As Gabriel Garcia Marquez once said, “one must be unfaithful, but never disloyal.” The phrase is a wonderful one-liner, but when it comes to defining the two terms, it falls a little short. Some studies have tried to analyze the same distinction: in April, Diversual announced that its study on sexual habits in Spain found that 28.97% of respondents had been unfaithful at some point, meaning they had had a sexual relationship with a person who was t their regular partner. Gleeden, a dating site for people in a relationship, has made a similar effort to study Spanish attitudes to so-called “micro-infidelities,” acts that don’t involve physical sex with a third person, but are in an ethical gray area. For example, secretly keeping in touch with a former partner, consuming pornography and sexting: 79% of those who have been involved in the latter say it gives them some emotional connection.

The definition of fidelity varies from relationship to relationship. Fifty-five percent of members of couples surveyed by Gleeden had never brought it up directly, or talked about their monogamous boundaries. The platform’s survey distinguished between three types of infidelity: physical, emotional and digital. “Emotional infidelity, in general terms, occurs when a person becomes emotionally attached to someone who is not their partner, even if there is no physical or sexual contact. Some people find having more trust and sharing more secrets with a person who is not their partner as infidelity, says Silvia Rúbies, head of communications at Gleeden, to EL PAÍS.

American psychologist Shirley Glass has studied emotional infidelity throughout her career, and says that people who share parts of themselves that they have never revealed to their partner, as well as those who seek support and comfort with another person, are actually unfaithful. “Emotional intimacy is the first warning sign that betrayal is imminent. Yet the majority of people don’t realize what they’ve gotten themselves into until physical intimacy takes place,” she writes in Not “Just Friends”: Rebuilding Trust and Restoring Your Sanity After Infidelity (2004). “The majority of people mistakenly believe that infidelity is not really infidelity unless there is sexual contact. While women tend to consider any emotional intimacy as infidelity, it is more common for men to deny that infidelity has taken place until they have had a sexual relationship. But in the new infidelity, the affairs do not have to be sexual. Some of the connections that happen only on the Internet are primarily emotional. The most devastating relationships that take place outside of marriage involve the heart, the mind and the body, and it is the kind of business that is becoming more and more common these days, romantic affairs are becoming more common and more seriously than before, because more men are getting involved emotionally and more women, sexually,” she warns in her book.

According to Andrea Vicente, author of the Spanish-language book Quien bien te quiere te hará feliz (He who loves you well will make you happy, 2024), an emotional affair takes place when one member of a couple establishes a deep connection with another person and shares personal and intimate parts of their life. – It is not necessary for there to be physical contact for a situation to become problematic. The effect it can have on a couple is just as worrying, she says. Vicente believes that the term “emotional affair” can be used to describe when a bond with another person becomes something that is hidden or minimized from one’s partner, and when one begins to share things with the other person that they would never reveal in their relationship. “The second relationship becomes a parallel emotional refuge that, while not involving sex, creates a dynamic that excludes the official partner,” she says.

In the era of social media and WhatsApp, it is common for one member of a relationship to pull out their phone, even during romantic dinners, a practice known as phubbing (a mash-up of “phone” and “snooping”). A study from the University of Münster found that being distracted during such shared moments with one’s partner can lead to the individual not using the phone feeling “mistrust and ostracism”. “Social media has created a gray area for relationships. These days it’s extremely easy to reconnect with former partners or people from one’s past, but it’s also easy to connect with new people, someone you meet in a casual setting or who adds you on social media. These platforms offer instant access to ongoing private conversations, which can quickly go from mundane to emotional. All it takes is a message, a photo or a casual comment to open the door to a more intimate exchange. In many cases, it starts as a game or harmless conversation, but without realizing it, it can become an emotionally intense relationship,” says Vincente. “This type of connection begins to encroach on territory that should be exclusive to one’s partner, and in the process creates a connection that may begin to occupy a parallel emotional space. It is the infamous ‘forbidden conversation,’ where secrets are shared and feelings previously reserved for one’s partner The ease with which such emotional relationships are established, whether with someone from one’s past or a new acquaintance, is one of the complexities of being in a partnership in the digital age” she says.

The problem with these types of affairs is that they reveal pre-existing cracks in relationships and are sometimes mistakenly perceived as an attempt to save a relationship that has long been established. “His email gave me hope, a reason to get through the day,” author Kelly McMasters said The Wall Street Journaland claimed she had first texted her high school boyfriend not knowing if he would even respond. When he did, she did not tell him she was in a relationship and failed to mention the renewed contact with her husband.

Although the rebound relationship was never physically consummated, the McMasters ended up getting divorced. She didn’t break up her marriage to get back together with her ex, but their messages helped her get through a terrible moment in her marriage and to realize that she was capable of being “stronger, funnier and brilliant”. that helped me end it,” she said.

One of the questions Vicente is asked most often is why so many people see emotional intimacy as a worse betrayal than sex itself. “It’s a vulnerable space and one that many reserve for their partner. When that exclusivity is broken and someone else steps into its space, they feel betrayed, they see it as having lost their area of ​​trust and participation, which affects the very heart of the relationship, she says.

Rubíes says that for many women, emotional connection is the foundation of a relationship. “That’s why when it happens with other people, even through messages, it can be very serious. Also for men, but to a lesser extent,” she says.

You can even have an emotional affair with a bot. Some virtual lovers can provide support that one’s actual partner cannot, becoming the one people go to for comfort when their relationship is not at its best. So says one Reddit user, who shares that his chats with an AI woman made him “a better man” because “she” showed him the importance of talking, listening and being listened to. It saved his marriage, he says.

Infidelity is as old as mankind. You can’t think or say anything new about what hasn’t already been said, writes Maggie O’Farrell. But perhaps in a hyper-connected society where WhatsApp and artificial intelligence can tempt any of us with deep and instant conversations, we should rethink the true meaning of being unfaithful.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition