neon signs in front of them. Without that experience, people believe cheating is only the “worst-case scenario” of actual sex; and anything less can be avoided or easily walked away from. They don’t understand that it’s possible to prevent that, and a whole lot more, by recognizing the patterns that precede near-cheating and early cheating, as we’ve discussed. Just as importantly, they know when they’re doing bad stuff in a relationship, but will pretend to not know to detach themselves from the guilt and heaviness, so that they can enjoy the experience. Also, they’ll do it later to avoid culpability, or will simply not care because they believe their self-gratification is justified, because they feel wronged.

3.     Almost no one believes the signs! Even when I point out the indicators and explain their natural, ugly progression to clients, some still don’t believe cheating is really a danger for them or their marriage, often because they don’t want to believe. Overcoming this is a real challenge of trust, which allows couples to be proactive rather than reactive.

The indicators don’t lie. There is a period in which the cheating is still mostly in the imagination, a phase during which it can still be thwarted, prevented with bold action to fix the root problems. However, averting the southward drift from head to heart requires them to trust the signs. It requires them to recognize when they, themselves, are being drawn toward someone at work or elsewhere, when they’re longing for or reaching out to someone else, and when “everything is fine” is trending hard toward or in the middle of a lie. It requires a willingness and courage to face the issues going on in oneself, rather than pointing the finger at a problem outside themselves and thus naively seek a solution outside, as well.

Recognized as the precursors that they are, all the little indicators are steps and choices. Thus, at each point a choice can be made to short-circuit the cheating process, so the couple can deal strictly with their problems that precipitate almost-cheating . . . without having to deal with actual cheating as well.

Please feel free to check out my free online moderated community, Badass Counseling Group, on Facebook. But, if you long for a closer community that’s more committed to next-level growth, direct access to me — Sven, and more excellent resources for transformation to greater ALIVENESS, go to www.badasscounseling.com and click on CMTY-PLUS! It’s what you’ve been waiting for!

Thanks for reading.

HAVE A KICKASS DAY!

-- Sven Erlandson, MDiv, Is The Author Of Seven Books, Including 'Badass Jesus: The Serious Athlete And A Life Of Noble Purpose' And 'I Steal Wives: A Serial Adulterer Reveals The REAL Reasons More And More Happily Married Women Are Cheating.' He Has Been Called The Father Of The Spiritual But Not Religious Movement After His Seminal Book 'Spiritual But Not Religious' Came Out 15 Years Ago, Long Before The Phrase Became Part Of Common Parlance And Even Longer Before The Movement Hit Critical Mass. He Is Former Military, Clergy, And NCAA Head Coach For Strength And Conditioning; And Has A Global Counseling/Consulting Practice with offices In NYC, NJ, And Stamford, CT: BadassCounseling.Com