Is it not cheating when someone's sexual fantasy is of someone OTHER then the Significant Other?

To me, cheating requires actually acting on one’s thoughts. Having fantasies about different people is not cheating at all in my mind. Thoughts are harmless. Actions aren’t.

I mean, the entire point of fantasizing is to think up new and interesting situations – why would I want to limit myself to fantasizing only about my partner, when I can instead choose to act out these fantasies with my partner, and leave my fantasies for things I don’t intend on fulfilling anytime soon?

Of course, it would probably behoove that person not to mention the subject of said fantasies to the SO

i think its wrong when your actually with the significant other and fantasizing of someone else. its kinda cheating for me at that point but when im by myself HALLE BERRY HERE I COME

I don’t see anything wrong with fantasies. I think that fantasies are healthy and everybody has one. When someone starts to act on those fantasies is when a problem arises. I feel that cheating is a physical relationship between someone other than your spouse or significant other. Cheating also shows a total lack of respect towards your significant other.

You’ve got to put the lime in coconut for it to be cheating.

@syz and we don’t. Yet isn’t it safe to say our sexual fantasy NEVER includes our SO?

Wrong on that account Mr. M…I fantasize about my wife all of the time.

Interesting. I’d be curious to hear what others say. When you’re “alone”, does your fantasy include your SO or someone else? And if it’s someone else, isn’t it cheating? Are you comfortable thinking that when your SO is “alone”, he/she is NOT doing it with YOU?

I don’t see the need to fantasize while I am actually having sex. I live in the moment.

If I am alone and pleasing myself, I fantasize about certain kinky things that my husband and I have done in the past. But that’s just me.

No, Mr_M, I don’t think fantasizing about someone else is cheating. A person can’t be held to the wall about what’s going on in their mind. Who does it hurt? No one but YOU knows what you’re thinking. Any article about sex that I’ve ever read says that fantisizing is normal & good. You aren’t physically acting on it…you’re just THINKING about it.

I think about my husband AND other men. And you can’t tell me that he doesn’t think about other women. It’s just part of life & the mental process that people go through. What you do with it is up to you.

I don’t believe the phrase in DynamicDuo’s question “Thoughts are harmless”. Thoughts are the origin of nearly all actions. They can also cause a great deal of grief.

That said, I believe we’re trying to define ‘Cheating’. And I think that in order to “Cheat” on your significant other, you would actually need to carry out the intimate actions with another person.

But that does not mean that those underlying thoughts aren’t troublesome. If you’re able to rationalize it away, then maybe you’ll keep it at bay for now. But you’ve been fooled if you think a mere mental manifestation has no weight whatsoever.

We would NOT be happy if we knew our SO was thinking about another person during lunch or during work. Yet we have no problem knowing that our SO is thinking about another person during a SEX fantasy?

@Mr_M I think this question brings up a whole new issue. I may be perceiving this the wrong way, but I am questioning your confidence. It is human nature to have sexual thoughts about others. Hell, I probably have these thoughts at least a dozen times a day. I think that if you know that you have a healthy relationship with your SO, then these types of thoughts shouldn’t matter. Do you have confidence issues?

I don’t have an SO! So, NO.

Nothing to do with confidence. Look at my previous post. How come we can NOT accept a SO fantasizing about (ex.) our neighbor during lunch but it’s OK during a SEX fantasy?

@LuvBubble by George, I think you’ve got it! I’m not speculating on his confidence level, but the rest of your post is good reasoning there.

I fantasize about others, alone or with my wife. She does the same, from what she tells me. Why should I be jealous of a fantasy image? Of course, we have been married 20 years, so how else are we going to get a little extra spice in the bedroom? or on the living room floor, in the backyard, the back of a pickup truck, etc? Without fantasy, our sex life would have been over years ago.

Fantasizing about having lunch with the neighbor? Oh yeah, that’s grounds for divorce, fantasizing about eating steak and taters with Mr. Smith across the street. What an odd way of looking at things.

@Mr_M You’re honestly telling us that you’ve never had your mind wander outside the bedroom to someone else when you’ve having sex?

@evelyns_pet_zebra , I apologize for not being clear. I’m not talking about having lunch with the neighbor. That WOULD be odd.

What I am asking is simply this: We would not like it if our SO is thinking about the neighbor next door during the day (“lunch” was just an example for “during the day”). Yet, we accept it if our SO has a sex fantasy that involves the neighbor next door.

To me, this doesn’t make sense. Either BOTH are cheating or NEITHER is cheating? I’m ASKING here.

Neither is cheating in my eyes. Cheating is the act of breaking an agreement between 2 involved people. When you get married, your actually signing a contract stating that you 2 are in it for the long haul. Once you cheat, you’ve broken that contract, and all bets are off at that point. To get to the point, Thoughts are harmless, as long as they are not acted on.

Okay, point taken. Having thoughts about someone else (not our significant other) during sex is NOT cheating, in my opinion. Thinking about Mr. Smith in any other context is also NOT cheating. Cheating is an act, not a thought. Even going over to borrow a cup of sugar from Mr. Smith and ogling him in his too-short bath robe isn’t cheating, unless there is a groping involved.

Now if you two are going at it like bunnies and your SO screams out, “Oh, Mr. Smith, I love your big steak and taters SO much.” well yeah, that would be offensive. It’s not cheating, but its so not cool, either.

@gambitking – Perhaps I could rephrase to make my statement more accurate. Thought are harmless provided the person understands and recognizes them as thoughts only. It is when we forget that they are thoughts and believe they are correct actions to take, that problems can arise.

I think it’s wrong to think of someone else, while having sex with your SO.
I sometimes have dreams, and they have like, celebrities or the most random guy in my dream…I always tell my husband lol. But, I need to be thinking about my husband, to get myself off. So, this is a nonissue for me.
If my husband were jerking off and thinking of some other girl, then that’s definitely not cool. But, how would I know?

It’s not cheating to fantasize to yourself. Make mention of it or try to justify how it should be all right to your SO that you have these fantasies and you will likely garner hurt feeling at best and outright wrath at worst. Have fun, play safe but keep a lid on it.

Does the same apply to your SO? Can your SO think a lot about the neighbor next door? Forget about sex. Can your SO think about the neighbor next door, say, daily? I don’t think you would like that.

@Mr M I think you’re straying from the fantasy realm into obsession, or fixation or “crush”. To me, at least, the term fantasy infers fleeting or transient, “of the moment”.

Good point.

How about this: What if the neighbor next door tells your SO to fantasize about him/her next time he/she is fantasizing. Anything wrong with THAT? Your SO was going to do it anyway. Can I tell someone “Fantasize about me next time?”.

Urgh, that’s just creepy stalker neighbor (physical proximity makes it too real).

Would it be OK if it was someone who lived miles away?

I’m going to have to bow out of the question, mostly because I don’t have a good answer for what the delineation for “going too far” is (and also because I don’t fantasize about individuals or anyone in particular, more about types of behaviors and sexual acts).

If you want a specific answer, you need to ask as specific question.

I think defining such appropriate behaviour is up to the couple, and is not necessarily the same from one to another. But you have to realize that there’s a fundamental difference between one person fantasizing on their own about another person, and that other person making clear desires to be fantasized about by person one. The former is an event solely inside of the person’s head, but the latter is a real life interaction involving two people. Distance doesn’t matter, intent does, and if someone I knew said such a thing to me, I would be suspicious that they want to be intimate with me, and it would be in general a bit uncomfortable.

You could say “Fantasize about me next time”, but honestly it’s a verbal sign that you WANT to be fantasized about by that person, leading to the thought that you would like to be intimate with that person.

There’s no real way I could see that sentence being said casually and without a meaning of intimacy. It’s just not a joking type phrase to say, in my opinion.

Great answer, for real.

BTW, I’m asking hypothetical questions here.

But the thought occurred to me. This fantasizing about others goes on all the time with a lot of people. It’s accepted by couples as you can see from some of the answers above. But why? How different is it from cheating? SInce it’s in our minds and the other party doesn’t know, that’s OK? But isn’t that cheating without getting caught in a way?

“a verbal sign that you WANT to be fantasized about by that person, leading to the thought that you would like to be intimate with that person” but if the other person is fantasizing about YOU anyway (although you don’t know it), is that such a bad thing?

Cheating involves many concious physical actions, making decisions, making effort. In addition, if the relationship is exclusive, then by being physical with another person the cheater has chosen themselves and their pleasure over their commitment to the partner. The actions of cheating generally send this message: “I am not happy with an element in our relationship, and I have chosen to get that element from another person rather than solve the problem with you.” It could also say this message: “I value my own pleasure over respecting the commitment we made.”

Fantasizing involves nothing but your imagination and a bit of time. It doesn’t hurt anyone, and is generally limited to only the person thinking of the fantasy, rarely do others find out what someone is fantasizing about unless the person outright says it. It’s not cheating, because it doesn’t involve any effort in having a relationship with someone else. Fantasizing in my mind sends this message: “I wonder what Situation X would look or feel like…” and makes no actual commitment or judgment about Situation X ever existing in reality. Just because I fantasize about Fabio I don’t doesn’t mean if given the chance I would have sexual intercourse with Fabio.

Is fantasizing mental cheating? I think this depends in part on your attitude to sex. I have a liberal attitude, I have fantasies of all sorts of things, most of which I would never want to engage in in real life. I also don’t believe in mental cheating, and no, I do not believe that fantasizing is cheating without getting caught, because the first criteria for cheating is involving more than one person, and fantasies simply fail right there.

I think the question I have to ask to you, is “why not?” Why would fantasizing be equivalent to cheating? I can think of one answer to this, and this is if the partner consciously chooses fantasies over real life. And this is more of a sign that the partner or the relationship has some other problem, rather than a symptom or eventuality of having fantasies.

The reason that the situation in your last paragraph is a bad thing is because making the comment is taking a tangible step towards making the thought of being intimate with each other a reality. Such a comment is in my mind 100% flirting, which is the first step in being intimate with someone, especially when the flirt is about such an obvious aspect of sexuality. Very very crudely translated, I interpret “Next time, you should think about me ;)” as meaning “I think you should consider having sex with me”. And if the person making or hearing this comment is in a committed exclusive relationship, then the comment is inappropriate.

I don’t have much to contribute here other than to say: I’m a lot different than most other people here. When I’m with someone, I don’t and do not even like, to think about other men. Why? Because I’m with a guy for multiple reasons. We have things in common, we can talk and we’re sexually attracted to each other. With all of that, why would I even want to fantasize about a random guy? Fantasizing about different people while already in a relationship just says to me that people are dissatisfied with the relationship they’re in.

I also think it’s interesting that most of the people here say it isn’t cheating or even along the same lines as cheating, but that statement is followed by, “just don’t tell your partner”. Umm… If there’s nothing wrong with it, it’s natural and “everybody does it” (which is not true), then why would you feel the need to hide it, in any aspect?

So, we all need to fantasize about Mr_M the next time we have sex, whether it is with our SO or masturbating alone. I know I’m going to, simply because a monkey that smokes AND wears red glasses has always been one of my favorite imaginary lover images since I first hit puberty, back in the late 1800’s. :-)

Seriously though, my wife and I have played the fantasy game as many different ways as you can imagine, and probably some that you can’t; and we are open and honest about it, and there’s no cheating involved because well, because we both already know. I think people with low self esteem or a bad self-image might feel hurt by it, but personally, I don’t see what the big deal is. Making love to a theoretical partner or imaginary lover while boinking your partner is fantasy, it doesn’t mean anything. Anyone who thinks it does is taking themselves far too seriously, in my opinion.

She has even asked me to pretend to be someone else during sex a few times, and I did so, because it was fun to help her achieve a fantasy. Of course, we aren’t as sexually hung up as a lot of people seem to be, so your results may vary.

@evelyns_pet_zebra , please don’t. I have enough problems as it is.

No, if we’re talking about emotionally mature people.

I only think it is cheating when you do it with your spouce. Right now I am going through this with mine and I have been with him for 11 years. I don’t know what to think or do. I really can’t have sex with him now. I really thought I was the only one. I myself don’t have sexual fantasies. I wish I was lying, what is worse is he had one of one of my close friends. I would be okay if it was some celb or random person, also not when WE are having sex. When he is by himself I really don’t care. That is his own private space and time plus he is just trying to rub one off. no different from me doing it. I tried to do research for some understanding so far I have come up with I am not the normal person. So what a away for me to fel alone. I do know I tried having sex with him afterwards and I really can’t do it

It isn’t cheating, of course. There is a difference between fantasies and acts. If you kill someone in your fantasy, that doesn’t make you a murderer. So if you cheat in your fantasy, you aren’t a cheater.

To begin with, we can’t control our mind; and when we’re really aroused, the mind takes whatever direction it fancies, usually fantasizing about something or someone strongly desired but unattainable. It can happen not only when we’re engaged solo, but also when we’re active as a couple. And wrong names sometimes do get blurted out. And if both partners have been faithful to each other, it’s not cheating.