Cheating - Is There Such a Thing As Innocent Flirting?

Many people, myself included, have seen someone in the past that we found attractive and looked at, maybe a little too long, Don’t tell me you’ve never done the same thing before. Would that qualify as cheating? Do you have a good marriage or are you going through some “issues”?

Do you feel that you and your spouse are feeling very distant from one another, have explosive arguments, you no longer have long talks or the mind blowing sex life you two used to have and now maybe your spouse has repeatedly rejected your sexual advances, over and over again Or maybe there is no longer any mutual respect.

While there can be no justification for cheating, things like the ones touched on above can put a real strain on any marriage and some spouses do go outside of the marriage for some sense of getting their needs met, it could be a need for sex, communication or sense of validation of feeling that they are worth something and are worth caring for, especially after being on the receiving end of a spouse repeatedly belittling, humiliating and generally disrespecting them.

You might think to yourself, I can’t get a divorce, it would be too costly and it would be really bad for the kids and in spite of everything, I still love my spouse; but I need some attention and so you now make it a point to put yourself out there and start flirting to feel attractive and get attention, even though it violates every principle you have lived by your whole life,

You married for life and now you are starving not just for sex; but for attention and you reason, I’m not going to betray my spouse, I’ll just go to this event and “look” There are a lot of people who say “I”ll just look;but I won’t touch, I’ll flirt a little and have some fun” its not hurting anyone. Maybe someone offered you a friendly hug and you let the hug linger for a little too long and the other person had to gently push you away.

The truth is we were all given a lesson and warned against looking and allowing feelings of lust to take over.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery, ‘ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman/man lustfully has already committed adultery with her/him in her/his heart”. (Matthew 5:27-28)

There are a lot of people who are in marriages and they are really sexually frustrated or feel that flirting is harmless; everyone does it, “I remember how much fun I had when I flirted with this person in High School”.

Just because a man or women flirts with you, it doesn’t mean you have to flirt back. There will always be men and women that will flirt with you even if She/He knows that you are “off the market” i. e. married.

Flirting while married, is just cheating without taking your clothes off and that dam of desire and pent up emotion will burst as you will give in to that temptation eventually when the opportunity arises.

Keep in mind that lots of couples have different sex drives and there have been cases where in the beginning of some marriages, the sex was hot, frequent, fast and furious and then one spouse now has very little desire, is fine with the way things are and the other spouse is “climbing up the walls” with frustration and maybe even anger and is left to wonder what happened.

Or the marriage was so exciting and both spouses were really in love and all of a sudden, you both start arguing more about her going out with her friends and staying out till 1:00 AM, smelling of alcohol when she finally got back home or He got into a fist fight at work, lost his job and is now facing assault charges as well, while the bills are continuing to mount.

It would be far better to work out any marital issues the two of you might have, with Christian professional counseling if necessary. Both of you will have to meet halfway on any differences. Cheating is never worth it. Allowing lust to control your thoughts and believing that some “innocent” flirting is just having fun is actually destructive and disrespecting to both of you.