Ask Krys: Cheating and Non-Monogamy

E-mail Bag: Question 6

Ask Krys Contact Information (Photo by KGB)

Dear Krys,

What do you consider cheating? And furthermore, how is non-monogamy any different from cheating? Isn’t it just an excuse that covers up cheating?

Sincerely,

A Regular Reader

Dear Regular Reader,

Thank you for asking both the question I get the most often, the question I dread, and the question that I talk about in person more than I care to admit. When people find out that I explored non-monogamy for more than a decade, the conversation always gets around to the subject of cheating, and thus I have tackled this question many, many, times.

So, let’s start with the basic one. What do I consider cheating? For me, it is whatever my partner and I set up as boundaries in our relationship. I have had relationships where this included emotional bonds with members of the opposite sex, physical contact that went any place beyond a hug, and of course sex. I have also experienced cheating being a breach of trust, whereby I found out after the fact that a partner slept with someone else, and in one instance, where a partner slept with someone that I had vetoed. Non-monogamy does not make the act of cheating irrelevant. In fact, it makes it more relevant, because you are put in a multitude of…