Cheating

I had a discussion with a friend of mine about what's considered to be cheating. Is cheating on a significant other when you cross physical boundaries? develop feelings? or merely just checking someone out? My friend believed that if you develop feelings for someone else while you are in a relationship that's considered cheating because you violated a trust.

I disagreed. I felt that feelings are something that you can't control. You can't help who you feel attracted to and who you like. But I argued that you can control what you do about it. If you love your significant other and you happen to develop attraction for someone else, you try to distant yourself from that person and you don't engage in activities that pursue the attraction. I would expect my partner to love me enough that they would negate any other feelings they might have for anyone else and respect me enough not to do anything foolish while they're in a relationship.

He turned it around and asked me how I would feel if I was in a relationship with someone for X amount of years and he broke up with me for someone else/cheated on me. Honestly, yes, I would feel like shit but the beauty of time is that I will move on, I wouldn't hate him and my life wouldn't be over. I understand that feelings change and it's unfortunate that it had to happen X amount of years down the line. And quite frankly, if another girl can come in and take my man so easily, I wouldn't even want him anymore.